love is everything

old times.

2011-05-25T15:34:00.001+01:00

you open your arms for a goodbye hug and i move into them.
my head goes to that once familiar place, the curve of your neck,
and i make a little noise in the back of my throat,
like a child.
i close my eyes, as my lips nearly brush your skin.
i can feel the heat rising off you.
i can remember the silver smoothness
where i used to run my fingers,
when we were together.
you smell like safety,
but i cannot fall back.

i don't need you

2011-04-24T20:19:00.004+01:00

i don't need you. i don't want you to be my knight in shining armour. i am not a cat stuck in a tree, or an animal trapped in a cage that needs rescuing. i am free, and i don't need you to capture me, and cage me, thinking you know what is best. there is not a you-shaped hole in my heart. my life will go on if i never kiss you. my life will go on if you never tell me you love me. my life will go on if i never hold your hand in mine. i don't need you. i am perfectly complete and happy without you.

but oh, the way you smile, the blue of your eyes, the sway of your shoulders as you walk, the curve of your lips and the arch of your eyebrow, your complete confidence that i can do anything i put my mind to, and the way you look me in the eye and compliment me for the things i do rather than for the dress i wear or how good my tits look in that top.

i don't need you but oh, i would love to wake up next to you in the morning, hold your hand as we walk down the street, make you tea and toast in the morning and hot chocolate at night, i would love to know what your skin feels like underneath your clothes, what your lips would feel like on mine, and what you sound like when you come.

i don't need you, but i want you.

opening up

2011-04-24T20:14:00.003+01:00

i have spent so long locking my heart away, padlocking it, hiding the key, trying to forget where i put it that sometimes i am unsure if i can ever find it again. when i think that i have opened up all i can, there comes little jerks of unrest that remind me of hidden parts of myself that i have forgotten about. will i ever open them all up and figure out how they all fit together? i see my mind as a giant 3-d jigsaw that i am trying to finnish, trying to get a picture of my true real self, flaws and all. in my meditation i sift through the pieces, seeing how this one fits to that, fits to this other one here, which explains why i am the way i am. will i ever finish? bits of what look like sky, turn out to be part of the sea. a green bit that i thought would connect to this other green bit of my childhood actually belongs to this darker green part that fits in with my jealousy. this pattern, when turned sideways, fits with that other patterned bit, that i never thought could connect to anything. i emerge, slowly, confusingly, and i start to understand a small part of myself. i know, though, that this is a million-pieced jigsaw, that i will spend my life time working on, without the certainty that i will ever finish.

Written on retreat, on the last day, with love pouring out of me, for everyone.

2010-12-15T14:22:00.003Z

some advice:
everyone is just like you, scared and frightened inside. everyone is as beautiful as you, even when their faces are twisted and snarling, they just want to be loved. just like you. some advice: whenever anyone hurts you, says a mean word or doesn't take you into account, remember, it comes from pain and hurt. they don't mean it, they're just scared. some advice: love everyone as if they were your sister or your brother, because that's all they want - love. some advice: in every situation you find yourself in, good or bad or inbetween, put yourself in their place, imagine their hopes and dreams, imagine all the ways in which they have been hurt, ignored, used and manipulated - their hurtful actions come from this. imagine what the best thing you could possibly do for them is, in this moment, and do it, whole heartedly, with all your attention, whether it's giving them a hug, making a cup of tea, giving them advice or just sitting with them, helping them to feel what is going on for them. some advice: get up every morning knowing that this will be the best day ever, force a smile, even if you feel like you're dying inside, and it will become real. some advice: tomorrow the world might end, you might get run over, how would you like to have lived your last day? with love and compassion in your heart, or with darkness creeping in? i know which one i would choose. some advice: open your heart, burn and destroy the walls you keep there, you don't need them. some advice: be open about how you feel, whatever you feel, but don't make the mistake of ever thinking you feel an emotion because of someone else's actions. you always, always, have a choice, and your emotions are your responsibility. some advice: write lists and lists of the good things in your life, everyday, if you don't you'll quickly forget how rich you really are. when you are sad, flick back through the pages, the golden yellow happiness contained there will revive you. some advice: love yourself with a passion that exceeds everything else, you are the most important thing to yourself. it's not selfish, it's logical. you are amazing and wonderful and fabulous and beautiful and terrific and utterly, completely, mind blowingly, irreplaceably, you. and that is the best thing you can be.

