before you wake up. It's still. There is sound but no movement. How long I have been sleeping.  A year exactly. I fell into some sick dream and coughed up soul, caught the cold of loneliness when you are not alone, got caught up in the madness of the mundane world despite any progress I'd previously made.

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

I fell into a dream.
It wasn't a pretty one.
I fell out of me.
I fell out of being at home in this body.
I fell into the darkness.
I fell into a deep scream and was silenced for
being something that just didn't quite fit in this world.

I'm not awake yet. But I've been listening to the sounds outside. I've been hearing sounds of life. Rain on the window. Sand hill crane. Life buzzing by.

I'm not awake yet, but I'm thinking of opening my eyes....

and she held the song in the shape of her dreams. so carefully, her skin soft as the leaves on spring trees. some sort of offering!

and the song floats to the not so distant shores of the ocean roaming her soul, of the place where infinite peace resides.

and i let it shake me. listen until i shatter.

how people can create such beauty astounds me. and i think: creating music is to open your soul and let god speak. and i think: listening is an act of love. and i think: in the space of the waves of sound washing our souls around we can finally come clean. can see and be seen for who we truly are---

shockingly beautiful. holy, happy, and free.

After a thousand years of silence, what word do you say first?

thank you (2 words)
sorry (more of a story really)

Sorry because I broke the silence, because I let I, me, my ego out for a walk.
What can I say? maybe it was the wind. Today it blew in almost every direction.
A sure sign of spring. And I can no longer be silent. And I've had enough of
being still.

Although, there is nothing to say, really. Already, there are already enough words to read for three life times. Even now, I have so much more to learn. So how can I speak? And what can I say?

Except:

Sorry, i'm writing because i'm tired. i'm writing to remember the sea (instead of reminding myself daily that i am not an island). i'm writing because i need to breathe, to move, and to be. Sorry, i'm writing for me.

Inside there is infinite space. It only appears to be on the outer edge of our reach. Fingers twisting in the lack of what can't be reached outside of us, they point in two directions, as if the body were pointing to something logic is too blind to see.

Sometimes, it's so difficult to believe. One minute you're colliding with another entity, and the next moment you're free.

There is a story that could be called something akin to memory, that replays again and again. It's become a sort of prayer or mantra even. The cycle of collision, and the space it creates. And I suppose it could be called something like love.

I remember when.....the ring was on my left hand. shining like snow in the sun. The luminosity of  leaving, though, glittered a little more brightly. I remember more than any fool's gold, the cold feeling of being alone sitting in the same room as someone I didn't even think I had ever known.  I remember the collision of moments that cupped their careful hands around our souls. I remember that it didn't stop the crash that broke me completely. If I've lost pieces, am I still me? This worry consumed me then. Only smaller parts of soul remained. Sometimes death isn't of the body. Still, I retained some sense of identity---it just took a while to see it:

The small piece left with so much space. My soul had the sound of a drum, rattling my body with what was left of it's core. Sometimes the bird stays in the cage when given the chance to be free. Sometimes what we don't know is more scary than any prison of our past scars seem to be.

I stayed far longer than was necessary--for us, but it took a while to fully fill me with me. I remember the bright words of a friend, they were in the shape of dreams. They were not something to be wished on--like a shooting star or birthday candle. They contained more depth than a well of wishes, they were my hope of returning (to the freedom of my true identity, or to seek it at least). They were this:

Sometimes the moments that most seem to carve holes in our heart are blessings we can't see. In some way they create a place for joy, for light, for love to live there later. Another time, when you have the room, the peaceful place for bliss to be.

I receive words at random intervals
-from distant corners of the earth (to)
you have tucked yourself in close,
climbed the aretes of my dreams.

Please don't ask me about the cold
About the snow, about falling.
As if that is all that exists
As if freezing is the only real thing
to me.

The memory seems to scream :
 you said
He's such a searcher, that's the truth,
you said
It's all in the ride, to be free, you just
gotta get going to breathe, to really Be.

And beyond the dynamic enchantment
of your daily doings,

I am here, now.

THE RULES:
===================
1. Link to the person's blog who tagged you: Stella Luna, and Maze

2. Post these rules on your blog.

3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.

4. Tag seven random [?] people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.
   (except I like the shout out notification that I got better)
___________________________________________________________________________

Okay, the randomness begins:

1. After reading Everything is Illuminated, rather than keeping a book of the types of sadness like Brod---I started a book of the different types of happiness. It includes such entries as: The happiness of sleeping in clean sheets. The happiness of unattachment. The happiness of complete attachment, the happiness of longing --of achingly beautiful, albeit unsatiated, desires. The happiness of music from another room, that you can sing in time to when you no longer hear it....etc, etc.

