THE HUNTRESS PORTAL

Category: WRITING

  • Why Me?

    Why Me?

    This time it’s rhetorical, so no need to answer in the comments!
    The question I’ve been asking may finally have an answer…or at least the beginnings of it.

    This rendition of Why Me is a far cry from the oft compared “Woe is Me!”
    This question is a serious exercise in understanding why I am here living life now, “For such a time as this.”

    For as long as I can remember, I’ve been voraciously, irrevocably curious about the human condition. The science of it and [omg] the ART of it – how we operate, think, feel, and why – and don’t even let me get started on MORE THAN ONE – humans together?! Stop it. It’s too much fun and I’m not sure I’ll ever stop if I start now.

    But I’m serious. I’m sincerely interested in almost everything.
    I’m curious AF, and I seem to naturally store new learnings in a way that connects to so many other aspects overlapping it. Like a wisdom index! Maybe everyone does this? This has always been one of my “things,” and has resonated for others to the tune of “mature for her age,” “self-aware, to a fault,” “a little adult,” “precocious,” and “inquisitive,” as memory serves.

    I like to be “in the know” behind the scenes and I like to position myself to have some influence over the greater impact happening for the group.
    I like to make a positive difference, whatever that means and I enjoy being in a leadership role. However, there’s a freedom and sacredness in beginning, in working at the very front line of the process, so to speak. Doing what someone else trains me to do and happily so, Ego unengaged – it’s super fun. As I become aware of the more automatic ways I react and make meaning, the knowing naturally prompts a re-learning and system cleanse protocol to reset or change to manual mode. Little by little, I am embracing opportunities as they come, saying yes when my heart and mind cohere in deep resonance.

    Therefore, I’m not sure if the leaning toward influence and knowing things comes from a sincere interest or my early onset hyper-vigilance, wanting to be ready. One reason that knowledge is power is that it prevents the debilitating element of surprise. Amirite?

    I say all this to say that a significant percentage of the answer to “Why Me – AKA – Why Am I Like This?” is because I’m mentally vigilant toward the world around me, in a constant effort to prevent my own emotional turbulence. This is a learned strategy I’ve used as long as I can remember to engage my environment via my own unique blend of pleasing, allowing, and showing gratitude and respect. My acknowledgement that my caregivers were not consistently able to validate my reality and meet my early needs was just that – a baby human creating meaning from sensory data. Their adverse responses to my emotion and related questioning wasn’t appreciated or encouraged. I got a lot of “you worry too much” and “don’t overthink it” and “just be yourself,” when I was desperately in need of a sure bet: cause and affect. I noticed the yokes of womanhood and manhood, as well, as I further committed to a American Judeo-Christian ideal as young adult. I felt that my “trauma bond” with ensuring everything and everyone felt OKAY would prove worthy of esteem and praise. Adults are nicer when they feel proud and relaxed, and I will do my part. I thought that’s what most kids thought and did!

    I also came into this world with what I can only recently describe to you as “the emotional weight of the world” on my little baby shoulders. Taking ownership in my assigned societal roles made sense in the perceptional frame I created where I was at my core a burden and a lot of effort. I needed to earn my keep and prove my worthiness of being there – taking up space, utilities, and people’s time and money. I latched onto this schema and everything I experienced seemed to confirm it. From this attachment to pleasing and appeasing, I have developed skills, sensitivities, and deeply ingrained neural relationships that now require restructuring and integration.
    And I think that’s what IS happening as I pursue opportunities as they present.

    A third component of Why Me that I saved for last because it’s the most fun to discuss – finally something positive! Something sparkly and rare about the way I’m created is my capacity to hold and process a LOT of mental and emotional information. Not only do I possess a high level of precision and understanding for written language, but I am sensitive to auditory information of all types – spoken word, song, tone and frequency, and the translation of such media modes into emotion and ideas. This is how my strong proclivities to music, writing, sociology, traveling, health, & spirituality all connect.

    I’d like to return to this post again to update and add.

  • Ascension

    Ascension

    The Process The Process
    Is living experience.
    Oblivious until we’re there
    The Process The Process

    Refining, obnoxious

    Compels me again
    To Move.

    Through seasons and perilous
    Opportunities
    Uncomfortable reasons to grow
    The heroic trials – reveal and require us

    At last, get to the show
    The Show.