awakening

2010-10-24T19:41:00.000+01:00

waking up, i feel like i have never been so alive in my life, each day brings such joy and such pain as i could never have imagined before. each day more of me is revealed to myself, and to the loving world around me. i am so held, unseen but i feel it, we walk in a cloud of love, a mist surrounding us. love is tangible, not just an emotion that we feel, you have to look down a layer to see it, it's hard, but i know it's there. each person walks in an aura of love, made up of all the love they are given by others, it's a rainbow.

connections

2010-10-23T14:04:00.005+01:00

across miles of clouds, acres of oceans + seas, over time itself, we are still connected. silver cobweb strands of love connect us, connect you with everyone you love, dead + alive. there are strands spanning clouds and air, birds perch on them, strings of black dots above wide open sea. some reach down through earth, past roots of trees, past worms going about their business, linking you to those who have gone before us already. the world is held together by these strands, laced together over the surface of the land + sea, criss crossing a million times. when hate and misunderstanding threaten to blow our world apart, it is these slim grey silver lines that hold us together.

wish

2010-08-26T19:17:00.002+01:00

i wish so much i could show you some of the joys of my life. it begins with waking up every morning in a field and poking my head out my tent door to check the weather before i get up. shuffling sleepily into the cafe to get tea from the already roaring urns, i am greeted by so many people with so much real concern. i love how gradually, we all congregate in a circle, some wandering in late, some having been brightly awake for hours, we sit and tell each other how we are, really, truly, deep inside. i hear them and they hear me and this is my beautiful, beautiful life.

every day i see things more and more clearly. every day i understand a little bit more about myself. everyday i am challenged in so many amazing, wonderful, beautiful ways, and everyday i rise to that challenge and grow with it. i have found another family, i have created another family, and i do not think that things could be any more beautiful or perfect than they are at this moment.

visiting friends

2010-08-26T15:06:00.004+01:00

we stagger up the hill. what was a group, walking closely, laughing and talking at the bottom of the hill slowly lengthens into a line of people, burdened with bags and instruments, puffing our way up. the first ones to the top knock on the door and wait, turning to look back round across the town, pointing out the stillness of the sea and the constantly changing reflection of the sun on the water. there is a moment of silent appreciation before the next few arrive, and then the door opens to warmth and smiles, beckoning hands and a multitude of greetings. i follow them all in, shutting the door behind me, making sure there are no stragglers. i feel safe in this house, full of friends and light and laughter. the hall is empty, coats are hung haphazardly on the bannister, there are paper chains hanging from the ceiling, left over from a party weeks ago. i look up and smile, remembering how long it took us to make them. i walk past the front room and peek in, unusually it is empty, tv off, no smoky haze and people chatting. i carry on down the passage towards the kitchen until i hear a jumble of voices, and go out the back door to see a table around which is squeezed all the people i love. candles light the scene, the sun is slowly sinking behind the building and the sliver of sea i can see is brilliant pink and purple. down the end of the garden the hens have been locked in for the night and amy proudly points out to me the tyres full of flowers and the empty pots just waiting to be full. we sit and talk, drink tea and play cards, songs are started, sometimes finnished or drowned out with gales of laughter. the light goes slowly and we huddle together as it gets colder. people lend jumpers and scarves, borrow blankets and hats, until we are all wrapped up, wrapped together, feet all under one blanket under the table, blankets slipping and being pulled around warm shoulders pressed together to keep the world out. laughter is our language, it echoes between the high walls of the house, bouncing up into the clear air and spiraling up to join the clouds which shield the sun, turning the sky from light blue to dusky pink to purple right to the darkest black which is creeping in behind our heads.

summer

2010-01-25T19:16:00.002Z

these days will always be seen through a golden haze of sunlight shining off hair and dappled brown skin, green leaves and twigs find their ways everywhere. i am forever pulling them out of my hair, my clothes where they seem to love to gather, prickling me insistently, i am here, remember this time when? remember where that forest where you found me? remember the sting of nettles as you waded through them? my feet are brown and dusty, dirt ingrained in each whorl of skin, under each toe nail, connecting me to the ground, the earth, i am part of it and it is part of me and we are all one under the sun.

being.

