I just finished reading a biography of Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake in Rome in 1600 for heresy. Again it has me thinking about the meaning and purpose of my life. I don’t want to live a meaningless and mediocre life. I want my life to serve some purpose. It doesn’t need to be a grand purpose, just some purpose.

Life is really a play set on the stage of our particular, unique moment in history. Bruno engaged fully with the set he found himself on, with all of its absurdities. He may have been before his time, but he engaged in his world on its own terms, fully accepting the consequences of that, allowing his life to play out in the only way that it could in that moment in history.

The author of the book included a quote by Bruno that talks about living full--not living in mediocre life:

Oh difficulties to be endured, cries the coward, the feather-head, the shuttlecock, the faint-heart. The task is not impossible, though hard. The craven must stand aside. Ordinary, easy tasks are for the commonplace and the herd. Rare, heroic, and divine men overcome the difficulties of the way and force an immortal palm from necessity. You may fail to reach your goals, but run the race nevertheless. Put forth your strength in so high a business. Stride on with your last breath.

 

Giordano Bruno

I just realized when I woke up that we have just passed the winter solstice. I always forget whether it’s the twenty-first for twenty-second, but no matter. What’s interesting is that my spirit chose this week to do this work, which has been so much about death and renewal.

Thursday night, well actually Friday morning right before I woke up, I had a dream. Another woman and I were doing this exercise with death. It’s hard to describe because it makes no sense at all, but there was a clear tank of water we would submerge ourselves in, but each submersion was literal death. So we died every time we submerged ourselves. We each did an experiment of dying for ten seconds and then coming back. There were helpers on hand and as soon as the ten seconds were up they quickly pulled us back up. The other woman decided to go for thirty seconds, which all of the helpers thought was way too long. The instant the thirty seconds was up, the helpers anxiously pulled the woman up. She was all smiles and she said something lightheartedly to chasten them for being so uptight and worried. I knew exactly what she meant. I shared that same radiant kind of knowing that “All is well”. The helpers were stuck in their limited way of seeing.

Good morning. It’s still howling and blustery outside but the snow seems to have stopped. The storm is supposed to move out by noon today. It’s hard to say how much snow we got because it’s all blown about. They were saying sixteen to twenty-six inches for my area and eighteen to twenty-four for Denver. The ground along the side of my house is swept bare, but then I had to push against a snowdrift to open the front door.

Last night I was in a very heightened state of awareness. Reading two books in a row with Native American themes snapped something back open in me. There are certain traditions that I always circle back around to, Native American being one of them. I knew when I stumbled across those books at the library that I was meant to circle back here now.

What is it about their culture that gets me? Last night spontaneously everything in the room kept morphing into Native American objects. I truly felt like I was living in two worlds. There was my embroidered rooster with the triangle points at the bottom lying on top of some fabric. Repeatedly when I glanced that way it became a bead work design on the front of a dress--not of a rooster though--and the fabric underneath became the draping of the rest of the dress. A towel folded in half lengthwise and flung over the bathroom door looks like sweet grass that was knotted at the bottom. The room kept switching back and forth between my room and a Native American.

The other thing was that my ego largely vanished. I was looking back in this journal--I forget what I was trying to find--but everything I wrote about seemed absolutely petty and trivial. I mean, this is all I can manage to make of life, all of these trivial concerns? How have I gotten so caught up in the petty dramas of the ego?

I’m asking big questions these days. Is there a way I can be of service to humanity? Can I surrender my ego and live a life in service to the spiritual? What on earth would that look like? When I think this way I think of folks like Gandhi and Mother Teresa--these large players in this world. Can I so transcend my ego that I could really make a difference on this planet? Is that possible for me in this lifetime? If I can just break through this barrier above me I’d be able to see.

Now night has fallen and it’s day four of this spiritual retreat I had no idea I was going to take. Poor John. He’s being so patient with me when I tell him I need to be alone. This is good for me, so deeply good for me, especially the evenings, sitting here by candlelight.

I don’t know, but each night I keep getting overwhelmed by how perfect the objects in this room are. It is a beautiful space, a very nourishing space for me to do this work. I’m not exactly sure what work I’m doing but at least something seems to be stirring.

