Shift

I'm sitting here looking at my blog, and thinking about editing all of the descriptions to reflect my life changes. And suddenly I realize. Holy Fuck. Leaving farming changes EVERYTHING. Especially my descriptors of who I am and what I do. Don't get me wrong. I will Always be a Sustainable Farmer, Midwife, Steward of the land. However, I'm pretty sure that the career switch is going to require some new descriptors, and an overhaul of the blog. I kinda want to just chuck out the old blog and start a new one, along with a new website. *Wishing I was more proficient in these things. Spying an opportunity to learn.*

I might be experiencing an identity crisis. A Shift, lets call it. There is a deep grieving that is happening around this shift, a letting go of the way things have been. Leaving my farm family and kitchen family of the last four years. The only stability I have had since I left my daughter's father, indeed, they stood by me through the chaos of the abuse and the breakdown that occurred at the end, and gave me safe harbor, and the means to continue to work while being the sole parent of a young daughter. For this sense of safety, of family, love, support, and endless access to "Seconds" (older or ugly/damaged, unsalable produce) I am, and will always be forever grateful. Indeed, Tierra Vegetables has earned my undying love, devotion, and loyalty.

 I am moving on, through the tears.

I have a yearning. To be wild, and free, and unfettered. To live my life my way. To walk my path, head held high, wings tucked up under my tunic so that they are safe, trusting in my own innate wisdom, and listening to my voice. I lived my whole life trying to fit in, while aching at my core knowing I never would. I've done the good girl thing: get married, have child, wake up, go to work, go home, eat sleep repeat, knowing all the while that my mask was askew and didn't fit. And Guess what? It has never worked for me. I've always been broke. I've always managed to help make other people's businesses more successful, and eliminate at least three other positions, as I did them all, while being given a pittance more than I was originally making (literally cents) and I have stayed. Because most of these jobs were jobs of service, for good people, and small businesses.  I have toed the line and followed the rules, I went to school, got the degrees, followed all the steps that my step father used to fury at me were so necessary to be a successful human, and even then, I knew the rules didn't apply to me, and that this game was not designed for me... but goddamn, did I give it a good go. At some point here I gave up the pretense of trying, and started to carve out my own niche, and attract my own tribe to me, creating my own reality, my own world. It's sexy, and wild, and tender, full of love, and an understanding of the wild things. There's plenty of room, if you feel called to join me.

The game is broken. It doesn't even really work for the people it "works" for. Our city streets are full of people disconnected from Nature, and their own Divine being. Operating out of shadow, fear, anger, want, need, hooked into the zombie apocalypse, TV and phone. We have lost the ability to connect to nature, to each other, to ourselves. I frequently think about this as I drive home from work, how driving has us hurtling through our environment so fast, that there is no time to connect to our surroundings.  And you know what? The game is making me sick. I've been sick since July- I am still not fully well. And I am So. Fucking. Tired. All. The. Time.  And regularly debilitated by everything that blew thru on the kid train before that. I have a child, and I refuse to die of grief and frustration and stress because I ignored my soul calling. Stress happens for a reason, it's your body's way of telling you something needs to change. Did you catch that? It's not saying, hey, go ahead, power on through, I'll just chillax back here til I find an inconvenient time to erupt in an anxiety attack, no. Stress = something is not working, please address. Only I've been following the prescribed Western method of handing stress, which is to self medicate and work through it until your system collapses. heh. Yeah. That method sucks monkey ass.

And yet, even so, there is grief about leaving the Matrix. It's a scary thing to do. But I feel absolutely positive that I must for my own well being. It's the same feeling I had when I knew i had to leave my husband, on the one hand, it is scary as fuck, a whole world of unknowns and change, and leaving behind a dream of how you thought your life was going to look, and on the other hand, I knew that if I stayed, I would be killing my soul, and condemning myself to a lifetime of depression and misery. So I went, with nothing but the faith that it would be ok, that the Universe loves me and will support me in following my heart.

