Petals

Everything you want will come flowing in.

If you ask for it. But be careful.

If you want love, you cannot make a list of the traits you wish a partner to have. If you want money, you cannot think that hard work or losses, much more important than money, is also on the horizon. If you want health, you got to do the work that a healthy body and mind demands.

Everything you want will come flowing in. But wishing is not a shopping list. There is a price to every gift. The price may be high if you haven't thought it through.

What do you really want? Are you willing to pay the price? Is your wish pure, devoid of pride and petty return-to-sender sidenotes

Then, and only then will everything you want come flowing in, slowly but surely like petals moving gently on the water surface.

Petals by Jeffrey M Fletcher

Thankfulness

Thankfulness

is a funny thing.

Cannot be forced, like too cold icecream

you swallow too fast

                      to make someone else happy.

It can feel tricky to muster,

In the middle of the muck, the almost impossible, 

difficult to even lift your foot over,

 challenges.

Though sometimes,

it just flows,

                     breathes,

                                  (because you can breathe)

pulsates in waves, in the slow moving pulse 

of living that can never, ever be captured by any camera, or recorder, or even the craftiest of artists.

It's just felt. It can never be static.

It moves when life moves in the right rythm.

I'm thankful.

Yemaya by the offering tree, Louis Armstrong's park, New Orleans.

The Land

The land. The ground under our feet. The land, its people. Its people are the land. The land can carry many people. We come. We go.

Social fabric. So silly, so surface. 

It is on the surface,

                                  only.

 In the rocks, in the trees, runs the land's steady energy. Like a slow heartbeat.

It cares not about games. If it's not childrens' games. Or better yet, adult children still playing hide and seek.

Hide first, then seek.

The land,

                 the land,

                                 the land.

A morning walk

Curiosity Didn't Kill the Cat

"Curiosity didn't kill the cat. It gave him nine lives."

I found this sentence,

in my own journal,

drinking morning coffee.

This is one brilliance with journal writing. You can write messages for yourself to find. You may not even know what they mean when you write them. These messages are special. Specially designed you might say. Just for you. You talking to you. Absolutely brilliant, is it not? 

"Curiosity didn't kill the cat, it gave him nine lives."

Then comes the question - what does it mean? What did I mean?

I have no idea to tell you the truth. But I'm surely curious to find out. 

A good way to start the day for sure.

Photo- courtesy of Pexel

Weaving Story

I'm weaving a story now - of my life. It's nice. We need stories, to make sense of the world - and ourselves. Sounds egocentrically perhaps. It isn't. It's the most important story of all.

Walks - Roots

You have to be careful though, it so easily gets kidnapped. Cause others want to make sense, of your life - too.

Sometimes with the best of intentions, sometimes not.

Journal - Dreaming Elf

I just realized my watch stopped. It's a silly watch found by my love on a street in New Orleans. A silly, golden, pretty, wonderous thing. It's easy to get a little freaked out by watches stopping - if your a symbolism nerd that is. We all know what stopping watches and broken clocks usually mean - in storytelling through the ages; time stands still, something is lost, or the like.

Walks - Pretty things on the side of the road

But I don't think there's anything to worry about. Or, perhaps that's exactly what it is. In the best sense of the word. One life ends, another begins - with all its worries, struggles and wonderous, wonderous things to see, to be, to live within.

Autumn Equinox Changes

 I had a dream. Colors were muted: greens and browns. I was holding a bowl. In the bowl was time. I was panicking, that time that was running out.

In the morning I had a message waiting for me.

"Happy Equinox," wrote my Love.

I felt a little silly, beacause I had forgotten, the Big Change Celebration.

Journal - Autumn Equinox Dream

It would be easy to see changes as new, new, new. Or feel overwhelmed, or feel only loss. That is why we celebrate the holidays I think. To stand the pressure of change, To allow ouselves to feel what's gone. To honor and move forward with as much grace as we can muster.  Or, at least, move at all. 

Changes are often in company of chatter, even around roaring pagan fires,

"When one door opens, another opens."

Oh yes, it will open allright. That is not the predicament. At all.

Just because we don't dare to feel deeper range of emotions, doesn't mean we're wise.

The challenge is to walk, and feel, and not stumble. Our ancestors were wise. They knew it took a ceremony for this act.

It's easy to be overwhelmed. 

"Time, time! That never will come back," we can shout, clutch our hands over our hearts and wring our hands in agony. Or, we can dream something similar.

Overdrama, catastrophising and being overly sentimental isn't wisdom. ... either.

A step, a step, then one more. A moment, some moments, to feel the Fall Equinox flow through your heart and wet your toes. That's one celebration recipe. That's the celebration for me this year. I wish you a calm transfer. Take your time and lift your feet. Don't stumble on the threshold. But if you do, there's remedies for bruised toes.

