Tend to it like a FIRE

I went back in time last night and saw myself sitting on a bench in Bolivia.

I had caught a rickety cattle plane to this tiny jungle island called Rurranabaqua near the Pampas and ended up staying longer than I had planned.

I was eating banana bread given to me by a man and his cart. He was wearing a tinfoil hat and selling maps and baked goods.

I unwrapped the bread and noticed something written on the paper. This man had printed his predictions for The End of the World on it. I thought it was clever how he went about this, and put his predictions away in my pocket and concentrated on my map.

It had been raining heavily all night and the hot sun had made the places where it had rained start to steam.

The rain began to drizzle again, on and off like a tap. Tiny little rainbow surprises appeared like little gnomes hiding behind corners and the sun spilled onto the sidewalks. I put my hands out to touch the warm rain.

I remember having a secret feeling in this moment... that as I was noticing this beauty, this beauty was noticing me too. I wasn't outside of it; I was a part of it. Girl sitting on a bench, eating banana bread was in this picture too, and the banana trees, alive and buzzing were paying attention to me.

It felt like early summer and cool cotton sheets and my future was wide open.

Possibilities endless.

The breeze carried this feeling of nostalgia and I found myself fully present and holding onto this memory; realizing it would easily become one of my most precious ones.

It was shared with the tinfoil man and some local women sorting out their bags of oranges beside me, paying no attention to the beauty that was present. It felt like The Creator had come down and kissed this moment, making it look and feel more heightened. Slow moving butterflies gathered at the tops of the trees and I found myself smiling, feeling full of sunshine.

My days were often like this; and I would take these feelings and write, describing everything I saw and felt. I perfected my words like a poet would, I came to realizations and healed myself through writing them, collected and filling dozens of journals and found a rhythm that matched my heart.

Observing and writing.

…

Twenty years later, I'm sitting here at my desk in the tropical part of Northern NSW writing again. My son is playing in the other room, I'm listening to Brazilian music, drinking zero percent beer and burning incense, my curtains are billowing in the same breeze I felt in South America and I feel sunshine in my heart again after a very long winter.

I hadn't quite found my rhythm again since coming into adult life. I hadn’t quite been able to devote myself again to writing. Something did not feel right.

I had a few things on my plate which inhibited any kind of rhythm… I had gone through the highs and lows of running a busy café, fallen in and out of karmic relationships through the people I hired, and was burnt from all the administrative duties that come with the job… I was constantly trying to keep up.

In my personal life; my husband had chronic PTSD and I had kept trying to 'fix' him, only to downward spiral from trying. While my son; a wild Huckleberry child with a handful of neurological disorders pushed every one of my buttons, and on top of it all- I was going through a spiritual, mental, physical and emotional health crisis.

My writing was dead. Half written failures were all that was left. I had felt utterly disappointed in myself ‘for not feeling it’.

But today I'm discovering that even though my 6 year old rocket blaster is hovering around, walking in and out of my space, chatting and wanting my attention or whacking me with a stick – that I'm able to dive in deeply into these words still.

My surroundings and situation haven't changed; the only thing that's changed is that I have an urge to write, and the space that I thought I didn't have has opened up all on its own. These words have made their own time and space and brought about their own healing.

…

One day ago, this was not the case.

I was dragged down into the underworld and have been there for years... my Creative Fire, my words, my writing, the energy that moved through me had all left me and I was alone.

I was Persephone dragged into the belly of the Earth by Hades, I was Demeter barren without a child and now the Earth has cracked opened and Persephone has come sprawling out.

Reaching and gasping in the final moments of the darkness, her hand back on land, pulling herself up, straightening her dress and taking her first steps to reunite with her mother once again.

Each precious step turning into leaps, twirls and bounds... leaving a trail of flowers, laughter and dragonflies behind her.

Life has returned, rhythm once more, I am breathing and leaving a trail of words as my flowers. I am back in the loving arms of Demeter and my Persephone... the light of my life is back in my arms again.

…

There is a rhythm that comes more freely when you are open, when you are not bound to things or responsible for others.

But now as an adult the rhythm needs to be recreated and reinvented in a new way, kept up with the times, with how life currently IS… not idealized, constrained or left in the past waiting for you to return to it, but invited into the future and into the now.

Reaching back for this feeling to write in the same way that was done at a time when we were freer and less retrained means being bound in a different way, bound to making the setting to write in 'perfect' and ‘how it used to be’.

It discards the present moment, it says that now is not perfect enough to write in, observe life in or even, to be in. That it is far better to look back and creep back to the then and to the how it was.

It was perfect for then, and now going onward the rhythm needs to find me, and follow me while I am the mother of this rocket blaster, while I create abundance for my family, a roof over our heads and food on the table. While I deal with healing my body, letting go of old traumas and being a human.

Writing or creating is not only for other people, the ones with the perfect writing desk w the motivational poster above it. Nor is it to only be opened up on one special day of the year, nor left in a box in the corner creating dust and cobwebs, but out in the ever day world, invited in front and in spite of the mess, noise and busyness.

It should have a place at the table, at the altar, be known to you and know you. It is not a part of yourself that you used to be, it is a part of the world and always there, but sometimes it is quiet and sometimes it is loud, sometimes you hate it and sometimes it whips you into a wild fire but it should always be considered and it should always be known to you.

Creating doesn’t have to and isn’t supposed to be perfect. It is a process that starts and grows and it comes to you when you sit down with it, and it will come when the keys are hit. Just start and see where it takes you.

Tend to it like a fire.

There is no going anywhere, especially right now in this time of Cvid... I am where I am, I am with whom I am with. The people around me are a part of my story and are a part of the beauty that I find myself in.

And I can write in this space.