    Building our castles
    Dear castles we smash into
    Pieces dividing
    To Dust

    Unification
    An atom, a nation
    A Star reconnecting
    To Earth

    Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com

    The Process The Process
    Is lived experience.
    Obvious once you know.
    The Process compels me
    Refines and has held me

    The satisfaction

    Of Home

  • Desperation Prevention

    Desperation Prevention

    That’s my existential work in this world.
    And I’m settling into the idea.

    Desperate people – a type of person
    People in desperate situations – pushed to our limits
    Desperate to [blank] – any desire, a verb
    Extreme lack – empty, needy
    In Need – a state of being
    Expiring – next to gone

    These are my definitions.
    And here’s my phone’s definition:

    What do I need desperately?
    – sustenance [shelter, food/drink, safety, education]
    – connection [belonging, acceptance, shared experience, support]
    – purpose [work, motivation, goals, aspirations]
    – agency [resources where & when needed to make choices]

    Universalish, don’t you think? And generic AF…
    It’s very much a “you decide” kind of thing – lots of options.

    I’ve surmised in my 41 years that the most tragic and embarrassing behaviors often accompany desperation. Whether we meet it as a feeling, a means to an end action, or a profound sense of twisted motivation to meet a need, it is a formidable force.

    Unnecessary, unforeseen, and unseemly things will take place and by your hand. Things that you’d never even imagined before become, at least for a time, a past-time of yours! It’s troubling, yes. You can ignore the unease of it and avoid considering it for a while, but it gets louder or too obvious and you need a better strategy – the time has come to rationalize it (lie to yourself).
    You need some structure for this ultimately destructive and mis-aligned behavior in order to keep doing it (and carrying on). Think up a story that allows you to be a lowly pawn in someone else’s game, a blamey woe is me trope about mainly ceding all your sense of free will authority in order to morally approve your ick behavior choices. “What else am I going to do?!”

    The fear and suffering-soaked actions are out of alignment with that divine spark within us to such a degree that the dissonance ripples out into all sorts of harm – systemic ruptures and splinters to contain damage and restabilize. Explosions, contusions! Picture a lone bubble on the top of the water, calmly bursting. Pop.

    “I can handle it,” says the body. “Move on” says the mind. (I can’t let the fact that this next thing I write reminds me of my PopPop for some reason, so here goes.) The heart holds on and holds out hope. The soul buckles up and endures.

    Maybe you wouldn’t label your life’s distresses in such intense terminology at all, and the word desperate doesn’t track for you. I didn’t relate to it either.
    I wasn’t aware of my own desperation at the time. The words I’d use… prolonged frustration, dissatisfaction, unfulfilled longing is more my verbiage. An ongoing, drolling repetition of, “Something just is NOT adding up.” I definitely was not aware of the condition, of its influence, or the risk its presence presented in my life. I want you to know firsthand.

    That’s my why – desperation prevention.

    We’ve seen it in all the movies and heard it come out of every adult’s mouth – “You made me do this. You drove me to this! This isn’t ME.” We be our own “yass man” for a hot minute and feel sorry for ourself enough to go along with this meh story we’ve spun. And it’s gon’ get worse before it get any better, friend.

    It’s my understanding that God created us as one part of a great big world called Earth, where our kind (hu-mans) are in an ideal situation as far as lifeforms go. Bro! Trees breathe out what we breathe in! We’ve got opposable thumbs, big brains, and we build culture to customize our environments. We create beautifully varied and vibrant ways of life. That pretty much sums it up.

    It sounds like the opposite of desperate.
    Here’s my phone’s quick list of antonyms for desperate:

    If I’m in the desperation prevention business, then I’m looking to somehow increase the experiences that produce the antithesis of despair, so words (above) like unworried, secure, satisfied, satisfactory, hopeful, and content.

    The more of this, the less of the opposite, right? Isn’t that a universal law?
    Did a quick search on the so-called Universal Laws and here’s a good list.
    I have a growing suspicion that humans can convert one into the other, so fully transform the intense pain and violence of desperation into feelings and situations of contentment, ease, and satisfaction. This is an area I’d love to see researched because I can only tell you anecdotally through my own lens of my lived experience. It’s so simple and quick, but it’s a discreet formula and most peoples aren’t really interested.

