Dispatch from the field. Waxing Gibbous moon at 95%

Recorded last night:

A memoir can be written in a moment, in a moment so full of the record, the events you’ve lived that it requires verbs and nouns arranged in poems, sentences, paragraphs, scenes, chapters, prologues, epigraphs, epilogues, keening songs, happiness songs, epilogues and blessings.

It. The moment. The precipice.

A memoir can wake you in the middle of the night- say at 1:55 a.m. and say to you, “Now. It is time to write.”

A memoir can save a reader’s life, remind her what it means to nurture by centering her heart on the page, in the kitchen, the garden, the forest, the ecology of her life. Perhaps she will consider, carefully, what she sets aflame and to remember, again, that each flame is a beginning. A gathering of kindling and a composition inside a ring of stones and a stacking of materials to add to the flame. And, when she is ready, she can strike flint to steel, light the tinder and breathe in love and breathe out gratitude.

A memoir can be a way of pacifying the ego or of telling the go- this is when we let go.
A memoir is a moment. A memoir of the moment.
No need for flashbacks. Indirect discourse encouraged.

__________

Venus is visible on the night of this dreaming. Venus is about love.

From Grief to Grace

__________

Dream last night- a life review- a photo album and experience of flow, all the times flow has been with me, blockages released, like black flies in the spring, hatching and moving on…

___________

What does it mean to listen to the field? To sense the field? To hear the cosmos seeking? To connect with the benevolent beings?

_________

Also visible in this night sky: Jupiter. Optimism, growth, abundance.

Dispatch from audio recording, Part 2

Dispatch on a memoir. How is writing a memoir an appropriate response to the way the world is today? What are key things that are pointers? Pointers from a radical trust in life? Question mark.

Hannah, the movie, A recognition of a couple of things. They are gone in a stream of thinking. And I know I will remember them when I need to. I am part of a field, and in the field is all the thinking. And I could just access it.

____________

Mars. Energy, drive, passion, determination,

I will try voice to text. I really love to be able to call out the punctuation and find it complete.

On fear, perhaps this whole book is about fear. It is about a moment when fear seems to have abated, and inside the gap between “what if I am punished for this" and “thank you for releasing me from my fear.” This is a space of uncertainty. Perhaps I will be punished in some way. Right now it seems, speech and freedom are not as secure as I believed they would be for the rest of my life. And yet, was that just a comfortable notion? Have I been carrying the fear of my ancestors, all my life, the fear, speaking out of telling the truth?

I remember a piece from the movie Hannah that seems important the Rinpoche hands her a note and just says with the right motivation, everything will be clear. You will have all you need. And she and her partner Ollie set out to do what must’ve seemed impossible many, many times. Why this movie? Why on the anniversary of an experience that helped me see the invisible?

Breathe in love, breathe out gratitude.

__________

These are all the notes from last night and in the middle of the night, awake and alert I thought, wow, all I need to do is open the channel and the words will be there. Now, I have a bit of doubt. They were pointers, a dream I became aware of… Possible, perhaps because I am making space in my life. Space for what wants to come in, what might be created.

D. Nicol yesterday talked about the sacred trees in Montgomery…the redwoods and how her let the prayers come into him and through him. He didn’t set out to pray. The praying happened. He wasn’t directed by a religious figure, he was called by the trees. How, over time, he understood the trees were not a metaphor but a literal guide. A literal understanding.

Notes:

Light editing used to add to coherence.
Hannah, the movie refers to a movie on YouTube about a woman named Hannah who followed a buddhist path and helped to widen the reach of buddhist practices to Europe.
D. Nicols is a subtle activist. I meditate with a group of people most Tuesday afternoons, participating and engaging with a field of energy with an embodiment of peace, beauty, and love.
Reviewing these dispatches have alerted to me patterns in my dreaming, my thinking and my energetic engagement with life. The anniversary I note refers to an awakening experience which occurred on April 8, 2021.

Sometimes the head feels heavy.

The eyelids want to close against any more doing. The body wants to rest, to attend to the quiet, the still, the inside centre point.