2010-01-09T01:49:00.000Z

a grey light comes over the room, sliding over the faces and bare skin of those sleeping bodies. we few left sit, being used as pillows, using sleeping people as cushions, quiet, lost in the calm that comes when you reach that place of intoxication where everything becomes so clear, like glass, and you know exactly what you need to do and who you are. someone says 'lets go for a walk' and though no one replies, slowly people begin to move, gathering shoes and blankets, hats and coats. before i go out the door i look at the kitchen clock, and it reads 5.27. the light is so indeterminate and unsure and i have been awake and away for so long that i am not sure whether it is am or pm. gradually we congregate outside the back door, some of us looking relatively normal, in coats and scarves, with matching shoes, others are wrapped in blankets, hats perched on their heads and odd shoes on their feet. it is so quiet.
the house seems to have grown out of the mist, trails and strands move around the edges, snake over the roof, i can see it billowing across the scrubby grass outside the house, but i can't feel the wind that is blowing it. a few metres away and i can't see anything but the house, even though it is in the middle of the country; usually you can see other houses in the distance, hear the occasional car, but now everything is deathly silent. it feels like we are the only people in the entire world. even the few sounds we make seem to be swallowed up by the fog. we start to walk, i don't know who sets off first, but there we are, straggling along in ones and twos, pale faced and sleep deprived, some of us already feeling the promise of the come down, and others still to whom that is hours off. the house fades out of sight, but i can feel it behind us, like it has just had a thin muslin curtain drawn over it. shapes swirl in and out of the mist, on the edge of my vision, and then fully apparent and floating past. i look around to see if anyone else can see what i am seeing, but everyone seems lost in their own world.
we go on and on until we get to a fence, and something stops us from climbing over. i look around and i see nothing, the world has ceased to exist. it feels like time has stopped and i am just being. nothing can touch me, i am aware so intensely of the fact that i am alive and thinking that nothing seems as if it could ever be as important as always knowing this: that i am alive, that there is something inside this body that transcends physicality, that cannot be placed, defined, labelled, controlled - i am wild and i am untamed and i, i, i, what is i? i think i can hear the gush of blood in my veins, the crackle of electric pulses in my brain, the many millions of messages that course through this structure, this creation, to make me walk, to make me be here, standing in this field, just being, just being.
people start to go back to the house, but i linger, feeling as if i could stand there forever, feeling myself be alive.

friends are the family we get to choose.

2009-12-15T14:20:00.001Z

we are dancing; three girls, one small with curly hair bouncing, one blonde shining brightly, and me. arms swooping and soaring like birds fluttering round each other, as feet move and jump; there is no music but we are surrounded by sun and light and happiness and that is all we need, we dance to the beat of our hearts, the pulse of love flowing between us. can you feel the crackle in the air? the electricity flowing between us? we are in our own world, where nothing can touch us, in this moment we are goddesses, luminescent with love.
we are on a track on the side of a mountain, on one side steeply reaching ever upwards is thick forest and woods, from which cracking and rustling can be heard as another of our group explores and wanders, on the other side a sheer edge of rock and slate falls downwards, on the edge of which is sitting the final member of our family, half watching us with a smile on his face, and half looking away down the valley. all i can see is green and alive, moving with the wind, breathing, if you watch closely. we are free from everything, from uni, work, money, all the bad and all the good things in our lives, and there is just. us. i try to remember this exact feeling, try to think of words to describe it so that maybe i can capture just a few minutes how how good i felt, how free i felt, how connected to the others i felt, but even as i start to run through lists of words and images in my mind i know that what i am doing is hopeless, i am wasting my time, feelings like this were not made to be able to explained in words, to be related to images, and i let go and just be, sunlight streaming into my face, sliding up and down my arms and legs, as i dance and twirl and leap and my soul soars with happiness.

