If I met myself at the door…
Would I close? Checking her clothes, her hair, her intellect -laying upon myself the constriction of man-made imprints forgetting, forgetting so much – blind, unable to see through the grid to the beyond-the-beyond creation which comes from time and space and realms before the mind-made maps, to the wide open sequences of the infinite stored inside-out, within and through me. Could I lift my blinders to see through the filter to me? And with revelation and great appreciation and curiosity - invite her in.
Carefully we connect, not from projection but from the truth of her. A beauty because I am. Choosing not to allow a learned distaste to impair my time, my impressions of me with me.
Could I appreciate the strength of her heart and what it took to stay open, gentle loving, even here, even still…?
Could I allow the joy of turn on from my exquisite curves or would I feel danger in my too-bigness, wanting to hide, tuck-in, disguise as unharmful.
No boats rocked here.
Could my gental beauty seem so rich, true and potent that I would retract into the mundanity of counting, measuring, assessing, comparing and close. Or perhaps conditionally accept her, because otherwise the boundlessness of my loving expression would take me to lands and experiences yet unknown….
And well, the unknown did not work out so well for generations ago, who learned from that generation and the next and the next the pain of trying. And well, then….
There, right there. Is where I see. That the choice for me is me. That the odd projections can be distortions, and while they once belonged to someone else are chosen ultimately by me – written from within.
From the knowing that occurs when the blinders come off and A new way begins.
And so I say, welcome. Welcome in. It is good to see you, to know you again.
And I sit in appreciation and awe at this new/old guest.
And allow her to teach me in ways unknowable except to listen. To this still potent one, who’s knowing runs deeper than my soul.
I get to be me.
Finally.
Jenny-Rebecca Lewis
One degree away
It was one degree away that the bullet flew by and missed
It was one degree away that the rom-com movie almost kissed his true love, and then she got away … until the end
It was one degree away when the grief set in. Not the kind that can be pushed down, but the kind that lingers
I learned that there in the spin of sadness and pain is the game. Which can look like shame or blame or total devastation. Layers over time. And there right there is a chance to go all the way down.
Down to the murky bottom. Down to the base of the earth. Down, down, down, to the tears un-cried, to the red drum
The drum so deep, the earth’s heartbeat.
Empty and full.
Silence
It may be that the pain feels like death and better to spin and complain at the helplessness of it all.
It is so overwhelming.
So easier to spin. One degree away. To spin there in the all that’s wrong the doubt and pain, perhaps even the shame. Spinning. And Spinning. No power remains. Spinning and spinning. Doubt. Shame. Depletion. and so there the status quo is sustained.
Because a powerful woman knows not her name. Can’t remember the fracture is so deep and all she believes there is is the spin of overwhelm.
Yet one degree away there is the pain.
Waiting for its name to be called its plug to be pulled, its freedom revealed. The tears that never came, never was able to come, perhaps too deep to hold in the death and pain of time before, yet the pattern remains. The life ungrieved is destined to repeat until its potential is relieved.
Until the power of the one sits downs. Looks pain in the eye and submits and surrenders admitting utter helplessness. Stops running, stops spinning. Looks it in the eye. Heart break. Pain. Fracture. Again. A synching to the reality of what is – rather than the delusion of the race. There is access there. The part that knows – involuntary, not of the mind, of the bones, of the soul can remember a way. Letting go to utter nothingness. And a world. Real and true. All the way through. The helplessness.
And the lessons there in the darkness bare something new. A different way. Truth. Attention to the fracture bears healing. The death there is one of ideas of self, the death of unsafety, the death of realms of old and limited impossibility. The death of ideas that this kind of grief is not possible.
And there life beyond “life” resides.
It is there only one degree away from the spin.
Truth. Salvation.
Begins.
Jenny-Rebecca Lewis
Costume
Like a costume party I never left my feelings of despair on the floor that night,
The ghost of change surrounding and begging a wardrobe change,
I refuse.
Comfortable in this setting, in these threads predetermined.
What else would I wear - if anything - to cover the bare subtleties of my true beauty
Who would I be?
How would I look?
How could I feel a thing like that?
Choose a thing like that?
A look like that?
A love like that?
Free.
Jenny-Rebecca Lewis
The space in between yes and no
The space in between yes and no was seconds – but in fact it would be three – and really eight years before I was actually able to honestly answer this question. Actually able to understand and hold the truth of the circumstances presented before me. Actually able to be present and hold myself through the fire of come what may.
Why? Couldn’t I simply say Yes, I have an STI, No I didn’t go to an Ivy League school. Yes. I retook the bar exam – and more than once. Yes, I made a mistake there. Even something as small as No, I do not like cheese – except on grilled cheese sandwiches.