I have yet more thoughts floating around on the fringes of my awareness. I feel like I’m close to some dramatic breakthrough or new insight. Very close but not quite there. I feel like it has the potential to be some wild new way-outside-the-box paradigm shift some new way of seeing and being entirely. But there’s a barrier I have to push through to get there.

We’re in the midst of a blizzard so I wasn’t able to get Collin today as scheduled. Most of the roads are shut down so I have another night for quiet contemplation. It’s the perfect atmosphere, with the storm howling, the world outside all white and blustery, and in here it’s warm and quiet and peaceful. A candle’s burning softly and it’s about to get dark.

I’ve had a few little episodes of synchronicity the past few days. I was reading a Lynn Andrews book right after I had written about anxiety in my chest and she began talking about the exact same thin--how the anxiety was protecting her heart. Then yesterday and today I was reading Travels in a Stone Canoe and this one Lakota man said the following: “The material life isn’t worth living. Materialism without spirituality is the curse of this world. It’s our job as human beings to use the material in the service of the spiritual.” Matthew King

I feel like that’s the answer I needed, but what would that look like? It’s quite a stretch to call headboards spiritual. I know that beauty, the creation of beauty, can be a way of using the material world for spiritual good, but a beautiful headboard is just too much of a stretch. I had the thought that if I really need to work with my hands maybe building small altars for people to use in their homes, or even outside in their yards might be fulfilling. Just build beautiful altars and let people decorate with whatever fits their spiritual tradition or speaks to them. But that idea feels kind of contrived. It’s a mental two-plus-twoing, not something I feel in my heart is my path.

My path may be more radical than that if I can just break through this barrier that stands in my way and finally SEE. There’s a higher way of seeing--something much more all-encompassing. I sense it.

I know that the new insight will be a deepening of my thoughts about materialism and the bland dullness of modern life, the superficiality, the way we’ve cut ourselves off from what matters. Somehow, the shift I feel coming on will take into account a much broader account of humanity, going back to our roots, our origins. Who we think we are is just a whisper of who we really are.

I want to continue on with my train of thought from yesterday. It’s weird, but I’m coming back to knowledge I already had and it’s just a bit mind-boggling how I could have let myself forget.

I don’t know if I ever wrote about this when I originally had this insight, so forgive me if I’m repeating old information. But last night I remembered one more thing about my experience of anxiety in my chest. It’s not only a mask to protect my heart, it’s a little death, reminding me that every hardship is an opportunity to die and be reborn again. The insight that I had originally had (I don’t remember now when that was—a few years ago?) was that the feeling of stress in my chest is identical to the beginnings or the first rush of feelings you feel at the moment of death. I seem to always have had a “memory” of death. The moment of death begins with that feeling in the chest, and a wave of hot and cold, and then the feeling extends to the whole body and becomes this weird feeling of atomizing or dissolving, which at the same time is almost a feeling of falling. So, the anxiety is a mini-death and my task is to dissolve through it to a more expansive state of being. To not get stuck in the death throes, but to move through it the way you naturally would upon death.

Last night I dreamed about a mountain lion. I was with another adult, a child, and a small dog and people were after me. We hid in a small wooden shed. Something pawed at the door and then a mountain lion nudged the door open and let herself in. I felt a wave of healthy fear as she walked in and lay down at my side. I knew she would protect me and was a powerful ally. The dream ended a few moments later when the bad guys came, shot off the lock (it now had a lock!) and I had a weird numb feeling in my butt cheek…I didn’t know if I had been sitting funny and it was just asleep, or if one of the bullets had come through the door and lodged in my butt.

The dream reminded me of my experience up in the mountains when Collin was two. After I weaned him I went for my first weekend away without him and did a meditation retreat alone. I had two dreams that both brought me bolt upright in the tent. The first was of a mother bear and her cub passing through camp and moving on. The second was of a mountain lion padding into camp and lying down. I concluded that the dream meant that the mountain lion was my new totem animal for my life here in the West, as the black bear had always been my animal in Pennsylvania (and a frequent visitor in my dreams).