    In my estimation, this power to transform states of being in life forms from plant, animal, and human is magic! It’s modern evolution, and it’s happening “all the time” as we’re witnessing it and becoming it, really all at once, on so many levels. If our power to manifest our soul’s beautiful expression in the world (rippling out the satisfaction) is directly correlated with the health of our system to process thoughts and emotions into actions chosen in the present moment, then that’s the task at hand. They say the only requirement is choosing to allow for the possibility of change, of other.
    Of new.

    Something I know about “new” is that it’s only ever a viable option for me once I’m out of the woods, so to speak. Or once the smoke has cleared and we’ve gotten our legs back under us. Once my system feels safe enough to relax. Until then, I’m hiding out. New is hope incarnate, and that’s a word on our antonyms of desperation list. Hmm. So my basic requirements have to be getting met, at least to some degree, for my system to allow for “new.”

    An oddly wise thing I heard myself say in convo with my Mom earlier today went something like, “What if what you’re calling “evil” isn’t out there trying to get you, but coming from us in the ways we have acted from insecurity? What if what we all know and love to call EVIL is our simply our harvest of the natural outgrowth of unmet needs on every level, internal and inter-personal to global?” She is a generous listener who is accustomed to my wise and goofy musings as a defrag tool. For anyone who find audio processing helfpul, you understand. I could totally talk to a recorder or myself or an imaginary friend, of course…but usually I don’t?

    We’ve already agreed that our basic requirements are: generic, universal, and easily met in our human setup. (And yep-some setups are sweeter than others.) We know that inspired action ripples out indefinitely. We know that starting small is the somewhere in “You gotta start somewhere.”

    Another way to tell the story is that humans have been learning, exploring, and practicing life on Earth for a while now. In the most recent 2,135 years or so, we humans have been buffing up our leadership skills – resource management and medicine, astronomy and advanced tool-making. We have spread our lifeways all over the planet and have learned and developed all the while. Vast networks of species interdependence exist now in partnership – trees and mycelium, for example. And humans with plants and animals, co-existing and co-creating new landscapes. Human development isn’t just physical or mental because, as a species, we are evolving and upgrading our whole beings, including the deeper subconscious “hard-wiring” and the cellular composition. Like crucial ios updates. And what ideas we bring forth into use toward our dreams will determine our lives and impact those around us and beyond. So bring forth Peace, Joy, and Restoration.

    Although it might take a while longer than we’d prefer, we can use what we know to affect change that ripples into humanity’s long historical arc, if not its very identity. LOL I have such strong conviction that humans have a unique opportunity right now today, to tend and care for this planet and all her inhabitants in a way that spreads hope and cultivates abundance.

    We begin by using what we already know and what we already have available to transform the despair in all the forms in which we encounter it.
    We start with ourselves, thn to those closest to us, and finally to everyone we encounter along the road.

    How do we do this? Allow yourself to consider the possibility that something OTHER than your past experiences is possible. And as you consider this possibility, notice how you feel. If any ideas come to your mind, take a little action – just a lil baby step. And if no ideas come, just wait and stay open to receive.

    That feels aligned to me. Satisfactory!

    The photo at the top was taken by a guy named who published it in an online article about Oscar Wilde’s beautiful line, “A flower blossoms for its own joy.”
    This line is from a play called The Decay of Lying. It was my favorite image for the post and I was delighted to get a little extra commentary on the quote, one of my favorites right now.

  • I love myself

    I love myself

    Photo by Carolina Basi on Pexels.com

    I love myself when I feel energized with a vibrant and unobtrusive flow of ideas. If ideas were currency, I would be a Kajillionaire, which looks like a creepy movie, but IDK also interesting. I’m an ideas kind of a person, so I suppose you could say that I love my self a lot. A lot a lot. And, I love myself after oversharing, mindless eating, and after under-performing…times I feel most afraid and least worthy/lovable. For I am not my attempts to connect and learn; but the one bravely practicing at life. Inherently lovable, “made from love.”

    I love myself in a space with ambient sounds and plenty of natural light bouncing around. I begin to breathe deeper and more fully, and move my body into positions that feel good. “In nature,” so to speak, but also in a coffee shop or my living room! I love myself in nature – anywhere near running waters or in woods deep enough to get lost. I love myself on the beach, with feet sinking into the wet surf, sunkissed and sandy. I love myself up high in a tree and reclined on a blanket at the park. I love myself traveling somewhere new – I feel free and life feels full of every opportunity. In a dark place, I love myself. I witness my senses adjusting to guide me.

