What do you do when....

Photo:  www.siaphoto.com

What do you do when you can't breathe?  When something occurs that literally strips the breath from your body and you're suspended in that polarizing moment, gasping.  This can take many forms.  Some beautiful, some incredibly raw and angry, some reaching a level of sublime happiness, and others so steeped in sadness that  it is beyond words to express.

That moment, when the air is taken from us seems to last an endless forever.  Our minds and emotions seize up in a sort of shock as we grapple to understand the enormity of the moment.  A whole slew of physiological effects set in...pupils dilating, heart rate increasing, fingertips and lips going slightly numb, slightly tingling, goosebumps hitting at times, sweating occurring at others, stomach twisting and pitching, laughter bursting from us in a glorious ripple of smiling notes, or gut wrenching sobs the next sound we're capable of making.  

Most of the time when this happens, we are forever changed.  Uplifted at times, devastated at others.  It's one of those very pure moments when everything narrows down to a literal pinpoint of focus.  From that one breath suspended, to that next moment when we finally inhale again, the world changes.  We change.  A remarkable shift occurs.

It's a curious thing, how everything can change in such a blinding, rapid manner.  It can happen in a fleeting rush, barreling upon us in a wild, dramatic swirl.  Or it can slip through and brush softly as a whisper.  Regardless of the delivery, it is profound and dramatic.

We experience it from the hands of another....from the words of another.  Or from our own initiative.  Sometimes it is a moment in Nature.  Or a song lyric.  A fragrance that teases the heart and the memory.  A touch so sincere that we cannot resist it.  And we are undone.  Unraveled, or conversely, wound so tightly, so quickly, that we must shatter into a million pieces of delight or maddened grief.

Peace walks these same halls.  As does love.  They both grab the breath from us, lifting up and embracing us in an inestimable manner.  

What do you do when you can't breathe?  You endure it.  Or you celebrate it.  You continue to live, accepting that infinitesimal moment that has shifted everything that you are into a new person.  And you are born anew, taking fumbling steps, uncertain on wobbly knees and feet.  Pared down to your elemental self, vulnerable, naked and alone, and seeing the world through brand new eyes.

What do you do when you can't breathe and the cold vapor of that crashing moment stuns you?  You momentarily become a creature of ice, shards of silvered frost entwining throughout your very cells, turning you crystalline.  Waiting for a touch to warm and melt you back to humanity.

Waiting for a touch to enfold.  To stutter-start your breath again.

There in an indefinable space that simultaneously lasts both a nanosecond and a limitless, echoing eternity...what do you do?  You feel.  Simply that.  

You feel.

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If you enjoyed this article and would like to read more, you can find me at Healing Morning blog.

Soft stillness and the night

Photo: awesomestories.com

I'm feeling nostalgic tonight for some reason.  I have been browsing through my Drafts folder here at Healing Morningto see what snippet might jump out at me to elaborate upon and birth a new blog article.  This one seems to be it.  A stanza from William Shakespeare:

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank.
Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night
Becomes the touches of sweet harmony.

I ran across this weeks ago, most likely on Facebook.  It brought to mind summer evenings from my childhood, long before the advent of cable television and the internet.  Indeed, at that time, we had three television channels and were lucky if two of them could be received on our antenna way up on the ridge where we lived.  Thus, many evenings during warm months were spent outside in lawn chairs doing this simple thing....talking.  And looking at the stars.

It was such a peaceful thing.  Being with family, visiting, laughing together.  Or just being silent and gazing upward at the expanse of stars.  Some nights we would spread out a blanket to lie on, and it was then that I would imagine that the stars would drop down to touch my face.  We lived far enough out in the country at that time that city lights didn't compete in the night sky and we could see the constellations clearly.  The Big Dipper and the Little Dipper were always easily discernible...and we would attempt to identify other constellations from the Encyclopedia. 

Balmy summer nights, filled with quiet conversation and cicadas humming in the background.  The scent of freshly cut grass, blooming roses and honeysuckle would hang heavy in the moist night air.  If it had been an especially good day, there might be the rare store bought treat of Jiffy Pop popcorn...that miraculous creation that we watched in fascinated delight on the stove top, the shiny aluminum dome poofing up as the popcorn popped inside. 

Those days are long gone, and I remember them fondly.  The Shakespeare snippet above brought the memories to mind, soft and misty, like an old photograph whose edges have been gently worn soft with time.  Ghosting along my mind's eye, hovering there with wraith-like purpose, insistent to not be forgotten. 