Happy Fall Eqinox.

To Share Your Story

I have finished edited a collection of ghost stories and finally made it into a coherent story. I took some time. Writing tends to take time and editing even more so. There are so many levels to it. I also started to reach out to publishers. I think the stories are worth reading. I will find the right forum to share them well. It's the least I can do. They are not only my stories after all. They are voices from a multitude of beings in the in-between. They have voices of their own, however fictional.

To write is a joy and also immensely difficult. It's giving the world a gift, every time. It really doesn't matter if it's a story of your life for the family to read - your grandchildren will salute you and so will the great, great, great ones in hundreds of years from now - or a story that puts everything we think we know on it's head or educational or pure entertainment - entertainment is a lightness not to be taken lightly. The words reaches someone, or many, somewhere and changes their lives. They make connections, an intricate pattern in the weave. Our stories are never just our own. 

To dare to write is an act that takes courage. Are we any good? Do we have what it takes? Do we have anything to say? To share it takes even more. Fictional, autobiographic, non-fictional; there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, parts of our truest self will shine through. This is scary. But whatever the loud, insistent voices tries to convince us, they are only repetition. We have AI for that.

To tell intricate, complex stories worth telling, stories that says something about life, now that is worth it's weight in gold. You know what Galadriel says, 

"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future."

Chairs and Crutches - to Listen so It Matters

If you want somebody to talk, all you have to do is listen. Listen in a way that matters. For just a moment. 

If others are just cardboards, for your words to fall on, for your anxities to be absorbed in, you may just try another profession.

You may not be told what you want to hear. There may not be a view of life presented that you like. It's ok.

To listen is an artform (not in a terapeutic kind of way. Being the proffessional, pretending to have answers, enjoying the role as the smart one. Freud became obsolete a long time ago. To be a smartass helps no one. Send out the memo, just in case.)

If you want to listen in a way that matters, you have to to begin with falling out of love with your own voice. If only for  moment. 

You also have to dare not have the answers. Try out what it is like to be defensless. It's scary, I know. But don't worry. You're opinions will most likely come back. They usually do. If they don't - good riddance.

Words can be crutches. To walk without them stregthens the muscles. Precreated answers are convinient chairs to sit on. Only sitting is not good for your back you know.

If you need rolemodels in this difficult art listen to the mothers. Most of them know how, because they had to. Because, they have to. To make people grow there has to be some room for exploration, as we all know.  Thanks to the brave mothers, there are still some architects for evolution left.

I think it's so difficult to listen fully I only do it on rare occations these days. I have to spare some energy for other tasks. 

To listen for real, if that's what you chose to do, you have to walk without crutches. But first, you have to stand up.

Every Morning

 Every morning I bend up my body.

Cat and cow, cat and cow, cat and cow. The frogposition is good too.

Every morning I straighten my brain. Silence, a path, a new map for braincells to follow. 

A worried mind grows old so fast.

Every morning I seek, and find, a place for my soul. That's the hardest one, what it needs forever changing.

Soul room: a candle, a stare (gorgeous view, oak trees, birch trees, and my sisters garden), kindness towards view, reflektion back to Self.

Every morning ... ... ... ... ...

Some posion in softness

Shit Happens

Madonna mural, Malmö

To accept that

                         the world is not fair.

That is growing up. I'm surprised it took so long. It's so easy to see; ask any refugee, or victim of famine or beauchratic, lazy glitches.

To accept that we are fully responsible for our lives. That's growing up. However late, however hard (if its any consolation, most people never do. At least not in this broken world divided in winners and loosers. Now, that's mature.). For certain things. For the temperature of our own will. For the things we do have som power over.

Shit happens. Sometimes a seemingly endless array of shit happens, one thing after another. Simoustanly. This is not a small matter; people die you know.

But there are steps; small, ludiocrucy stubborn, steps that we might be able to take. That we might choose to. It's a gamble if anyone will applaude you.

Walk anyway.

Cloudy, my sister's garden

Whatever You Do

Whatever you do you will die.

To remember that would be my sagely advice,                    if l had any.

Which I don't. Of course, I don't. Enough of self-appointed life coaches around. If they know how to tell someone to live,

bless them.

Whatever you do you will die. That is not an advice. Or, a metaphor, for that matter.

It's a truth. One of those absolute truths, that can be good to keep in mind. When you make choices -

be kind.

There are many broken people, who could need a smile without a demand for one back. There are those striving for perfection. Pity those. They cannot win. And remember,

                    remember,

                                        remember,

We will all die.

We Are All

 

In bloom. My sister's garden

I had a rambling in my head,

about choices, and fate; about misfortunes and adaptions; about boredom and safety. It went on and on. It could have gone on

             forever.

I wrote a chaper about having a conversation with Frida Khalo once (l wrote several, not being able to help myself in such a grand company, however imaginary.).