One by one I've been shedding the trappings of the game, and picking up the things that my intuition says "Yes" about.
Sooooo. I'm doing something "new"

But HOW will you support yourself?!!!

Omg. Guess what. I will be fine. We actually lived for many many centuries without having jobs, or money, and we were far happier, more connected, and more productive. I am incredibly smart and talented, an incredibly hard worker, completely able to do anything I put my mind to learning, so I feel quite certain that I will rock whatever I choose to do.  It's just, I'm gonna do this shit my way now. And there is gonna be a whole lot more play, and laughter, and love.

Leaving the Matrix.

Hello Loves,

Just a short announcement to let you all know that I adore you, and I so want to join your, what have you, or attend your soiree, life changing class, or hang out, or grab a cuppa or.... I do. I really do. And, due to the nature of my long hours at work, and being a full time single mom, with a child in tow, and limited income, PLUS, 5 nights a week are school nights, and when I do keep her out, I pay the next day- it is highly unlikely I will make it. This has been my life for the last oh, I don't know, too long. And let me tell you, I'm pretty tired of watching my life pass me by, of hearing the soul calling to do something, and not being able to because of needing to go to work.

So. I'm retiring from my job. I love them, and always will. But I need to devote some serious time to loving myself, and healing myself from the trauma I have inflicted on myself these past 6 years or so. Overwork and exhaustion (working full time, and live-working in all my "free" time- all hard physical labor with a young child) coupled with constant stress, and survival issues have led to me finally admitting that I am burnt out. I can't do it any more. I literally just have nothing else to offer. I am finishing out the year, and then I am retiring from farming. I gave it a good shot. Our food system is so jacked. There is no money in farming. The only way it works is if you are farming your parent's land, land you inherited or own outright, and are somehow otherwise supported. Well. I am none of these things. And until I am, I give up. I cannot support myself and my girl on the wages for farming, and I have no energy left over for us.


I'm going to be a full time mom, I am going to explore the world with my daughter and show her all the things I have always wanted to show her, but haven't had time or energy, I am going to learn with her. A full time wild woman, creatrice.  I'll be working on my writing, and Mari and I have some plans to open an Etsy shop. I'd really like to get a website up and running, and am putting the call out to the wild woman or man who can help me with that. I am going to do all the things, and hang out with you loves, and learn to belly dance, and fire dance, and go to the buckeye gathering with my kid, and finally, finally live the life I have always craved. I am creating my own reality the way I have always wanted it to be, and just have a deep faith that the universe is going to support me in this. I can't wait to see you all in the new year.

xoxo

Daily Giggles

Summary of my day: Now I get to stress on being late to school due to a new sneaky morning routine designed to help the kids get into their bodies: walking for 20 minutes starting at 8:31. Also designed to shame any late parents into sitting on the bench with their kids for 20 minutes if arriving late. Motherfuckers. I hate school. Mari needs to order up a parent who specializes in this crap to be in our commune, cause I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna make it through 12 more years of this crap.
Work. Start two kinds of hot sauce, begin recording recipes where other people can see them too, heh, unload the dish racks, wash all random dirty dishes and sample thingies.
Back to school for Marisol's 6th birthday celebration. Her dad is a no show. He's only known about it and had mari asking him about it since June. Fucking douchecanoe. Vince and Hannah came though, and it was a beauty full celebration of her life, reminding me why she goes to this school.
I get to see the kid she has a crush on. He's hella cute. Blond, huge blue eyes,  looks like his mom who's a total hottie. I get it.

Work. Finish my two kinds of hot sauce, bloody mary mix, dish washing, pickle downsizing, cooler reorganization extravaganza. Order 5000 new hot sauce bottles. Have the dishwasher guy come fix the dishwasher.