"...soft stillness and the night..."  The words bring a slight ache of wistfulness to go back there again, to that back yard in the country on that side of that ridge...and let the stars drop down, once again, to touch my face.
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If you enjoyed this post and would like to read more, you can find me at Healing Morning blog.

Grasshopper Thoughts, Vol. V, October 2011

I've mentored many a writer in my adult life, taught many adult education classes on creative writing, and lent a helping hand to countless new bloggers.  At some point, the question always arises of, "What do you do when you get writer's block?"

That's the age old nemesis, isn't it?  Writer's block, artist's block, musician's block....it isn't career specific to just writers.  We all hit moments where inspiration just refuses to flow.  It has been 29 days since I last posted here at Healing Morning and this is outside the norm for me.  While I am not of the blogging daily approach, I do tend to write at least once or twice a week.  I won't go into the reasons for my recent dry spell, but I will share that the answer I almost always offer to the question above is, "Just write.  Don't focus on whether it's good or bad...just sit down and start writing. The very act of being in writing 'motion' will often wake up your writing Muse." 

Another favorite tool of mine is to Grasshopper.  If you follow me here at Healing Morning blog, then you're familiar with this concept.  Grasshopper Thoughts is a process of just allowing your mind to flit....or hop (like a grasshopper) in myriad directions with no logical focus.  I find it to be therapeutic to do this.  It can be as entertaining to write this way as it can be for people to read it, and it allows a glimpse into that writer's soul in a curious manner.  Little tidbits, little gems, little windows into who they are.

So, in the time honored tradition, I now commence Grasshoppering to encourage my own Muse to release her death grip on my normally prolific writing.

• I'm a fan of the good, old fashioned Emery board to file my nails.  Yes, I know that all manner of new inventions exist for this, including metal nail files that are touted to be better for your nails.  They don't work for me.  Metal nail files take forever for me because I'm fortunate to have nice, healthy, strong nails.  Nope, give me a traditional coarse grit Emery board and I'm happy.  Besides, those metal nail files make my teeth hurt with the sound they make on my nails.
• Some genius person took the Cool Whip concept and morphed it into chocolate Cool Whip - bless their hearts!  I'm not a big sweets eater and can go long stretches without eating ice cream, sometimes longer than a year.  It's just not a temptation to me.  Once in a blue moon, however, chocolate Cool Whip, still frozen is ideal.
• I opened an old book the other day, and from its pages fell a perfectly pressed sprig of Lily of the Valley.  I lifted it to my nose and it still carries that beautiful fragrance.  I think I pressed that flower there when I was wee, and it remains to this day my favorite old fashioned flower.  It was a delicate, floral time capsule moment to my adult self from my very young self and I was assailed with lovely memories.
• The last time I bought Crayons, they smelled different and I was devastated.  How could Crayola do this?!  Whose idea was it to tweak the formula?  No doubt it was done to save money, as that drives any corporation's bottom line, but it made me sad.  The aroma of Crayons is iconic, or it used to be.  It's still close to the original smell, but different.  These are the moments when I stubbornly dig my heels in against change.
• I was driving my Mom somewhere recently, just out running errands, and I said something to make her laugh unexpectedly.  We glanced at one another and smiled, that silent "I love you for who you are and how I feel when we're together" communication.  I'm blessed.
• Someday, someone is going to invent a way to prove that creative people are NOT airheads, dingbats or incapable of remembering things. We just think and process things differently, but we manage to get everything accomplished.  I'm serious - someday, someone will invent a way to quantify this fact. And THEN you'll all be sorry! ;-)  Just sayin.  *And if this way has already been invented, then I'm the first to cheerfully declare that I TOLD you so!  :)

I think that's plenty to get the writerly thoughts warmed up.  With luck, it won't be another 29 days before my next post.  For now, Grasshoppering has done the trick to shift the logjam loose a trifle.

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If you enjoyed this post and would like to read more, you can find me at Healing Morning blog.

Stackable Energy

The following is the post that prompted Katherine Jenkins to invite me to become a contributing author here in this wonderful Writers Rising community.  You can find me here on the sidebar under the blog title of Healing Morning, and I will always provide a link to my blog page at the bottom of each post here.  I hope you all enjoy!
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I believe in energy existing in our lives in a manner that is very logical and has meaning, intent, substance and results from the gift we are given of Free Will. I also believe that all of the above is helped along with a gentle guiding hand on our respective rudders, nudging us this way, prompting our attention to take that tiny, often overlooked backroad, or to hold the door for that stranger, to engage in a seemingly random conversation...all in order to encourage our steps in the next best direction.