I think the mountain lion came into my dream last night to try to remind me again of forgotten knowledge. What does she represent?

Another way I feel I’m circling back to some same-old, same-old issues is with livelihood. I still feel an awful conflict between my belief in simplicity and treading lightly and not being overly materialistic, and the fact that in my business life what I am doing is making and selling stuff. I know I’ve been here before. I’ve had this discussion with myself in the past and I concluded that as an offspring of the Divine it is simply natural for me to want to create.

But, the conflict lives on in me. Maybe it’s with WHAT I’m creating, but why should any other sort of creation be of more value than what I do? When I sit in my living room and take in all of this man-made stuff, does anything have more value than anything else? Does it have more value the more beautiful it is, or is it more valuable if it exploited fewer resources or people or animals in the making of it? Does its function give it a higher value? I mean, after all, it’s all just stuff! What’s the point? People just mindlessly hoard stuff. How is it meaningful for me to add to that?

The question eating at me is how do I create a meaningful life? Shouldn’t that be my real job, creating a meaningful life, not creating stuff? I know I’ve said before that stuff has the potential to act as a mirror or way to see through the illusion of this world. But really, tell me how a headboard or a pair of pillows is going to enlighten anyone?

How do I create a meaningful life for myself? What is my purpose in this lifetime? I want to make a difference. I want to live more profoundly. How can I be of use in this world?

Probably it’s pointless to go round and round in circles trying to figure out some kind of ideal occupation for myself. Instead I need to find my center again and create a regular spiritual practice. Once I regain my power and further develop it, my path will unfold of its own accord. I remember one thing that I think Carolyn Myss said on her tapes-- something like, maybe your role here is to simply raise the spiritual energy in your neighborhood, maybe your high degree of evolution holds the peace in your neighborhood or raises other people’s level of god consciousness (of course I’m wildly paraphrasing but you get the general idea). Our work here on this planet may be vastly different than what we think it is.

I know I need to work on myself and I need to figure out the answers to my bigger questions.

I’m sitting in the living room writing by candlelight with incense burning and soothing music playing. Tonight is a night for quiet reflecting.

I think this is what used to be called a midlife crisis, this thing I’ve been going through. I remember back in those days when I was reading Jung, he wrote about the midlife issues that arise in one’s thirties. I should try to find his writings on the subject. It might help shed some light on my issues. I told John I had made a decision that on January 1 I would be normal again. He’s never seen me normal since I’ve been going through this crazy phase--the whole time I’ve lived out here. It’s been a long time since I felt normal. And what is normal for me? When I’m normal I’m a powerful spiritual being. I’m a force to be reckoned with. Put to use that force could do a great deal of good somehow, some way in this world. When was the last time I felt that power within me? It’s been years now. I need to come back around to embody that deeper, fuller expression of myself. I’ve become so chronically stressed that I can’t get beyond the feeling of anxiety in my chest to any experience of power. When I used to radiate power it would seem to begin in my chest, but now there’s too much stress in the way. At times, usually when I’m driving up we’re back on I-76, and I reflect on the anxiety in my chest, I get the sense that it’s a façade only. The stressed feeling is only surface deep but it masks this profound grief. I have yet to have a chance to delve into it deeply, but I suspect when and if I do, and if I’m able to resolve it or come to some sort of understanding, my anxiety will vanish. What do I grieve? It seems to be tied to S. and sometimes to Grandpa. The last time I had a night like this and had also lit candles and burned incense I had this sad longing to have either S. or Grandpa just sitting in my green chair, keeping me company with their presence and conversation. At one point the scent of the incense morphed into the scent of Grandpa’s pipe tobacco. He felt so near and yet not nearly close enough. I miss having a deep soul connection with someone, someone who can come and sit in my living room in the flesh and blood.