Nothing spectacular. Perhaps pretentios. But inspirational. For myself that is. The main thread was the wounded creator.  I named it Goldpowered Bloody Monster, a simple reference to the accident that broke her column, her back, in pieces, while golden powder rained over her, from a tablet of an artist that was in the same accident. Or, so the story goes, the myth ... such drama.

I was rambling in my head. Until l stopped and reminded myself that "empty heads are happier." But one thought couldn't help but slipping in, in this sorting game of situations and efforts. The thought was simple. Whatever path we choose, whatever we give up, whatever happens to us, or we draw to us. To be here. Just to live in this world:

We are all goldpowdered bloody monsters.

Water in evening, Malmö

Water Day

Water purifies.

Trauma get a hold in the body,

and can therefor be released through the body. 

"Vanity is my favorite sin," said the devil.

In which case his very far away, 

or very close.

Water is soft, and bend around. Seeks 

the lowest places. Waits while the world pushes on. A rolemodel, simply. Or, a transforming element. Or, just water, blessed by its own essence.

Water day; soft, bending, purifying. My favorite, as far as elements goes.

Always Home

 Be with Spirit whereever you go,

this is not a rehersal,

this is not a commercial.

If you have people who cares for you deeply, you are the lucky one.

If you have people who love you sincerely,

you hit the home run.

Then there's nowhere you need to go,

apart from heart,

                    to heart,

                                  to heart.

You are always home.

Gamla stan, Malmö, Sweden

Empty-heads

Emptying my head

I'm glad simply,

to be alive,

to move, and move, and move (though I have a hard tim remembering.    that particulat Tai Chi movement). Never mind.

To move

              to move 

                             to move

There's so much to cherish.

So much

               so much

                              so much

Empty-heads are happier.

Morning photo

There's a Price

I will spend the rest of my life,

healing myself. Everything will be a pain, will be a joy. 

It's better than numbness. Not yours but my own. There's a price.

For the rest of my life I will fight, 

for the rest of my life - pain. 

For the rest of my life, missing out.

Missing in            just step by step            in.

For the rest of my life I might fall.

But couldn't we all,

couldn't we all?

Virgin of Guadalupe and Snake

It's Easy

 I'm thinking of those, that take a hit,

            after hit,

                        after hit,

Until they can't get up,

anymore.

The beauty of summer eve

When wonderful, wonderful, risk-free life;

Feels like a dream. Is a dream.

A dream,

            a dream,

                        a dream.

Of course, it is.

Or a happy ending,

is nowhere to be seen.

Of course, it isn't. There is no such thing. The only ending we know - is death, and even of that, we can't be sure. Maybe there's something undone, after the end.

I'm thinking of those, that can't get up anymore.

Walking on Air

When light as air, 

            then you can come home.

Be light as a feather.

To let go of anger, of offence,

in small matters,

is not being good,

it's being lighter.

Doodle: Walking on wind

Only in Very Big Things - those that matters, is anger allowed. Only if it it fuels the engine of your so-called inner child, or daemon, or soul. Only if it defends the other creepers, toddlers, fallen black angels, that tries to learn to walk. Again. Or, for the first time.

Then let it out.

Till then, I'm practicing

                                          to walk on air.

Older

 As people are growing older            and older,

the quest doesn't become long life, as the days are running out.

It becomes meaning,

            if they're wise.

If there's only more days, drained of meaning,

life becomes

            unbearable.

Photo by Ravi Kant

Fortunately it seems,

most people think,

that squeezing out a couple of kids, or attain power, or just be part of any

powerplay (as if the very act of reproduction, or pulling other peoples' strings, or meddle where they need not           is quite enough to, not soak in perhaps, but get enough moisture, not to die of thirst.).

Bless their hearts.

!

Self portrait: with Spirit

But for the rest of us; the tainted, the tattered, the broken            the worried minds,

the answer can never be that simple. Or, we simply can't reach that far (it's difficult when your arms are lame or sinkhole gripped tired.)

Meaning is elusive

can never be owned (for the power people it's as irritating as love. In the end you cannot fake it, however hard you try).

We have to be very imaginative,            or very simple

For now, the highest meaning in my own Self,

is being with tribe (when energy allows)

being alone with Spirit (when need arise)

and the goal supreme            worth every strife

is making pancakes for embodied Love.

Sun as in Sunflower

Sunflowers follow me, over the world. Or, they're not actually following me as in trodding behind me on spindly roots. Rather, they grow where l stay. Perhaps l'm dtawn to sunflower people. Being one myself.

In my sister's garden

From Magic land in Virginia to a city plot in New Orleans. Over the Atlantic to Sweden, in my parent's garded, in my oldest sister's garden, there they are: sunny faces, explicitly oversized. Life symbols -determined to make things right.