    I love myself because I’m the one who can love me best, here in the 3D. I’m the only one who knows all the ins and outs, and the only one who has a vested interest. Even with all the rhetoric out about self-love and self-care, for the longest time I wasn’t sure I “deserved” the things I wanted and needed. I wasn’t sure where to draw the line between taking loving care and care-taking, but I’m certain I’ve done a lot of both – with my partner, my kids, and anyone else cool I can get my hands on! My strategy for ensuring the care and attention from my loved ones has always been a priority by going along and curbing my own expression, again – preventative measures of my own design. My sovereign Will, that precious creative force and mine, as a gift of humanity, had largely been put away until recently. I am now relearning how to speak for myself – like identity PT. This concept is brought to us in part by that song Grow by Willow Smith, featuring Avril Lavigne. Becoming my own loving parent, bestie, and lover has been restorative AF.

    I love myself by gentle words in my head and listening to my body’s wisdom for fulfilling my needs. It’s the little things, like stopping to write out answers to deep questions about myself and then reading the answers out loud (to myself). It’s moving at my own cadence, one that may be quicker, slower, or less consistent than another’s, and prioritizing the savoring of the beauty and complexity around me. It’s filling my own cup so I have plenty to drink.

    I love myself by curating my environment to inspire relaxation, presence, productivity. I love how I can regulate my own emotions and nervous system with my simple breath – returning to the present moment.

    Others’ feelings, thoughts, and opinions on what I’m doing (and not doing) and how I’m doing (or not doing) it are no longer critical or instructive for me. I love myself by choosing, moment by moment, my own feedback as answer enough to my questioning.

    I love myself as a knowing friend, as a guide and witness to this life experience. It’s gorgeous and fascinating. And so am I.

  • Oof: A Failure Rebrand

    Oof: A Failure Rebrand

    Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com

    At 10, it was spiders. Growing up in Florida had acquainted me with garden snakes, lizards, and insects, but the 8-legged just creeped me out. I couldn’t watch them on tv or look at the image of one in a book. Unnerved is the word. If one surprised me, the reaction was an…extreme one. I’ve never understood why.

    However, by 20 years young, I would have stated without hesitation that (at least the idea of) failure was my #1 biggest fear, and I’ll bet I said it with a smile. I aimed to please, or at least not cause any additional difficulty for others. I was afraid most of not measuring up to the expectations and potentials they invested in and had expressed for me, and likewise for myself. That fear felt viscerally real to me, realer than spiders. Felt like fire under my pot to “be prepared” and “use your head.” At the time, I was zipping into my new adult suit, while putting the kid and student stuff away. So much about life and the world I didn’t know. This fear of failure became a decent motivator for me to try and steer clear of stepping outside the box much. One of my strengths at this age is being “easy-going,” even if that meant compromising my own priorities in the need to keep someone close. Even if they didn’t ask me to. Still, a girl’s gotta try and I sure did. I sure did.

    After 10 more years of living out some challenging and neat experiences, and reeling in the reality of parenthood, I had just achieved something amazing in bringing Isobel into the world. She arrived on the scene just prior to my 31st bday. I remember it felt like the end of an era – the wondering and hoping for one day era. My dream had come true, and now I was living it. Although birthing my daughter was hardly a solo venture, it still felt like the fulfillment of an individual goal/hope I had and others had for me. A success that earned and would continue earning forever. Or something? (This actually strikes me at this moment as problematic and I’ll be looking into this.)

    Sleep-deprived and on maternity leave, I made a choice from a different sensibility, deeper and unignorable, pulling me. I loved the place I worked and I loved where we lived. My ultimate conclusion: jobs come and go, and the mountains will always be calling; but let’s give our parents and our kids the gift of each other. Failure wasn’t on my radar. I was #winning. I felt abundant and fertile and so did the world. My biggest fear had to be about something bad happening to Josh. I’d have been lost without him…still would.