Talk Mari into eating a very green, very active inchworm. She does, to huge applause and jumping up and down on my part. She starts to copy me in the car, so I start the quiet game. And she wins every round due to cracking me up with really awesomely bad faces. Goddamn I enjoy my kid.
More Mari wisdom that blows my mind today, as every day. She offers commentary on human relationships that seriously, just. So mature.
She's started to tell me, "you are such a bad girl" with a smirk and laughter in her voice when I do things that are socially frowned upon. Such as peeing in the sink when she hogs the only toilet, and then decides she needs to take a really long shit, and we both have to go, and are not somewhere where peeing outside is an option. Yeah. That happened. And I wonder where she got the bad girl thing from... I've tried so hard to shield her from those social mores.... Then she tells me she won't tell grandma because grandma would say "oh, that's GREAT" in a tone of voice that distinctly infers that it is not at all great, and she totally disapproves. But she might tell uncle Mikkel, because he is silly like I am and he would laugh about it. This kid. My heart explodes for her daily.
I made her wipe her own butt tonight. Offered her wet wipes as a solution to any post wiping issues. We get in bed and many minutes later she shows me this tiny wad of white. Eyes all big, "I found this, in my BUTT!! In my Butt I found this!! In my BUTT!!" Her vioice is dripping with suppressed laughter. I giggle. Tell her to throw it away, and wash her  hands. She does, and then comes back to bed and fishes around for more. Comes up empty, and promptly sticks her fingers under her nose for a big whiff. I giggle, and she goes, "what, I always do that!" And I say, "nothing, you are just SOOO my kid, that's all."

I missed her so much while I was gone. It was close to unbearable. I stayed up all night Saturday, and after watching the best Phutureprimitive show I have seen to date-and I have seen him every chance I get- I biked back to camp, I packed my shit in less than fifteen minutes (and then of course, had to wait for other people to pack their shit and work out their dramas for like, three more hours, and repack the car twice as the roster changed) and I fucking came home. Saturday was her birthday, and I just was not going to spend another day away from her. And when I got reception again, and was able to call my mom, and heard Mari's voice on the phone I just sobbed, and then my mom said she would bring Mari home to me and I couldn't stop sobbing. This kid. She is my Reason. My flame. My Why. My Love.

Initiate.

I have been tending my own garden in a slightly different way, as of late. With Surrender has come a knowing calm. A Quiet that I am quite enjoying. A release of most of the anxiety that I experience daily. I am learning how to breathe anew, in different rhythms, body wide, and the pulse of that breath is rippling out touching those around me.
 I feel as though I am being breathed, the universe is breathing me, I am the rhythm, the pulse, the breath, the heartbeat. I'm both experiencing it, and also witnessing.

I have shed my "comfort zone" which really translates to, I am shedding the story lines that double as limitations. No more limits.

With the approach of Burningman I've been searching thrift stores, acquiring clothes that will be beautiful, playful, sexy, fun, comfortable, and practical for the heat, the dust, the atmosphere. Beautiful things that are nothing like what I normally wear. A fantasy life, of sorts. And yet, not the tribal fairy wear I love so much. Mostly because I wear those in my normal life, and I don't want to risk them on the playa. Some will go, but the majority will stay safe at home. If I had my way I'd be going flush with everything elvenleather- miniskirts, haltertops, bikini's, hats, respirators, goggles, and big feather earrings, but in the meantime, I've discovered an obsession with booty shorts, belly baring tops, bathing suits, and pirate boots with cowgirl hats. Yeah, all in the same outfit. It rocks. And White. Suddenly I cannot get enough white in my wardrobe. My whole life, white has been a color I avoid. I'm too messy, it gets stained and ruined, and dirty. It just totally doesn't work. And yet, I'm finding a white goddess rocker edge tunic creeped in, and then today, a white shirt that I am positive was made for me, off the shoulder, a style I also "do not do" that says: Breathe Deeply, Love Madly, Live Fully In huge letters down the front. Finally, a pair of tiny white denim shorts, an item that would normally be an emphatic no way, and I simply could not do without them. Had to have them. Had to wear them for the rest of the day, with the shirt, and the knee high pirate boots.