Sometimes the throat feels full. Forceful. Buzzy. Sometimes it seems to ignite the jaw and illicit the biting of the tongue or the relaxing of the jaw. Relax the throat.

Hear the birds sing.

Listen.

To the speed, the force of the sound. Imagine where it comes from, the belly and through the esophagus and into the beak positioned just so and with the force needed, the intent behind the sound, the meant-expression. The emotion.

Sometimes the throat feels like a birds’. And the shoulders like folded wings.

Sometimes the feet root into the ground. You might learn it in yoga– how to spread the toes, bend the knees slightly, let the weight descend through the legs, through the feet, into the floor and beyond, an energetic cord of connection between the body, the hips and legs and feet, into the centre of the earth, the lava core. The feet are rooted, being met with resistance, meeting resistance.

Sometimes the feet root into the ground and the head is connected to the sky. You might learn it in Qi Gong; this method of connecting earth and sky in the body and extending the energetic signature of the body and finding the flow of energy moving from earth to sky and then balancing.

You might think you’re just trying a bit of everything and mastering nothing. Or you might be developing dozens of perspectives on a subject you’re just not aware of, a question you haven’t been aware you’re asking. A question like…what is energy? What is a body?

In totality. From all perspectives. You might get into all of this investigation and curiousness and notice you’re being berated by self-criticism and a desire to be different from who you are. You might notice you learn to like yourself more because you know more about how skilled you are, how marvelous a body really is, what a miracle it is you’re alive.

You might think thinking about death is ______________ . It’s okay. Death is weird.

You might like spring the most because that’s when there is proof again, life continues.

You might like winter the most because it reminds you of death and, somehow, the idea that all this work might be over one day feels good.

You might wonder if plastic surgery is a better option than learning to love yourself just as you are. You might wish you were the kind of mom who would have no problem getting botox by the orthodontist when she’s finished fitting your 10 year old with Invisiline retainers. You might experiment with interventions of one kind or another, addictions, ways of avoiding, ways of getting what you want. You might become a heavy consumer of solutions. Solutions to problems you don’t have to take on. You might see your life as one of many, not so special, glad to have gotten this far, and you might wonder, why spend time sharing this story? Who needs to know what you survived? How will it help them? Billions of people are speaking. Don’t we need more silence? Aren’t you tired of someone trying to sell you their version of the truth?

Sometimes the head is heavy when you sit down to write. Sometimes you remember life as if it were a movie and you think the dreaming part is always so good, why not get to it right now. But…you remember a voice from earlier suggesting, your story matters. You remember the session in the therapist’s office about your shame. You experienced your shame. Let it have its say. Through the body. All that feeling. The clenching of the jaw, the gripping of the arms of the chair, how you thought you might rip them off, the overwhelming desire to run, the tears, the drama of it all. Moaning. Clutching your stomach. A movie of the past, replaying. The desire to vomit a boa constrictor of grief squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, from your gut to your throat. Coming back to the room, you remember a moment of strength.

You said, no.

Remember?

You said, no.

Finally, the boa lets go. You wondered if it would be helpful for the woman-trainee therapist to witness an unguarded truth. If sharing a story matters.

We are here for a reason. You and I together.

Yes, we are.

We do not have to be good. To be aware is enough.

I’m publishing a series of dispatches I’ve written/or spoken into a voice memo app and, then, transcribed. They are from a past version of Mar’ce who is also part of this-moment-Mar’ce. : ) I choose them randomly and edit them lightly. Some of them have been shared in small group settings. Most have not been read once they’ve been written.

I notice I stopped sharing widely a couple of years ago. I notice my break had to do with imagining an invisible audience who is potentially critical/judgemental/unkind. I noticed, too, I don’t want to participate In sharing on instagram or Facebook or linked in. I’ve been sporadically experimenting with sub stack. What a wonderful period of time it has been to not share or not share much! What a gift it’s been to germinate, to rest, to experience the events of life slowly and with curiousness! Thank you for reading. I so appreciate your attention. Your curiosity matters. Your attention matters. What are you germinating??