    40 came recently, on a Friday the 13th no less, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it’s been a heck of a decade over here! Motherhood has kicked my naive arse from every direction. Why didn’t anyone warn me that parenting is not only physically exhausting (and never stops), but is also mentally and emotionally quite troubling for one’s values and identity? 🙃 That’s not listed in the baby books (or at least not ones I read)! We moved back to where we had met, closer to most of our family, and I found myself doing it again – coming to a conclusion on what to do next based on what I felt would be best for us all, rather than just pour moi. It wasn’t acquiescing or going along, at all, but rather a call to something i didn’t know I wanted – simplicity. Slowness. Eww.

    This type of thing tracks with millions of accounts of big perception changes in midlife, but…here’s the disclaimer about my opinion: That’s all it ever is, okay? 😉

    I tried for a long time to find a way back into professional work that also felt ideal for my (estimation of my) family’s needs, that felt aligned. TBH, I haven’t come across it yet! The story I tell myself about this “heroine trial” has shifted over time. I’m a big fan of silver linings. Of course, the user error is undeniable throughout because I was an emotional live wire, disregulated and insecure. The ongoing effort without breakthrough (see Camus’ Sisyphus) took a toll and the whole thing was dragging me down. It still does sometimes.

    Proud to report a new zen outlook on spiders as God’s beautiful creation, though! They’ll likely never become my favorite species, but the arachnid 🕷️ panic is gone, thanks to trauma-informed therapy and Reiki attunement, and I help them outside now when I find them indoors. #naturequeen #givemeamedal #spiderally

    With failure, suffice it to say that I’ve become well-acquainted. By failure, I’m saying a severe NOT meeting of expectations and/or commitments. I’ve failed myself and others, once or twice so gravely that it broke my brain & heart for a while, and deeply injured others. Apparently and fortuituously, though, both can heal! And So It Is.

    So, lately, my thoughts on failure ring differently and that’s made quite a difference in how I see everything.

    Failure, some say, is unavoidable. More true than that; they say it’s natural. We see it simply as “part of the process” when it’s Improv or Jazz or Science.

    So, which is better: Failing or Hiding? Try It or Never Know? If we refuse to fail because we believe it’s the lynchpin to having everything we have and need, we won’t try as often, and we’ll be super hard on ourselves at every turn. We won’t explore or play or truly rest – until the shame subsides, and it won’t. That awful feeling is self-imposed to keep us striving and frustrated, in other words, safe (hidden from danger).

    Overwhelmed by possible outcomes and sore from past disappointments, we often in some form or fashion give up before we start. We’ll stick to what we know and limit ourselves. And eventually, that connection to the deep, enduring sense of alignment, the heart’s cry, weakens and dissolves. Eventually, I couldn’t remember the point of any of it.

    Let’s look now at the failing option. Successful entrepreneurs encourage us by telling their stories of failure and setbacks, often before AND even after they’ve hit it big. They tell us from way up in the front row, in the good seats, not to diminish your goals and desires out of the fear you won’t meet them and to GO FOR IT. We wave back and we say that it’s, (say it with me) “easy for you to say!,” but who better to point us in the right direction? Artists of all genre say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, anyway, so paint for yourself. Wouldn’t they know?! Athletes don’t “fail,” at all. They learn from mistakes and they improve. They adapt. Sometimes the decision to fail is the best option (see Simone’s example). It’s becoming obvious in this moment that “failing isn’t fatal.” It’s just a part of life when you’re trying, and it’s in desperate need of a rebrand. This perspective changes a lot for me, and the braiding continues!

    When God says, “I will never leave or forsake you,” I take this as a promise of continued transformation, “into His image with ever-increasing glory,” inside of us, and amplifying outward. “I will never” often also means, “I will always,” and in that sense, we believe that, no matter the circumstance we’re in, whether we are making a huge mistake or just hit a new PR, that God is present, renewing our minds and helping us to utilize the gifts & power hidden there in the heart of us to learn, grow, and enjoy our precious lives.

    I believe that’s the upper-cased P Plan, and that it’s happening everywhere, all at once, whether we are aware of it, like it or not. It’s part and parcel of the process of being transformed (back?) into the image of the Creator, the Imago Dei. So, if it’s happening anyway, we might as well lean into it. My new definition for failure: an often uncomfortable path of learning that reconnects us to our essence and expands our capacity for empathy. I’ll just say it – failure is a teacher, the one you despise while in their class and treasure forever once you’re out.

