The Whole Truth and Nothing But

I learned something this weekend.

It is important to communicate your truth - including the truths that look ugly - and to do it as soon as you possibly can find the courage. But here is the thing...if you are blessed with a safe forum where you can show up and say exactly what is going on in your heart only to be met with acceptance and love - then celebrate that gift in two ways:

1. Show up with the stuff you are convinced makes you unlovable. It is the only way you will truly come to see that the stuff that makes you feel selfish and petty and like a horrible person is also the stuff that makes you human and accessible and, in fact, even more lovable. Because you have stepped back and talked about these yuckky feelings, you detach from them and distinguish that the feelings may be yuckky, but you are -- not.

2. THIS WAS THE LESSON....Show up with the whole truth. I don't mean this in a 'dig into the yuckky and make sure you communicate the yuckky in total fullness' even though that is important. What i mean here is...unless all you feel is dark corners - which is hardly ever the case - also take the time to communicate the places where there is happiness. The whole truth isn't that you are really angry that your spouse left the bread out and it went moldy. The truth is that you are angry AND you are still stunningly blessed to have, at the end of the day, such an incredible spouse to be angry with. ...

Get it?

Tell the people you love that you love them. If someone takes your breathe away, let them know. And definitly do this when it is combined with feelings of doubt or fear or anger or sadness. Find time to pull that person into you and whisper in their ear all the ways that they make your life better and how - yuckkiness or not - you aren't going anywhere.

No, there are no guarantees and, no, we are not all meant to journey with each other forever. That isn't the point. The point is if you want a safe forum in which to leap then help the forum to be that safety for you by reminding it that it has your full committment in the jump.

Even if in the small moments your fear fantasizes about running out that door...

make it perfectly clear, when applicable, that in reality you have no intention of turning that doorknob.

Very much like knowing that when you open the cage and tell the bird it is free to fly...
you will often find that it is that moment the bird ceases to desire more than its cage.

The Dance

I put this into a card for Jordan and have always resonated with it. In the energy of my own doubt about love, in memory of yet another of my friends' relationships that has "shifted" and in celebration of my two month-a-versary with Jo and the demons in me that our joining seems to invite out to play....i give you the following...

The Dance by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don't jump up and shout, "Yes, this is what I want! Let's do it!"
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiralling down into the ache within the ache.
And I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, everyday.

Don't tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong
without abandoning yourself
when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
And see who I am in the stories I am living.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don't tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly OK with the way things are right now in this moment,
and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall,
to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept
the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other,
let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving
those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance,
the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places
where the earth beneath my feet
and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business
without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us
shout that soul's desires have too high a price,
let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people
and the world the stories and the songs you want our children's children to remember,
and I will show you how I struggle not to change the world,
but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging.
Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words,
holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations
of our sincerest intentions has died away on the wind,
dance with me
in the infinite pause before the next great inhale of the breath
that is breathing us all into being,
not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don't say, "Yes!" Just take my hand and dance with me.

Looooooooooooooove that piece. Love it. My depression is subsiding. I think my slowly renewed energy is coming from realizing that what i must do is give notice here at work. I promised myself that i wouldn't stay if i ever started to dread coming to work in the morning and that day has arrived. Do i know what i will make money doing instead? No. Is it logical to quit a well paying, cushy position when there are bills to pay? No. Do i have a master plan that answers the what next? Not really. But i have faith and know that whatever i need will be supplied to me. Just look what happenned last year. I will not allow my soul's desires to have too high a price.

And i desire to let someone else order the office supplies.

Thanks Oriah.

Clear Mind

I went to the Awakenings workshops planning on dropping out and i stayed. I walked into groups of people swearing i would not get to know anyone and i met angels. I refused to participate fully and then i cried more in 48 hours than i have in the last 5 years. I came home sure that i needed out of my relationship and, upon telling him how i felt, i fell in love with him even more deeply. I am a healing, hurting, oozing wound of contradiction.