Why am I saying all of this? For the past two years, (and I have mentioned this in several recent blog posts, so forgive the slight repetition here) I have been going through a transition - something I've called an incubation process, and other times I've dubbed it "useful limbo". The limbo part of the process appears to be rapidly reaching its zenith, because I am now seeing the jumble of experiences, the forays of energy, the textures, sounds and colors all beginning to come together in a bit of a rush. This gives the impression, at first glance, that everything is happening at once and it can feel overwhelming.

Don't get me wrong, I am beyond appreciative to see the beginning manifestations...a return...ROI in Law of Attraction terms. All the earnest energy, all the envisioning and dreaming with clear intent are now returning in their inevitable, beautiful boomerang-like arc from their journey out to God/Universe/Spirit. I often wonder how that energy that has my own unique Dawn fingerprint journeys outward. What would the journey look like if I could follow it? Watch it swoop and sojourn, darting deeply into this well of corresponding energy to match up to that particular word of intent....follow perhaps a more leisurely undulation into mysterious swirling depths of a different energy cloud to gather threads for a completely different intention, marrying it all seamlessly.

I often imagine this process to be of some musical and energetic expression beyond our three dimensions that creates a harmony to match my own in a manner that is inexpressibly beautiful. In fact, I doubt that the mere word "beautiful" would be sufficient to match what this dance of light actually creates out there in the Great Unknown where God/Universe/Spirit delights in weaving the threads, sparks and notes together for each of us.

And so it dallies out there, performing an acrobatic feat beyond our human ken, twirling madly in some areas, drifting as lazily and gently as an autumn leaf in others, collecting the energy with an application of time that fits my unique harmony. As it begins to return to me, my human mind, my human heart and human eyes see it as wondrous, but also slightly chaotic. I remind myself constantly that it is just an illusion that the returning energy only seems to be all hitting at once, giving the impression of actions and experiences stacking one on top of the other. The reality is that the pieces of energy which appear to be rushing at me wildly, clamoring for attention and building up in a tall, narrow tower similar to children's building blocks are actually "stacking" that high to give me a moment to simply stare upward and witness my own creative genius at work.

I am being given the chance to gaze at this high, narrow tower and see clearly what I have wrought with my own sincere actions, dreams, intentions and words. I am aware that when I get past the first rush of exhilaration and slight doubts that always accompany each door opening to success, each building block will regally and purposely shift from the tall, narrow tower to place itself in a firm, rock solid foundation. I believe the energy stacking sensation is merely to call our attention to sharp focus. I recognize that I have not done all of this alone - that gentle hand on the rudder, that quiet presence that embraces me has been there guiding the thoughts, intentions and dreams as they travel outward and eventually return with purpose.

There are the loving, reassuring whispers that come softly into my heart, and with them a sense of calm. Do I still feel trepidation? Yes, to a degree, because I firmly believe that we either feel Love, or we feel Fear. All emotions are derived from those two true sources. So, although minor thoughts of slowing the mad rush down exist, much more clearly, there is exhilaration as I recognize that after a lengthy incubation and useful limbo, the time is approaching for forward momentum to fall into place.

It is occurring as I write this post, with so many energy blocks in that stackable tower that as I tip my head back to gaze upward, I admit to a slight thrill of "What have I done?" type of thinking niggling at the periphery of my conscious mind. I don't spend much energy focusing on those doubts, as I recognize them to be a natural part of moving forward. Caution is never a bad partner to take along on any rush into our personal, individual futures. That being said, I am more inclined to simply stare up at that sparkling, brightly faceted narrow tower of energy and feel an immense satisfaction. The layers and building blocks soar above me and show me clearly that I am now stepping away from the useful limbo phase into a moment of more mobile, active application of energy.

At this moment, I find it apropo that I am on this brink...full of aspirations and dreams. This is a time of quiet, that proverbial calm before the storm, and I choose to view the storm as a positive. It is a storm of energy blocks stacked very high, and as I was a strong hand in the creation of these dreams, I admit to liking how loftily it ascends. Rather than quailing, I feel a definite sense of sureness and destiny, and overall, that neverending curiosity that drives me onward.

I also admit to wishing, just once, for a wee glimpse of that energy fingerprint....for a wee moment, to dash outward in tandem into the Great Unknown and be a bit of a tourist....and perhaps I actually do achieve that in a different state. It is all tied instrinsically together, after all, to produce the individual stories we all choose to live. I'll be content, though, with wrangling those stackable energy blocks into that solid foundation, and continue to build the Now into a bright experience.
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If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to visit my Healing Morning blog page to read more.

Namaste'.....

~ Dawn