It's all very silly, yes, and yet, it's sooo not. Because it is indicative of a huge inner shift. An initiation, wiping clean the slate and starting anew. White. New beginnings. The initiate.

I am experiencing comfort, confidence, love, beauty, and appreciation in and for, my body. I am owning my own beauty, divinity, connectivity more each day. Because as a part of this surrender, I found the next level of connection with the universe, the divine, that we are completely one and the same, and there is no separation. So, by poisoning my divine vessel, by disrespecting this body, I am disrespecting Spirit, Divine, the Universe. If I am  truly  the Love, embodied, then that starts at home, with my own body, heart, soul, with complete love, appreciation, and worship of my own divinity, the entry portal to the Divine.

This is the Big Work. Quite possibly the biggest work, in some ways. At least for me. Overcoming a lifetime of conditioning, and a society full of messages to the contrary, and indeed, a society that frowns on strong, confident women who love themselves and take full ownership and enjoyment from their own bodies, and sexuality.  It's fucking true. We are sluts shamed, and subject to ugly witch hunts. disempowered, locked away, killed. So it's scary. I won't gloss over that. It's actually a little terrifying. And there's that little voice still, the one that says I will be shamed, I will be in danger, the one that tries to shush This One, the One who is emerging. And I am learning to quiet that voice... it's become back ground noise, rather than the foreground.

I watched a woman teach my daughter how to do push ups the other day. She wanted Mari to do "the girl push ups" first, from the knees, because, "no, that's the boy push up, I haven't taught you that one yet" Mari wanted nothing to do with the knee push up. And I said to this woman, you know, I'm really uncomfortable with you designating one as boy and one as girl, they are just fucking pushups, you really don't need to segregate that. She agreed with me, and proceeded to resegregate them, that the boy push up was the strong one. *HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS, WOMAN, ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!!*   I face palmed and stepped away before I just tore her a new one, as she was clearly drunk or impaired and nothing I had to say was going to get through. And later, had a discussion with Mari that there are no fucking limitations, there are no "Boy" whatever the fuck it is that she is limited from due to being a woman. She can do it all, anything she wants, and then some. That being a woman is a gift of the highest order, and anyone who tries to limit her or place limitations on her abilities due to her status as woman should 1. be completely disregarded, and 2, should come talk to her mama. Like, right now, and we'll just get crystal fucking clear on that one.

I owe it to my daughter, to my mother, my ancestral lineage, to every woman alive, and most of all, to myself, to Love myself completely. To take full ownership, joy, pride, and exquisite care of my self, my body, my sensuality, my sexuality, my Woman ness. To be a beacon of light, and love, in the centuries of darkness. To step into my power as Woman, as a fully sexual being, as a being of beauty, and a Divine conduit. And so it is. I invite you to join me. I love you.

Single Parenting.

This is another one of those uncomfortable things to write about.
I'm a single mother, raising my daughter with no support from her father.
He sees her sporadically, as in, it was two months between the last visit, (and wasn't working) and he can't be bothered to call her in between visits. When he did see her again, for four hours, he fed her, plugged her into a movie with her brothers, and fell asleep on the floor. Which is pretty much what he does every time he sees her/them. I called him today and asked him to take her while i was at work, since she is miserably sick, and I literally could not afford to take more time off work, having missed half the week already due to being sick myself. I got excuses. Which is what I get every time I ask him for help. First he was in Oakland, then, halfway through the day, he was home, but tells me, "I have to take a nap, I need to make dinner later" (for himself). Yeah. I spent the day on and off sobbing at work today.

This is not a post to demonize my ex. However, much like Shadow work, I feel I do a great disservice to allow these things to remain buried in the dark where they fester- my work is in bringing the uncomfortable, the shadow, the unexamined bits to the light, where they can be transmuted.