Welcome to this side of Krista.

Poor Jordan. He is sorta doing his best to love me through my waves of needing to escape all the challenges our relationship presents. He is scared. I can tell. It is taking everything in him to not grab on for dear life, because he knows at any second he could turn to find me and i could be gone. I know he wants to be secure enough to allow me the freedom to stay or go without finding himself devestated, but it is hard. So much of me is certain that he deserves more than this. But, ultimately, he keeps saying...i know this fear isn't you. I know this fear isn't about me or us. I must stay and believe you will walk through these dark corners and keep on - day by day - choosing love. He is the bravest scared guy i have ever met. And i try to not save him from me. I am trying to leave it to him to save himself if he feels it is necessary.

So, i feel pretty screwed up right now.

If my job doesn't change soon, i will quit and leap once again with faith that i will find another opportunity. Right now, it is sapping my soul and i have hit my limit.

Everything just feels sort of ... off. You know? And the workshop has opened a can of saddness that is sorta sitting on me like a damp cloak. But i have gotten through tough times before - and looked what i ended up with! - i know i can do it again. I can do this. I can face my monsters and not let them drag me under. I can choose love. I can experiment with not running. Even if it is for a few extra days than normal.

Like the train engine going uphill....

ithinkicanithinkicanithinkicanithinkicanithinkicanithinkican.............

amoeba indents

about to leave for my awakenings retreat.

god, i have been grumpy for like 5 days in a row.

and i don't wanna go to this retreat. which makes me feel awful. guilty. which makes me feel like going to the retreat less because it adds to my list of amoeba indents (aka those suspisions of self or places in which your disabling belief systems have taken a chunk out of your complete happiness). in light of this weekend, i shall list my indents...a rant of sorts. because being positive today isn't an option and will make me want to punch someone in the face.

WHAT EATS INTO KRISTA'S AMOEBA

ryan ignoring me at the office just because i have a boyfriend now and i guess i am not half as interesting when the possibility of seeing me naked is reduced even further from its original NEVERGONNAHAPPEN odds, happy music when the world feels like a big mud puddle that i am slogging my way through, the fact that i did not get the chance to have a dad, the fact that my ex's play victim like pros and i am soooooo sick of it, my sex life always being painful or unbalanced or simply frustrating, when i do stuff i love i am broke and when i am making money i am ususally doing mind-numbing crap like fed ex-ing shit for adult children, the rain that never ever ever stops in vancouver, getting zits at the age of 28, exhausting myself trying to schedule everything perfectly so that i don't get exhausted, pretty much everything about my current job at this point, being pretty sure that i am a hurtful and horrible girlfriend, my disappointing naked body, people that don't make themselves clear when they speak to me, laying on the ground and being asked to breath into the pain, the suspision that everyone does - in the end - leave, my constant urge to run, run, run, impatience with anyone that can't learn how to dance or sing or speak fast enough, my fear that i am running out of time, having people ask me to save them, my dwindling eyesight, being so smart and still - not really - most of the time - getting it.

maybe this weekend will heal me. maybe it will just annoy me like everything else i and i will leave. maybe i will just ignore what they lay out for me and take advantage of the free food and hot tub. maybe i will wake up one morning soon and this black cloud will have gone away. maybe i should move back home and start from scratch again. maybe i should quit my job and trust that another one will appear. maybe i should go back to school.

maybe i have just made a complete circle and am back to where i was in FUCKING JUNE!!!!!!

good going krista. brilliant. well done.

where is darryl and a bag of Spitz when you need 'em?