I’ve realized also recently that I miss dancing. True, at the Dances of Universal Peace I really didn’t feel a connection to most of the people there, but energetically what we did as a whole group was absolutely amazing. I have nothing to raise my energy the way those dances did. Dancing was my spiritual practice. It kept me centered and it helped keep my energy heightened to spiritual plane. Maybe partly why I’ve lost my way is because I lost that way of keeping myself tapped it into Spirit. Even contra dancing raised my energy. Dancing is just spiritual for me, I think. I wish it were possible to start dancing again, but it’s just so impractical living out here when all of the dances are in Denver or Boulder or Fort Collins.

Back to the anxiety thing. I was remembering the time back in 1991 or 1992 when I had the same issue. I remember sitting by that stream and meditating and having a conversation with my chest and how my chest was telling me it was protecting my heart. It seems to be the same thing now. I think the stress just masks a wounded heart and I don’t think I’m just grieving S. and Grandpa, I’m grieving about the events of the past few years, all of the hardships. It seems I could never just stop and grieve each event, to break down and weep for the pain of each thing. So my chest just held it all. If I stopped holding, if I acknowledged it all and let it out, maybe my heart would open again and I’d begin to come back into my power. Cognitively all along I’ve known that “All is well.” I know I am cared for and protected and that no real harm can ever come to me. And yet I fully immerse myself in the drama of my life, reacting as if none of that were true. Why all of the fear, worry, and anxiety when I know no harm can come to me? Why do I engage in it the way I do? The important task for me, if I want to be “normal again”, is to open my heart. Then I can come back into my real power and once I do that then the rest of my life can fall into place. See, right now I’m so lost I can’t begin to see what my life’s purpose is. I want to do something worthwhile but I can’t see what that might be. I hope that once I find my center my way will become clear.

I’ve been having a lot of past life memory flashes in the past week or two and many flashes of memory from my blissful childhood, most of them of our cabin vacations. I think this is all a good sign because these types of flashes haven’t stirred in me much for very long time. Also about a week or two ago there wasn’t a day that passed when some little tidbit of a dream didn’t come true later that day. And in the waking world there are definitely some stirrings inside of me, so maybe there’s some hope yet.

I’m all about simplicity these days. I want to get back to the essence of life. Somewhere in the past few years I’ve lost my center. I want to get it back and I feel like the key to that is to be found in simplicity. I don’t want all the trappings of modern life to obscure the real essence of my life.

I’m making progress, but there’s still much for me to do. Every week when I venture into Boulder County the dichotomy of my two lives is overwhelming. The traffic, the rude drivers, the rampant commercialism, the tract after tract of hideous developments with huge ugly house--it all eats away at my soul. How can people live immersed in all of that constantly and not just go crazy? It would be so much better if I didn’t have to go in there every week. I need to get mediation scheduled with Pete so hopefully we can reach an agreement. I think I also need to find some kind of a regular spiritual practice. Even though I tired of the Dances of Universal Peace after a while, I think that regular spiritual communion with others was really important for me. I don’t know what could replace that out where I am now. I know I would like to develop a regular meditation habit--although I’ve failed that for as long as I’ve been alive. But I also think it’s important for me to participate in some sort of spiritual community. I need to start looking for one. Not necessarily strictly spiritual maybe with an ecological intent to it, I don’t know. I just know I need to realign my life. I used to be so centered and powerful. I’m not being my full self these days.

How have I become so stuck in the past few years? What is this all about? Somewhere along the way I lost my ability to believe in prosperity. It seems like now all I’m able to believe in is scarcity, poverty, hardship and struggle.

Let me tell you about my latest wildlife encounter. Since I’ve moved to Snyder I’ve encountered antelope, jack rabbits, deer, and hawks, but this latest encounter was maybe the best one in my life. There is a state wildlife area near Snyder just on the other side of the river and last Tuesday I finally got around to stopping there and taking a walk down to the river. I had to walk back through the tall grass maybe a quarter of a mile to the river. I came out on the riverbank, which stands maybe ten or fifteen feet above the water, and looked out across the water. When I turned my head to look down the river there, sitting on a log no more than thirty feet away from me, was a beautiful great horned owl. It was huge and was looking at me with its great round yellow eyes. To watch it blink was indescribable.There was such an impression of consciousness, of meeting up with a great old soul.

