Good Morning..How Do you Feel Today?

I watched the sun rise this morning after cleaning out the ashes from my wood stove and getting another fire blazing merrily. COLD. Enough said!
Tall evergreens stand straight and tall, etched against a mesmerizing blue sky casting long shadows on the glistening snow like fence lines across the back yard. A pileated woodpecker adorns one of the branches of the oak tree outside my bedroom window.
It's a new day.
I feel like crap.
My chest hurts with the inner working out of issues and beliefs about myself and my relationships that are not in keeping with the captivating beauty of this morning landscape.
I hurt.
I wrestle.
I question.
I cry.
I surrender.
Not to the feelings...but to something bigger.
More than anything I want truth and the freedom it brings with it.
I need to feel these things because my feelings reveal my beliefs.
Not all these beliefs are rooted and grounded in TRUTH...
Just because I believe something ...doesn't make it true.
Believe me.. there are many things coming up lately in my life engendering feelings that are dehibilitating, crippling and cause nausea to rise in the back of my throat.
They swarm over me and seem to consume my entire landscape.
There are days when simply breathing hurts like hell.
Jeremiah the prophet comes to mind.
The name Jeremiah means: "to hurl or thrust as into calamity"
I am so there.
The world we live in and the relationships we are surrounded with are full of calamity.
We are thrust into these situations and lives full of our own inner struggles...like being held inside the fist of God.
Some of the most meaningful words I find in the book of Jeremiah go something like this :
"I have loved you with an everlasting love...I have drawn you forth with lovingkindness"
He always has. Loved me that is. And he continues to draw me forth...from disaster, beliefs, calmity...out of my emotions..into his reality.
How do I feel?
I feel many things today, but I am not going to stop there...I am going to discover, in the drawing forth, what these feelings are saying...and where I need to surrender and what I need to hold onto...
So...Good Morning...How are you feeling this morning?

Emerging...the light is blinding and I can't see!

Seriously, I have been wallowing in the dark for some time now. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I used to be scared of the dark.That is no longer the case. The dark is comforting, safe....unchallenging...sedating. The dark lets me be. I can't even see me, but who cares.

Being the person I am, however, I must emerge. I can't stand myself for long in that state. Self loathing is bad in the dark because there is no room for truth and although glimmers of light pierce the darkness every once in a while...you can close your eyes and pretend it never really happened. When you open them again the cocoon of darkness is there to embrace you yet again.

Emerging hurts. Pain..lots of pain. My muscles are cramped, my skin is sensitive...and my eyes..OH GOD! I have discovered that as a child I was afraid of the dark, but as an adult the light is much more fear inspiring. The light is lethal, uncompromising..terrifying in it's unveiling powers. Light rushes through every available opening that there is, it pierces every crack and crevice. It illuminates, exposes and reveals. It cast shadows when something stands in its path and reveals with perfect clarity the blockage.

Today I have emerged with a will stronger than I thought I had... the battle was fierce and I am shaking but still standing. My eyes hurt and I feel pale and unsubstantial. I can feel the tremors deep in my core.

Having left the "sheltering dark" I can see the lie for what it is... while there, I saw the light separate from the landscape : ruthless and uncaring, savage in it's intensity, unforgiving in it's revelations. Now that I stand shaking on the edge of the shadows I know that the LIGHT is the SHELTER, it is the landscape, it is the source. Light holds and caresses, warms and sustains... enables, enlivens and shows everything for what it is.

I am beautiful. I am alive.... I was blind... and after I stop tearing up in the brightness...I will see again!