Author Unknown

The Earth

If the earth were only a few feet in diameter, floating a few feet above a field somewhere, people would come from everywhere to marvel at it. People would walk around it, marvelling at its great pools of water, its little pools and the water flowing between the pools. People would marvel at the bumps on it, and the holes in it, and they would marvel at the very thin layer of gas surrounding it and the water suspended in the gas. The people would marvel at all the creatures walking around the surface of the ball, and at the creatures in the water. The people would declare it precious because it was the only one, and they would protect it so that it would not be hurt. The ball would be the greatest wonder known, and people would come to behold it, to be healed, to gain knowledge, to know beauty and to wonder how it could be. People would love it and defend it with their lives, because they would somehow know that their lives, their own roundness, could be nothing without it. If the earth were only a few feet in diameter.

I read this and thought about the new love in my life, whose heart is so good, that he is brought to tears when he observes the thoughtless abuse we inflict often on this planet. To him, Earth is a family member and he hurts when it hurts. I also dedicate this blog to the plastic bags i now think to take with me to the grocery store, the tap that i shut off when i brush my teeth, the food choices that are i never thought i would make, the questions i now ask about composting and biodiesel. There is still so much that i, that you, that we can do. Sometimes i feel helpless and lectured and defensive and tired and i chuck something in the garbage that could be recycled. Then there are days, like today, that i lift my face into the rain and breathe in the damp air and whisper, i love you.

Let us marvel.

100% Cracked Wheat

I ate so much bread this weekend.

No, you don't understand. Bread is my crack. I try to keep myself away from it because when i start there is no stopping me. One piece buttered becomes another with PB&J and before you know it i am dipping whole loaves into cream based soups and groaning in pleasure. Don't get me wrong - i am not against pleasure in any way - but it the part that comes next that is disturbing.

Bread equals chubby. Suddenly naked in a mirror i am all thigh and more aware than ever of my non-existant ankles and my tummy, bloated and round. Of course, being a woman, this image of myself gets blown up by about 3000x and suddenly i am morbidly obese and convinced that, come morning, i will have lost all my friends, my current lover and most of my wardrobe. It is a guiltfest and i am the headliner.

When i fall in love i gain weight. That has always been my pattern. But i am trying to break alot of patterns these days.

Like jealousy. I spent three years with Aidan secretly thinking up ways to soil the memory of Her in his mind, imagining us bumping into Her only to find out that She has turned ugly and stupid.... plotting and obsessing and hurting the entire time. Seems Jo has a Her. Seems most of us have a Her. And i watch myself teeter of the edge of making Her my new source of insecurity. I have had moments that blinded me with greeeeeeeeen envy convinced that i could never & will never be half the woman She is...the pain, the pain. But it seems i have also had moments where i have been able to detach from the feelings and choose something different. It is hard, but my spiritual abs keep me from falling...

Anyone with any real advice on jealousy - let me know.

As for my patterns, i will keep my head up and recognize them into oblivion.

As for eating bread and getting chubby...

Ah, hell, pass the gravy.

Organic Princess

I feel like i am living a double life. Perhaps i am just in a whole lotta balance.

One moment i am wearing my thrift store clothes and hiking boots, walking to the grocery store to lower fuel emissions, buying sprouts and spinach and soymilk and organic brown rice and then shoving as many items into one bag as possible to save our landfills from plastic that does not biodegrade. The next i am wearing my new hot pink sweater and MAC lipgloss, standing in an elevator of my corporate office building with a Starbucks Soy Chai Latte in one hand, two dozen Tim Horton's donuts in the other and a Marie Clare magazine tucked under my arm that promises to tell me the latest hair styles and sex secrets. Some of my life is spent in a quiet apartment with Tibetan chimes playing while i journal and sip herbal tea beside a candle and some of my life is spent in a TexMex restaurant on a cheap burgers and beers night making lude comments and posing for gratuitous cleavage shots while appreciative men gawk.

I am torn between wondering which is the mask and which is my authentic self........when it hits me:

What if it is all pieces of me? What if i don't have to decide? What if the beauty of my life is that i hang out in limbo dipping my toe into as many different worlds as possible knowing that they are all as 'right' or 'wrong' as i decide them to be? What if all that matters is being kind to yourself and serving the world with that inner joy?