 

We shared the space for several minutes, both of us totally relaxed and accepting of one another’s presence. The owl would turn his head away from me for awhile to scan the waters, and I would turn away to take in the scenery. I loved the nonchalant way he would turn his head away from me, slowly closing his eyes as he did, in the same aloof way a cat might. After a few minutes, and a final look at me, he shifted his body to face the river, lifting and repositioning his incredible huge talons. And then he took off over the river, silently and gracefully flapping his enormous wings. I watched him disappear into the woods on the other side, then briefly caught a magical glimpse of him flying parallel to the river back in amongst the trees.

My words will probably not do justice to the awesomeness of the experience. Part of what made it so amazing was the way I instantly felt accepted, as if the owl recognized I belonged there just as much as he did--the way we stood side by side, albeit thirty feet apart, like we were equals. I almost might say it felt a little like we recognized each other, like maybe we’ve met some time before. I did what I always do when I have a meaningful encounter with another being—I sent it the silent message “Remember who you are, remember your true identity.” (Although part of me feels he could already be fully enlightened or at least very, very close to it.) What a powerful old soul was he (or she)! I feel very blessed and lucky to have met up with this owl. It felt like it was meant to happen. I don’t know exactly what the odds are of meeting up with one of these nocturnal creatures at 1:00 in the afternoon but I’d bet it’s fairly rare (although I was probably interrupting his nap).

 

Later I looked up on the Internet what the owl is supposed to symbolically represent. In some traditions, particularly in the Apache tradition, the owl represents death, and seeing one is to be feared because it portends the death of someone you know. Most other traditions, including most other Native American ones, had more positive interpretations and they tended to be similar. Owls represent clairvoyance and clairaudience and the ability to see people clearly through all of their facades, to see them as they truly are. Owls can also represent new beginnings. On one website it listed what they called birth totems, kind of similar to your sun sign in astrology. It turns out that my birth totem is the owl. How interesting than I am at times clairvoyant and clairaudient and that, for the past few years at least, I've been aware that I read people energetically with great accuracy. Even if my encounter has no symbolic meaning whatsoever I will treasure my memory of it forever.

Well this is such an intense period in my life. Strange things are happening internally--it feels like someone decided to totally rearrange the furniture inside of me. Things that have gone stale and lifeless are being turned on end, the rugs are being shaken out, the windows unboarded. It feels magnificent! I feel like this new life here is going to allow whole new aspects of my being to manifest. This is truly one of those rare opportunities to recreate myself.

I’m still overwhelmed at this transition I’m making. It’s been such a profound experience. I think some very deep place inside of me must have believed this kind of life had been lost forever because, and I haven’t been able to find the language to frame this very well yet, but it feels utterly miraculous. It feels like I’ve been picked up and set back down somewhere in the past—like I get to hit a rewind button and go back to the best part and start over from there. I wish I could find better words or metaphors to describe this. It’s on the level of having a loved one come back from the grave—an unbelievable, blissful miracle. It kind of feels like I’ve gotten to jump back into a past life. In a way, I kind of have. I think the old soul inside of me that has lived countless lives has been deeply grieving these past eight years, as our millions of years of history and connection with the land was seemingly lost and destroyed. And there’s truth to that--it is being largely lost. Stuck in suburbia for those eight years it seemed wholly true--my soul registered it as Truth--and grieved terribly because of it. It’s only a partial truth though, and maybe it’s destined to be our future, who knows, but thankfully it’s not the whole truth yet. What powerful grief though! My soul believing this timeless way of life was gone forever--and can you begin to get a sense of my elation at having been given back this most precious thing I thought I had lost? It’s one of the most intense experiences I’ve ever had, though words still fail me. I’m filled with unbelievable gratitude.

The past few months have been quite a journey. Look what I have manifested! It continues to amaze me how we can get exactly what we want when we ask for it and our intentions are clear. In my search for a house I was looking at classified ads from all over--up in the mountains, north of Fort Collins, even into southern Wyoming--but for some reason I felt pulled out here. It’s that little tug in my chest that I recognize as guidance--and I’ve learned to listen! I don’t know why this is where I meant to be but I know without a doubt it is where meant to be. Who knows what lies in store for me here?