 I have tremendous sympathy for him. So much so, that I am beginning to feel that my sympathy for him has blurred my boundaries a bit. I've always been there when he needs help of any sort. This is not a two way street. I make it as easy as I possibly can for him to see her, spend time with her, talk to her, and I don't ask for child support because I have seen how the constant battle over money causes resentment and sourness between parents who are no longer in partnership. I don't want that. And honestly, the pittance that would come out of his check, and the inconsistency, what with child support for the other three kids already coming out of his check, and bouncing from job to job, is so not even worth having that energetic. And I honestly want him to be able to support himself, so he can see his children regularly.

So here's the uncomfortable bit. There seems to be some sort of agreement, within our society, that spending any amount of time with a parent, no matter the quality or quantity of the time, is more healing/healthy than spending no time at all.

I'm fucking calling bullshit on that. Right. Now.

First of all, when did we, as a society, start rewarding bad parenting? Like, Hi, you totally suck at being any sort of adult presence in your child's life, but we are going to just continue to provide unfettered access to impressionable young psyches because *anything is better than nothing*. Uhhhh. No.

And second of all, What in the Actual Fuck is seeing her father actually teaching her? That she is not worthy of her father being in any way a stable regular presence in her life? That when she does actually see him, she doesn't merit any sort of actual presence or quality time, but, instead, can count on experiencing her brothers treat each other like mean drunk rednecks at a hazing, the entire time they are together, (complete with gay, sexist, and racist slurs of incredible ugliness) with no input from their dad, inappropriate media screen time, and awwww kids, don't forget the conventional food, and high fructose, food dye treats. Awesome. Oh, and let's not overlook the message that you can just fucking pop kids out, you don't actually have to be responsible for parenting them, or contributing to raising them in any way. Yeah. I don't think so.

See, I don't feel I am being a responsible, conscious parent, nor am I parenting with love, or from the heart, when I allow this to continue. I feel like I have a responsibility, to my daughter, to show her a better way. Sure. He's her father. He's the guy that donated his sperm to the cause. He has not earned the title of father. Pretty much every man in our lives is more of a consistent, positive presence and role model in her life than her father. Seriously. Every. Man. Like, the guys at work. The people in my community. My friends. The boys in their early 20s that I used to live with. The awesome gay guy who sells orchids at the farmers market. For real. These people see her, love her, spend more time with her, and are more present, available, and having quality interactions with her on a regular basis than her father does. (Well, Chris, the orchid guy doesn't get to see her as regularly now that we don't work the farmers market, and the boys either, since we moved on, but when they do see her it's a grand reunion)  And we have always had a cast of strong women friends who come through and love on her, on us. In this way we are incredibly lucky. I have such enormous gratitude for the people in our lives who offer love and support, in so many ways. It makes my heart blossom and grow. And honestly, there are days when I would just completely fall apart and lose it, and someone shows up, steps in, and offers that loving support. And I feel like the clouds clear and the sunshine gets back into my soul, warming it up again.

Do you know who came through and picked Mari up from work today? My housemate, Scott. The same man I witnessed sobbing last weekend over the unfairness that there are these men, who father children, and are then not regularly part of their lives, or contributing to raising their kids. While he would have loved to have had a child, and it just didn't happen in this lifetime. He's sobbing, and calling them pussies. walks out the door, and comes back in and apologized for calling them pussies, that they don't deserve that title, when there are strong good amazing single mothers like myself raising our children on our own - that using that term for these sad sacks of man flesh denigrates the term "Pussy"- (-that last bit was my words, not his-) He walks out the door again, and then I'm sobbing. Sometimes that's just how we roll, around here.

A Conundrum, yes? How to model healthy boundaries, parenting, and ensure that my child, my woman child, grows up feeling valued, respected, loved, and ::WORTHY:: by every one she chooses to have in her life, but most especially by the men or women she chooses to love, in relationship. How to model this when I feel like her father demonstrates everything I don't want for her. How do I protect her from that? Is it really healthy for her to be around *Any* of that? Or would it be better if I just severed the relationship? Is that more, or less damaging?