From large to small, I felt the answers to these questions defined me. They defined me because they were a places in myself I could not publicly own. And so either, I lied, painfully told the truth in shame or avoided people all together so that these questions and the situations that might create them did not occur. Cutting off all of me, because I didn’t believe that myself in any sort of blemished form was worthy. And so when I did engage, I was carefully filtered, and accessed the energy of only my “good parts” – which meant I was showing about 50% of myself. I had given over my power and self-approval to whomever asked the question. I made their approval worth more than me as I am. created a border of expression across which I could not go.
The feeling of the aftermath of not telling the truth is terrible – requires a lot of clean up and back-pedaling, introspection and hiding. It’s the discomfort of growth. The learning that that this may not be worth it and why.
The feeling of truth is for me equally uncomfortable because it is both exhilarating in my courage and self-approval while simultaneously scary. Exhilarating in a way that I never regret afterwards – it just is true. And, I reclaim some of my energy. Scary because people will have feelings about it and I’ll have to be with myself in the fallout of that. Feeling because parts of me will be certain that this new thing is wrong and have no prior history to soothe my sense of certain doom. And looking into those places and learning is deep and important work and it’s worth it because I know that the unique expression I carry, that we all carry, is needed now more than ever and is bursting to come out. This is my life service and what I help people do – even in the dark places, especially there, for it is there that we truly come to know ourselves – our basic goodness. Tested and known to be true.
by Jenny-Rebecca Lewis
What does it mean to love?
At the core of each human is a truth of their expression. A truth of who they are.
We carry old stuff and more recent stuff that hurts, that harms.
What I’ve learned about love is that the deepest hurts carry rage. They carry anger. And, and obliterating sorrow. A desire to annihilate (ad “to” + nihil “nothing). To bring to nothing. To bring to release. To end the pain within. From there the volcano must flow. In human form that is primal - sound, movement, destruction, that is a thrashing, emotion MUST flow. All from the inside out. It MUST Go. The paradigm that shaped this pain must be re-aligned.
In a place of anger, hate and beneath an infinite despair - rings of ages of grief carried in the bones and cells ready to be released. A low toned, un-honed sorrow of nevermore lives there. It will tell you it is the only thing. This place of grief and pain. Blinders claiming oblivion. So myopic life becomes a pinhole bearing only its pain. It’s important to rage and feel here. Let this siphon go. For only, in this sorrow can something magic grow.
The old thing must give way to the new. It is destructive energy. Energy releasing, clearing, making way for new. Energy meant to tear through the calcified comfort, the deep pain, unspoken, punishable by death, or the perception of it. Stuffed down pain not allowed to show not allowed to be. And, awaken anew. Cleaning and clearing out the old.
To birth this first internally is an ancient way. To clear, to grieve is sacred. A soul retrieval. Only then the external can be met with something new. ONLY then.
This is not about physical destruction of humans or cities, physical violence, or war in reaction to- it is an internal realignment first. Which when met changes the energetic clarity for all around it. And then the courage the power to external. To speak the truth, to speak the pain to hold accountable - to the thing inside of each one of us that wants to be called home to here. To truth to the one underneath the darmas. It is an exchange which creates the intensity and heat of alchemy - it is passion. It is argument. It is truth. It is only from the depths of this darkness. The feeling of this engagement with life beyond the safety of silence that clarity comes. And we come home.
Our communities resort to war or imprisonment either internal or external. Those are our collectively approved resources and it’s time for something more sophisticated. Something healing. A place to grieve away the pain and come home. A way feel and be supported in despair, and come home even and especially in the depths of our conflict. I call for that today.
Like an arrow through a storm, I hold love for the truth only a divine humility can know, and on the other side, it will birth a way of knowing. Beyond knowing - a way we can't yet see, and will unfold with each step we chose toward wholeness. Surrender into the pain. Its brilliance, its intelligence.
A way unfathomable from here.
This way too long overlooked is ready.
To step off a cliff
The slow, slow return from utter annihilation, annealation is required, and births slowly anew. The true form. Out of trust and from the love, a reclamation (the French “a cry of no”) is what brings symmetry with the now. The truth. Of what is. And slowly the tools to be right here. To see beyond the shadows of despair. Synching to the way waiting but impossible to see. And bear anew the truth. It is always there. Waiting to be seen. Waiting to be called forth from the depths by the love within.
From here, the beginning of a willingness to reengage truly with life, not the fears of life running, but a true stretch into ability, capability, truth.
It is a soul retrieval. As ancient as time. A homecoming.
A heart open in this time is essential - a holding firm to the love within.
I keep hearing this Rumi line “there is a field beyond, I’ll meet you there”
Open wide for Unconditional love is true.
Ache. Ache. Amen.
(I am likely going to keep editing this one because it’s so important to get precise as I know how, and it means so much to me. I will keep learning to. And it’s been brewing for a month so it’s time to release. Please provide your insight too.)
By Jenny-Rebecca Lewis