What if i can be the first Corporate Organic Princess?

The first Artistic Yuppie Bohemian?

The Lost Girls

With every year older i grow, femail friendships have taken on a whole new importance. My most challanging and, thus, rewarding friendships have been with women. There have been ebbs and there have been tides. This morning i felt the tug of a tide rushing in. After a year and a half, Karen Bender's name appearred in my inbox. And i couldn't have been more thrilled.

Karen and i had a connection of spirit, intellect and common interest. I always enjoyed her presence because she was a talker, like me, smart-as-a-whip, like me and was a heart-centered guru disguised as a tough, head-centered gal, like me. But there was an undercurrent of competition that existed under our bond and, like anything fueled by Ego, it eventually drown out the love. When we finally let go of the friendship, we were batterred and bruised. For me, Karen had become a person that reflected all the things i despised about myself. In this way, she was a great teacher...but, for this reason, i felt it was also time to love myself and forgive myself and allow myself to say 'i am a wonderful, kind and precious human being and deserve to be treated that way.' I am sure Karen was going through a similar journey. We parted ways. She got married. She moved to Australia and a year and a half later she has emailed me.

I meet her with love. As i would meet any of the old femail friendships of my past that went astray. I am not the same person that i was 2 years ago. I know my boundaries and understand i deserve to be treated like gold, but i love my sisters. I crave more goddess bonding here in Vancouver and welcome healthy, supportive friendships with somebodies who understand living on this earth with boobs.

In that vein, let me shout from the rooftops - JENNIE ARRIVES TOMORROW!!!

So, to the Melanie's, Sara-Jeanne's, Karen's, Naomi's, Katherine's of my world...to the femail aunts and cousins that i have avoided and blamed...to each and every woman who decided they disliked me just by observing me in a room and to each and every woman i have hurt for the love of a boy, i say...forgive me. I send you my humble responsibility and committment to heal any wounds that ask for healing.

After all, us creatures with boobs gotta stick together.

Living The Unimaginable Life

For anyone who has had a relationship that didn't 'work' or is in a relationship that could use a bit of help - even a tiny bit - please please please please read:

The Unimaginable Life by Kenny and Julia Loggins

I recieved this book as a gift for Christmas from Jordan and i read it during Christmas as a gift to Jordan. This book has altered the way i will look at relationship forever. And it has made me proud to declare that i have gotten myself into the most conscious relationship i have ever had.

This weekend proved that.

What was perfect about our self-proclaimed Nothing Weekend was that it wasn't perfect. Highlights included finally getting my period (thankyouthankyouthankyou), smooching in Stanley Park with Hot Chocolate, laughing like children at Will Farrell's Anchorman, dancing in living rooms and bedrooms and finally Abbotsford, creamcheese icing at one in the morning, making love again, sleeping in, seeing what works. But the weekend had other highlights that were painful and difficult and from them, we grew. There was feeling judged and there was judging, there was the relationship dance called trying-to-stay-true-to-yourself-while-being-flexible-enough-to-include-a-very-different-person-in-your-life. There were tears, on both our behalfs, struggling to not babysit each other's 'off' energies and wondering how you love someone without taking what they do (or don't do) personally.

At one point i was overwhelmed with how complicated it all seems to be and, to be honest, i am still sitting with that. But like Eckhart Tolle says in The Power of Now - that is my pain-body talking and the only way to not let it take over is to stand back and look at it. When you say to your pain-body - I SEE YOU - then it loses its power. And i plan to top this off with some gooey treatments that will help me re-member that Jo and i are, in Truth, unfolding with ease, joy and grace.

Above all, i want to be re-minded that falling in love daily is FUN.

Made some other neat discoveries in my journal this morning. I have zero ability to be criticized. It destroys me. I make many choices throughout my day in hopes of avoiding any situation where i could be reprimanded or criticized. I plan to keep exploring this new awareness. Curious, isn't it?