I sobbed all the way into work today after getting off the phone with him and his usual litany of excuses. Mari asked me what was wrong. I told her that I was sad because I wished that her dad was more a regular consistent part of her life, and was there to help when we needed him. And that the fact that he isn't makes me really really sad, and feels really unfair to me. But that I love her so much my heart breaks open a little more each day, and that I will always be here, whole heartedly, present, showing up, doing the work, and consistent, no matter what, forever.

And I have to believe that that is enough.

Surrender.

Sometimes all I can do is surrender. Surrender to Flow. Surrender to what is Not Flow. And just Releasssssse. Re-remember how to breathe. In a new way.
Sometimes Surrender looks like Accepting that I am human and that ingrained Self Destructive habits take time to break. Vices. Maybe we all have them. Maybe it's my own Scorpionic tendencies... I love my goddamn vices.  But I don't love them enough to continue living a half life, to continue killing myself in a slow painful fashion.

Today that means being gentle with myself. Wrapping myself in extra love and compassion. Taking a bath. Eating instead. Sometimes it means I don't get caught up on things I had intended, but I catch up with friends I haven't heard from in a while. Sometimes it looks like holing up in my bed Listening to Donna De Lory, Surrender for hours. I wish I could link the song here, but it eluded me in my searches. But here. I obsessed so hard that I transcribed the lyrics, as best i could. Do yourself a favor, and if you haven't heard her, look her up. She is Soul Balm.

That's about where I'm at right now. I am breathing a bit more now. So that's awesome. I scared myself with this one. I haven't had an asthma attack/infection this debilitating in a long while. Many years. I had to make actual choices about the timeline of my goddamn mortality. And while I'm still feeling really fragile, apparently, I'm not ready to check out just yet, so there's that.
I am, however, getting out of my own way, so that I may Serve.


Surrender

I have no choice now but to just let go

Let it go me... now come to you.

You’ve been so patient with me all this time

You still loved me even when I couldn’t love you

All I want is to give this gift to you

The union of our Love

I surrender

Take my breath in your hands

Now it’s safe to come through

There’s only you

I give myself to you

I surrender

I want to give up all control to you

Feel my heart beating in the pulse of your great hands

The storm is over

Now I call your name

Like a flower rising up to meet the sun

To be where you are

All I want is to give this gift to you

The union of our Love

I surrender

Take my breath in your hands now its safe to come through 

There’s only you 

I give myself to you

I surrender

I was alone I was afraid

You wouldn’t love me

Here in my hiding place

My soul you discovered it

I want to give whatever it takes, whatever

To accept only your love

Only Your Love

Only your love

Your love is all I need 

All I want is to give this gift to you 

The union of our Love 

I surrender

Take my breath

In your hands

Every moment is made new

It’s all come true this dream I had of you

I surrender

And I give, And I give And I give And I give myself to you. Repeat times a million. With Angelic overtones: I Surrender. 

Grief

I have chronic Asthma and bronchitis.  Have since I was 4 or 5. Every time I get sick, and there is any mucus involved, at all- Bam. Lung infection. I've come to just know the signs and resign myself to getting antibiotics. Or, try to tough it out without antibiotics and suffer with shortness of breath and a wicked cough, for months on end until I finally lose it and give in and go get antibiotics. It really depends on how much self punishment I am doling out at the moment. I also get sick every year, the week or two before school starts, with terrible asthma and bronchitis, my chest feels like it's on fire, and I am completely operating out of shadow, cranky, irritable, intolerant, angry, snappish. It's like clockwork, I don't even have to check the calendar, I get this horrendous bout of debilitating wheezing and chest gunk, coughing, and cannot.catch.my.breath. And I know, school's right around the corner.

So, being that, I have spent my life, long periods of it, actually, deprived of oxygen, and that in many healing modalities the lungs are retained grief, I suppose I have reached that place in my life where I have to look at that. Both the huge, nameless grief that has taken up residence in my lungs, and the habitual ways in which I punish myself, every day.

I can see it in the pictures Mari took of me with Nimue the other day. I had already taken a prednisone, and countless hits of the inhaler, and nothing was helping. I could see in the flare of my nostrils, the way my mouth and chin were stretched, could see the grief etched in my lips, the struggle to breathe. 