stranger loving

2009-07-21T12:01:00.005+01:00

sitting in a dimly lit dome, cross-legged knee-to-knee with strangers, i open my heart and hold it out towards them in my cupped hands, this is me i say, i feel this today. whatever i say is met with smiles, or nods, or sympathy, always ending with words of thanks for sharing, for feeling able to tell them those things that i hold so close to my heart, hidden away inside me. this is like nothing else i have ever experienced. love flutters round us, settles on shoulders, and lights up hands as they gesticulate, leaving trails of phosphorescence behind, a tiny cloud of minute particles of love and acceptance that fall to the floor, ready, waiting, to be picked up by the next person to sit there, and passed on and on and on.
we are all accepted here, we are all loved.

riding in cars

2009-06-25T16:48:00.004+01:00

we are riding down slim narrow lanes, edged by trees and bushes and grass darting in through the windows, all 5 of us wedged into that tiny car which has seen so many adventures and been such a part of our lives. the sun is out and every window is open and our hair rushes from side to side and front and back along with the turns of the road and the wind through the windows. sometimes her hair is in my face and my eyes, sometimes his twines together with mine, brown and blonde and purple, loose and dreaded, til i am not sure where my hair begins and where theirs ends. the music surrounds me, takes us over, til we are all singing along, hearts in our mouths, on our outstretched hands, mine belongs to you and you and you and you, and i love you all and i wish this song would last for ever and ever, that this moment was all there was, for eternity. i could be happy with that, this moment of pure love, where all i am is love, where all we are is love incarnate, shining pure and bright, so brightly i cannot see anything beyond the insides of this car and your faces and god, i love you so much.

cross country love

2009-06-20T11:23:00.003+01:00

i was not sure until today
that what i did was right
but waking up
next to you
sure makes the day seem bright.

a silly poem because this is too deep to express.
i have just moved from one end of the country to the other to move in with my boyfriend's family and him. it's massively scary and huge, we are starting a whole adult life together. i am scared, but i know love, i am loved, i will be loved, more than i can imagine. it's alright. things will be more brilliant than i can conceive.

past aeons of love sustain you

2009-06-11T16:07:00.004+01:00

'Staying open, staying grounded, remember that you are the inheritor of the strengths of thousands of generations of life.
Staying open, staying grounded, recall that the thankful prayers of future generations are silently with you.'
http://www.streetacts.org/shambala.htm

just as i love you so do the thousands of people before you, whose blood makes up your blood, whose history is your history. they might be gone, but the love remains, glowing round us, cloudlike, billowing and moving to draw those towards us who need our love, who don't have enough of their own. some people have just tiny droplets of condensation, hanging on their twisted hair, gathering on their eyelashes; others walk in a mist, surrounded.

i will save myself with love

2009-06-09T23:36:00.002+01:00

i love you, but i can only do so much. i could shout across the world how utterly amazing you are but you will only realise it when you are ready. you have so much work to do my darling, i cannot do it for you, i wouldn't even if i could, this is something you need to do alone. we are all on this journey love, alone, but part of something bigger, something that will turn the world into a place made of love and light and pure joy.

nobody can save you but
yourself.
you will be put again and again
into nearly impossible
situations.
they will attempt again and again
through subterfuge, guise and
force
to make you submit, quit and/or die quietly
inside.

nobody can save you but
yourself
and it will be easy enough to fail
so very easily
but don’t, don’t, don’t.
just watch them.
listen to them.
do you want to be like that?
a faceless, mindless, heartless
being?
do you want to experience
death before death?

nobody can save you but
yourself
and you’re worth saving.
it’s a war not easily won
but if anything is worth winning then
this is it.

think about it.
think about saving your self.

charles bukowski