5 More Movies I Am Told I Must See:
Hotel Rawanda
Finding Neverland
The Aviator
Sideways
The Woodsmen

A website that i just discovered and highly recommend: www.thegreatstory.org
And visit my buddy's new blog - angst and all: http://darrylfocker.blogspot.com

...and to round it off i will give you Kenny Loggin's new albulm as my newest listening pick:
It's About Time .... for more info visit his site at www.kennyloggins.com.

Oh, and a quote. I can't forget a quote...how's this:
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." ---Emerson

Ok, if you insist...

My Secret Sky

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet." ---- Rumi

God, i love that quote. It just sums up my entire last year of life, my fledgling relationship and almost entirely the advice i seem to be giving alot lately. Let go of making things happen. Sit back and watch them unfold. So difficult for me. I struggle with patience.

Last night i went to a walk-in clinic to take a pregnancy test. I am two weeks late, not characteristic, and being sexually active again i was really lost for explanations. Somehow i knew i wasn't pregnant, but i had to know for sure. So, there i was at a clinic - my brand new boyfriend (so new that i still blush to use that word) sweetly nervous sitting in the waiting room, snow outside falling against the streetlights - trying to remember to be gentle and forgiving with myself. It felt surreal. When i took on this relationship as a way of saying that, having found centre, i was ready to take on my deepest, buried issues, i didn't think the universe would respond so quickly!

So i peed in a cup and confirmed what i thought. I am not bleeding, but i am not pregnant. I am just mixed up. Huh. Tell me something i didn't know.

This weekend Jo and i have committed to a Nothing Weekend. From today at 5pm until Monday morning, we have zero committments, but to each other. We have gotten so sick of holding each other while we stare at clocks, sqeezing one more minute in before we 'have to get going' that we felt we deserved a weekend to go slow and stop planning and turn off the clocks. I send you your own Nothing Weekend soon. They save lives.

Speaking of saving lives and weekend committments and issues, i should mention this: for all the 'issues' i face and desire to heal, i am humbled and reminded how really perfect my life is when confronted with the news in Asia. Out of such devestation, such beauty emerges and my heart breaks for all of us. Because we are all one. Tonight at 7pm i am going to stop and hold my hands to my heart and spend 15 minutes with many people throughout the world who will be doing the same in affirmation that those passed and those left behind will rebuild and grow strong once again. In affirmation that the universe is, in Truth, a loving place and we have nothing to fear. Hope to feel you there.

Without Feet.

Let it Snow and Other Ramblings

2005 starts and thus i begin a brand new blog.

I woke up this morning to a white Vancouver. Some of the thoughts i have already had regarding this first snowfall:

This snow is pussy snow. It is like a bad imitation of snow. It is like a drag queen that got dressed up in white army fatigues. This isn't real snow! It is slightly more committed rain.

That being said, i love that it can be snowing so hard and i still don't need mittens. I do, however, need to leave for work earlier seeing that BC people go even slower in the white stuff AND perhaps concede to the fact that, whimpy or not, it is still snow that impedes the wearing of 2 inch heeled boots.

Enough about snow.

A life lesson: in scene study at theatre school, the teacher often stops you and asks 'what is your motivation here?' In the event you say something like 'i don't want edgar to leave' or 'i am conflicted about whether or not to tell edgar about his illegitimate child' the teacher may well respond with this -- 'THAT is not a motivation. You can not be clear about what you DON'T want and you can not make your motivation negative. You must figure out exactly what you want, state it simply and succinctly. Only then will you have a goal worthy of fighting for.' So, i translate that into my life. Instead of saying 'i don't want to be pregnant' i say ' i want my body to be healthy and strong and for it to offer outcomes that will serve my highest and best good'.

Not that i am saying i am pregnant. Not that i am saying that i am not.

Hmmmmmm...have i got you curious yet?