So what is this about, this deep, nameless grief? 

Belonging. Deserving. Love. Worthiness. Loneliness. Safety. Lack. Self Punishment. Being "Broken" Not Enough. Or Too Much. Oh, and this long held belief that One has to Work Hard to make money, a living? If that isn't the biggest load of Hurdy Gurdy our society has handed to us, I don't know what is. Absolute bollocks. I'm sure there's more to the list, these just flutter to the top. 

My childhood was less than idyllic, and while there are many things I learned, and became, and transmuted because of the particular fire I was forged in, a sense of belonging was not one. I didn't feel a sense of belonging in my family of origin, unconditional love, safety, and certainly not a sense of worthiness or deserving, that shit was completely conditional, yo.  Nor indeed, within human society as I have experienced it to date, if anything, society instills a distinct lack in all of these arenas.

There have been glimpses, fleeting moments, more, since I have been on this particular wild woman path, spaces where I could breathe, and felt held, felt safe. But more often than not, I feel the weight of my other ness. The burden of my strength and fierce independence. The lack of safety net in being an outspoken wild woman. The very real Danger, from those who would like to muzzle, chain, stuff, quiet, tame, and otherwise diminish the flame of a wild woman. 

Most of the time these days I operate with a heaping dose of "and she wore whatever she wanted, had as much sex as she wanted, and not one fuck was given"  But some days, the reality is that I feel like I tread a narrow crumbling path between a sheer cliff looking up, and a drop into vast space with sharp jagged points far below. And I am so goddamn brittle, that the first good gust of wind, and I will just sail.... blasted into a million pieces. I am Still. All of these years later, Hyper Vigilant. And my Adrenals are giving out on me. I am exhausted. Completely and utterly, there is not enough sleep in the world, and literally, I don't even know what true joy looks like any more, fucking worn out, exhausted. I can't even bring myself to feed myself or care for myself properly half the time, though I make damn sure the child and animals and everyone else is fed. I looked at myself in a full length mirror under florescent lights today. I am watching myself continue to vanish before my own eyes. Wasting away into skeleton woman. I am stumbling through with the aid of crutches and patches and pretending. 

I don't know how to care for myself the way i want to be cared for. I feel like I was never taught that particular piece. Or maybe I just lost that bit with the rest of my memories of the past. What I do know is that there is a better way than this. This stumbling around in the dark with no fucking flashlight because I ran out of batteries and just keep bumping into shit. I am tired. Spending five days blue in the lips struggling for breath, struggling for sleep, struggling for life, leaves me just completely spent. And then, of course I started my moon flow today, just for added emotional depth.

And if I'm completely honest? I don't *want* to have to take care of myself. I want someone to do that for me. While I take care of all the other people and animals. But it doesn't happen like that, does it. heh. Or better yet, hold me while I break down and am completely soft, open, vulnerable, hold space for me to be fragile, so I can then pull it together and be strong again.

What all of this means is that I'm about to start walking away from shit if it's not serving. 

But here's the rub. There's all of that bullshit, right? And then there's the Divine, loving me up, and cheering me on, and sending me love notes and serendipity, and synchronicities, and all of these things that *mean something* to me. And I feel it, on a core level, and I believe it, and I own it, want it. So how do I release all of these shit blockages? How do I retrieve that little girl, love her, keep her safe, and help her belong. I'm fucking ready, yo. Because this old shit is OLD. And I am tired of being tired. I am ready to be healed, and whole, and happy, and vibrant, full of energy and vitality, joy, and love, I am ready to get down with my path and my purpose and get to fucking work, and most of all, I am ready to breathe freely, unimpeded by grief taking up all the space in my lungs. So. In the way that I do, transmuting the darkness into light, by bringing the shadow into the light, giving it voice, place, love, and acceptance, I am offering this up to the universe now. I am ready for healing. Thank you. I love you.