    So failing is officially no longer what I fear most. I don’t plan to hide anymore.

    Until the big 5-0, I’ll leave it at that.

    Thank you for being here with me.

  • On Resistance

    On Resistance

    Photo by Filipe Delgado on Pexels.com

    Whoever says, “Resistance is futile” absolutely has not been well enough acquainted with the subject matter. In fact, I’m not sure of the actual origin MAYBE HERE but i’ve only ever heard a bad guy say it in a movie, and it’s never true, not even a little.

    Incapable of producing any useful result. Pointless. – is how my phone’s default Siri dictionary phrased it.

    Anyone who tangles with it knows what a trip it can be!
    Resistance in the context of a form of inner protective patterning that is due for a glowup from yours truly is really your ultimate guide and protector as a kid.
    Individual and personalized before your conscious memory kicks in, resistance represents a sacred agreement your human system put in place to make sense out of your confusion, and to ensure your basic needs would be met by your caretakers.

    Not only is resistance purposeful, but most of us at a certain age found it necessary. I know I must have, because I didn’t consciously decide and I only recently realized! Hallelujah.

    Some experts call these inner part of us the ego, unconscious wounding, attachment style, stuck energy, behavior pattern and schemas, internalized beliefs, and an upset inner child. Regardless, it expends our system’s energy by being hyperaware of any possible proof supporting whatever limiting belief from the past. Our brains will send up that red flag if they sense danger, and our knee-jerk reaction will be to take action for safety.

    This is not the same voice that moves through me when I mean to encourage and celebrate a friend, mind you. Consider why that might be –

    And it produces a useful result MOST OF THE TIME, my dude.
    Like so often, my goals are the ones feeling the hint of futility!
    At a certain point in this journey, I had a huge AHA that what had once kept me safe and secure enough in my environments to learn, grow, form relationships, and move through my life until now has become an impediment.

    Thus begins the dance, when I’ve believed for so long that someone or something else was created to lead, while I was created to support and follow. We will discuss that binary and more at another time. Who says a dancer even needs another fellow, in order to dance? Just weird that assumptions we make. “I can’t dance. I don’t know how!”

    So, okay. Resistance exists. It’s powerful, useful (to a point), and comes from “inside the house,” so to speak. Resistance is the coalition of my parts continuing to uphold an agreement made a long time ago on a certain strategy to keep everything chill for me. Thank you, Resistance.

    To what, you might ask?
    Well, to feeling emotions that are uncomfy and to challenging the status quo.
    Never under-estimate the distance you can and will travel to avoid discomfort. We resist by living thought by thought in our accepted fears of some sub-optimal future and in our sour lessons from past experiences. I do this in ways that are obvious to me and probably a thousand additional ways I don’t notice. Think about how effective you can be at killing a good vibe all by yourself. Killing YOUR good vibe, nonetheless?!

    I will have a great idea, today, for how to use my time tomorrow. I will take inspired action on the idea, usually trying to making tomorrow’s task as easy as possible for future Jess. I want to feel that pride and confidence in myself at the END of that following day after I do the idea! I know it’s a step in the direction of who I want to be…And I’m talking about GOOD, simple and proven ideas like: waking up early to meditate, working out, eating something balanced when I have some extra time to savor…just normal, healthy things people do for themselves.

    An example of resistance in action is me having taken those steps of: idea, excitement and commitment, inspired actions to help me get there, and then…binge-eating the night before after one of the kids says something ignorant and harsh about my face. I don’t sleep great, have to get up and use the restroom, then wake up sweaty and having snoozed my alarm. I hear both kids up already, and one of them says she doesn’t have any shorts clean to wear for school, but I know at least one pair is clean-grr. I don’t meditate. After drop-off, I’m feeling guilty and resolve to meditate when I get home. However, on the way home, I recall needing a couple things from the grocery store that I can quickly pick up. You likely know where this is going. I get home and I’m starving, so I open some impulse purchase from the store that has nil nutritional value and snack as I unpack what ends up being a good little load of stuff! I start drinking a glass of water, but leave it in another room, when I realize a bathroom that was left “trashed,” and I can’t even allow it be exist in that condition another second. You see? So scattered, overwhelmed, reactionary, just a domino effect of behavior, no follow through. Resistance. Hi, it’s me.