Even this little house is such a blessing. It reminds me of all of the cabins and cottages we vacationed in when I was a kid, and those are awesome associations to have. Those vacations when I was growing up are some of my most blissful memories, out of a childhood that was truly enormously filled with bliss. So living here, just being in this space, I feel nurtured and held like I was as a child. It kind of feels like I’ve come home.

I was just leafing through a book I have called The New Natural House Book. There was a section called “The Spiritual House” and the first paragraph struck a chord with me. It said:

 

“Apart from the obvious need to live in homes that are healthy for the body, there is the much older and deeper desire to dwell it in a place that is healthy for the mind and spirit. The spiritual aspects are the most important for indigenous peoples. There are many accounts of how they fall ill or even die if forced to leave their ancestral homes. The modern breakup of the community and its dispersal into disconnected ‘domestic islands’ and anonymous housing produces similar alienation, stress, family breakdown, and illness and again can even be fatal. Our links with the earth, the spiritual community, and natural places are being lost and forgotten throughout the world today. In the increasingly rootless Western society, these links must be recreated if we are to be truly well.”

In the past months I’ve said numerous times, when talking about my need to get out of suburbia, that it feels like it is literally killing me. As I’ve said that I know it must sound absurd--how could it literally kill me? But it feels that powerful. I completely understand what indigenous people mean when they talk about being one with the land. It’s not a metaphor. It gets back to what I’ve learned about energy since moving to Colorado. The land vibrates energetically and we vibrate energetically. I believe that my birthplace, the place where I spent the first seventeen and a half years of my life, resonates or vibrates at the same frequency that I do. Or actually, it should be the other way around. My energy field attuned to the energy of the land and met its vibration and therefore I feel happiest and best when I’m in similar vibrational fields.

As I’ve said before, I think there are multiple layers of energy on this planet. The land emanates deeply and powerfully, the energy of indigenous people who lived here before us is held and still emanates, the plants and trees emanate energy, as do the animals and the masses of humanity emanate energy and imprint upon the environment.

When there’s been massive development and the land, plants, animals, and indigenous people have been disrespected, the vibration of the place is lowered or subdued or harder to discern and resonate with. Also, population density muddles things too, since you’re dealing with thousands or millions of unenlightened souls mucking along in vibrationally low energy states. It’s hard to penetrate that layer of muck. No wonder suburbia feels so awful.

 

Anyway, I’m getting off the subject. What I wanted to say is that the saying “to be one with the land” has a very deep meaning. Where do I start and where do I leave off? The exterior walls of my body, my skin, that’s not all of me. I extend out and vibrationally and energetically am, truly, one with the land. We’re not separate, at least not when our vibrations match, as they did for my first seventeen and a half years. No wonder I feel like suburbia could literally kill me—I’ve been cut off from part of myself that’s out there in Soap Hollow. That part of me was as good as dead in the suburbs. I can only be most fully who I’m meant to be in this lifetime when I’m in touch with the same vibrational frequency that I was immersed in as a child. Now I probably can’t recreate that exactly as long as I’m in Colorado, but I can tell already that the vibration here in Snyder, Colorado is a lot closer to what I felt as a child than anything I’ve experienced in a long, long time. I feel certain life will be easier here for me because vibrationally I’m being supported and I’m able to be more fully who I meant to be. Good things are going to happen here.

The overwhelming process of moving and getting settled in continues. The house I’ve rented is tiny, really just a small cottage, so I’ve had to do some incredible downsizing. I’m still in the process of sifting through all of my stuff and trying to decide what to do with it all. Some of it is in storage in Fort Morgan, some of it is crammed into the tiny storm cellar under the house, some will be donated, recycled or sold. It’s amazing how much stuff I’ve accumulated over the years—shocking, really. How much stuff does anyone really need?

Living in this house will be a really good thing for me. I love simplicity—now I’ll really have to practice simplicity. I’ll pare things down to the bare essentials, only keeping what’s most necessary or what gives me the greatest pleasure. Plus, I’ll spend less money because before I make any purchases I’ll have to ask, “Do I really need this?”, and “Where will I put it?” That should weed out a lot of unnecessary spending.