2. I color code my closet via rainbow, and darks to light within a color. But this will become easier because another random fact is that I've decided to only buy clothes from now on that are blue, brown and white because I like them best.

3. Ever since I heard the phrase "You are what you eat" (as a little girl) I quit eating certain animal crackers. I will not eat: goats, hippos, donkeys, camels, or elephants.

4. I think I miss the music the most....Growing up, I don't think I went a day in my life without singing in my family. We(my mom, sister, brother, and me---and sometimes my dad) sang every where we drove. In the shower. Randomly throughout the house. When I went to college this was no longer acceptable. I miss singing terribly.

5. My first world was: OWL. (not mom, dad, etc.)

6. I hated reading until my Junior year of high school. My love for books and stories developed slowly. By my senior year, I often ditched classes to sit in an out of the way hallway and read books.

7. Sometimes, when I'm very sad and don't want to be sad, I jump up and down 10 times. It's something my mom used to make me do when I was little, when I was upset. Try it the next time you are sad and don't want to be sad. You start thinking: this is so stupid, there's no way.... (but by the fourth or fifth jump you feel so ridiculous frowing and jumping you start to laugh) And by the time you finish jumping, even your mood is elevated.

And now I tag....whoever reads this blog, as well as the people who I "shout out" to. If you post your randomness (and haven't already, let me know) I love randomness!

I can't get this life out of my head. Either of them---the one I dream of and the one I'm living. I'm all to aware of being here now.

But music takes me away. For this I am grateful.

I lose myself completely inside this song. Did today. For half an hour driving out of town aimlessly.

In my imagination I'm still driving. If you're ever restless, maybe we can meet for coffee. In the lucidity of our dreams.

Here:

Listen. Dream. Repeat.

The girl who is as luminous as the moon moved from the ocean to a place foreign and new.

No more breeze to tease her dreams into being. No more front porches, languid in southern humidity. No more music, the embodiment of sound surrounding her growing spirit.

The girl who is luminous as the moon moved to the smallest town in the world. It was anything but open as the ocean. One didn't need signs to read such things. There were small glimmers of hope, but nothing so satiating as dreams. No ocean breezes whispering in her ear at night. Not even a sound from the stars spoke as she spilled her light into the darkness of such times.

And then...

She picked up and moved again. The girl who is luminous as the moon moved from the smallest town in the world (which was too tired to mind), to the city that tries to immitate the sun. It's a losing game. But in all the brightness, she can't sleep; and so has taken to dreaming again.

It's this brightness that seeps under your skin. It may very well be her voice with the words " you can."  When one star re-awakens the light is there whether you realize it or not. Hope is incandescent.

What darkness has disappeared then?

Where were you when you awakened?

When you let the light in?

I've never been one to get angry. I can count on my fingers the times that I have been angry---really angry. i get frustrated. disillusioned. sad. hopeless. but generally, i don't get angry.

this year, i have felt more anger than i have ever felt before. i'm not sure how to feel about this. it doesn't make me more angry. i feel a little regret. anger seems like the one emotion that's not permissable. and if it is, then definately actions out of anger aren't permissable.

it's pretty simple to feel compassion for those who are sad, frustrated, hopeless. our hearts go out to those who do. but anger is seperate. an emotion that is different from any other. it doesn't prompt compassion quite as easily as it does judgement----if not anger (toward the angry).

for me, i'm finding out that anger is consuming. i haven't yet figured out how to control it completely. i swore in the hall at school after the veteran's day assembly. the disrespect and inappropriate actions of my students prompted this. but i allowed it, without meaning to.

is this normal? it's certainly not something i consider to be right.

i'd like to not acknowledge anger as real, but.....

and so....

i'd like to hear from you. maybe our anger can bring us together instead of isolate. maybe compassion for the angry can become more common...

There is silence and there is sound. One exists because of the other, but they do not co-exist.
                                         *                                 *                                    *
Balance depends on the relationship between them.
                                        *                                 *                                     *
When my relationship is balanced between them, there is peace
               
           
                *                        *                        *                    *                        *                        *
There is silence and there is song. Music is the conversation of silence and sound when they are in love.

Sometimes I think that when I am grateful enough, when I remember the purpose of life is to love it, I dance through life as if it were a dream.

I feel a little as though I'm flying.

This is what is real. All else is an illusion created by my the ego.
            *                           *                        *                        *                     *                          *

There is silence and there is sound. If the ego is left unchecked, there will only be loud sounds. In these times I feel poisoned with the neverending noise---the unecessary nagging of the Nevers. The Nevers are not real, but they can scream. The nevers are fears that shout from the rooftops of hell.

And this would be terrifying. But.....There is not just noise.
   
                   *                                                          *                                                   *
There is silence and there is sound. And there is the music they create when they are in love.