How do I rid myself of the notion that money corrupts. How do I give myself permission to have things? What does money symbolize for me? I guess not having any is another way I box myself in and limit possibilities. Is the world really that scary when you have total freedom? How many boxes can a girl create? Why do I want so many boundaries around myself?

Not having any money seems maybe to be a childish way of not accepting full responsibility for my life. It’s a way I don’t fully accept this life I was given to live. I can’t reach my full potential boxed in like this. I need elbow room.

The thing is (I always seem to get back to this when I really look at who I really am, truly) is that if I were to break out of this box I would be a damn powerful being. I know what incredible power lurks inside me--and I mean incredible power. Unleash that on the world and look out!

Why am I so afraid of my own power? Why do I fight so hard to control and contain it? Is it that I would be noticed, and if so, why don’t I want to be noticed? Why am I here on earth if not to show up and be seen? Good grief, how did I get from finances to the being-seen issue? Alright, I need to be seen. I can’t hide from life.

Where does this habit of hiding originate from? What could possibly be the danger of showing up? If I look at all the little remnants of past life memories I can dredge up it seems I spent many very solitary lives, and in the few where I did show up I was punished for it. So maybe I haven’t really had much practice. I’ve been an introvert for too many lifetimes and haven’t developed the extraverted side of myself. Maybe this is the lifetime where that needs to happen. There’s no more work to do in developing introspectively. That part of me is whole and healthy and has reached its full potential. Until I focus on developing extraversion I will remain stuck and stagnant. It feels really hard because it is. This is an aspect of myself that is way underdeveloped. It’s going to require a lot of hard work and persistence. There’s an incredible inertia built up over many lifetimes that has to be overcome. I got comfortable just doing what I was good at over and over and never tried to stretch my wings.

OK practically speaking, what can I do? I need to be on the phone every day talking to people. I need to cultivate new friendships and do it in an active way--not wait for people to show up. I need to pursue every business contact I have.

Alright, I’m feeling bogged down and stressed already. That last one--pursue every business contact--got me. It feels too broad, like I’ll end up wasting too much energy going in too many directions instead of the few that might actually get me somewhere. This is where I always get stuck. I run around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying all sorts of things to generate business even if they don’t really resonate with me and feel right. I need to figure out what resonates and pursue only those leads. Like Lynn Grabhorn says, I have to be able to get my energy up and feel the goodness of these possibilities or all my actions will be empty and fruitless.

Life looks different already—dramatically different. I found a place an hour and a half east of Longmont and I’m mostly moved, but still have a little more to bring out here before I’m truly settled in. I’m in a little town, although it barely qualifies. The streets are unpaved, the houses old and ramshackle. There are horses and geese and tons of stray cats in the middle of town. The population is somewhere in the 400s and I think that includes some surrounding farms. It’s such a small town I feel Collin can have the run of the place and I’ll have no need to worry. In Longmont I’d only ever let him go down to the stop sign at the corner of our block. It feels so good to be able to give this to Collin—kids are meant to be able to ramble and wander aimlessly. This seems to be the perfect place for that.

Every commute I’ve made so far, back and forth from here to Longmont, has had me choked with emotion. I’m overwhelmed with how beautiful the land is. It feels like I’m only beginning to get a taste for the true nature of this state. For eight years I lived in suburbia—it could have been anywhere, in any state, a truly generic experience. Now I can finally experience what Colorado’s really about. I’m surprised how the landscape is triggering a flood of memories and emotion from my earliest childhood. I remember how on those weekend trips to Prince Gallitzen State Park I would stare out the car window and deeply soak in the land, the farms, the old red barns with the Marlboro ads on their roofs, the old silos falling in, the cows,…. Even by late childhood that landscape was dying—so many farms sold off, the barns collapsed, new homes put in, but rural Colorado here and now so deeply reminds me of the land in my earliest, dearest memories. How my heart aches! How deep is that longing in my chest—and yet, here it is again. How healing this could be for me. This is exactly what I most need. It feels so good.