    So my application of taking the lead in this dance of resistance et moi seems to hinge on how I leverage my awareness of and appreciation for this inner programming. Akin maybe to a sizeable OS upgrade, my intention now is to cultivate an emotionally safe and grounded internal environment (like functional body building) that tolerates, nay, welcomes all thoughts, feelings, and beliefs as old friends, but also questions and considers them in light of
    the current way RN Jess understands things – the whys and hows of it all! RN me often chooses a slower lifestyle that allows me to more fully experience the present moment, and also to focus on some areas of healing and learning that are of highest priority to me.

    This dancing used to feel like a recovery and a healing back to an unexplored wholeness of being. I remember the image of myself in fetal position in a puddle at the bottom of a deep earthen hole in the ground feeling accurate. Reminds me of the story in John 4 of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.

    I know that feelings come and go, which is actually so great. We can really experience them and then let them go. They’ll be back! LOL
    At this moment, the dance feels exhilarating and full of possibility, like a baby’s birth. Whether you call it “rewilding” or self sovereignty, a miracle or just neurons recalibrating as hormones seek stasis (science!) in the body, the change feels for me like an abiding clarity about my values, my goals and greater purpose, and the steps I take next. I’m no longer “looking at the world from the bottom of a well.” Things, as they say, have SHIFTED.

    Now I’m that woman at the fully functional and biblically accurate well, and Jesus approaches. He offers me a drink that will become a well of water (inside me!) springing up unto eternal life. This drink isn’t what I thought it was – the promise of a pleasant afterlife. It’s a shift in the way I perceive myself and everything around me. It’s the glow up, and Yeshua makes clear that it has been here all along.

    Resistance is a gift I humbly and fearfully receive as a friendly push from my own battle-hardened psyche to decide RIGHT NOW who I Am. She is ready for her makeover, her upgrade. She know’s it’s time. And I’m feeling thirsty!

    Photo by Dmitriy Ganin on Pexels.com
  • a binary rhyme

    a binary rhyme

    Don’t be hurried, but get things done.
    Assert your own opinions but don’t hurt anyone.
    A citrus-scented candle covers another smell in the room.
    Elegant doom.

    You start collecting friends like on a charm bracelet.
    And then you grow apart or you just simply forget.
    After decades of connections pushed away I regret
    Not making more of an effort.

    Man & woman start from one little cell
    Girls and boys come up learning full well
    There’s an accepted way to show up here
    And if that’s not you, better persevere

    Two sides of a coin, you’re guilty or innocent
    Black & white, wrong or right, she knows it don’t make sense
    She buys it anyway, hoping for a distraction,
    Some action.

    See it’s coming for you like you haven’t been poking around
    I know you hear that train a coming cuz I’m hearing the sound
    If you want to know the truth and you need to be free
    Embrace the harmony.

    [I later composted fresh produce to an outside the house location, took out the trash, swept, mopped, and vacuumed. Not willing to dust today. Anyway, I hope that’s taken full care of the smell.]

  • Born Again As I Am

    Born Again As I Am

    Subscribe to continue reading

    Subscribe to get access to the rest of this post and other subscriber-only content.

  • For When I Am Next Afraid

    For When I Am Next Afraid

    I am not afraid in the dark.
    Or the quiet, cold, or rain.

    I have found that the dark is cozy and my eyes adjust.
    In the quiet, I can think and rest and find my bearings –
    There is always the light within ready to shine out.
    There is always, too, so much assistance.

    I’m not afraid in a crowd, or on an airplane, or in a strange town.
    There’s an acute differentiation that allows me to relax about me.

    And when I am next afraid, please remind me who I am.
    Of my divinity and power, just waiting under the surface to unfurl.
    Remind me that I Am a Voice in the wilderness crying out –
    Prepare ye the way of, yes, The Divine Balance, the way of Peace.
    I Am sister to Christ Jesus and Miriam Sophia, the Lovers, who join me on walks.
    I Am Judah. I am Ephraim. I am a slave, and I am free –
    And no one else can name or claim to understand my attributes.
    Only the way they are receiving the art and image of me.

    I Am the storyteller.
    Jeshurun.
    I am She.

    Photo by Tiana on Pexels.com
  • I Am The Huntress.

    I Am The Huntress.

    Whether I make it about having Gate 21 lit up in my Human Design chart or about the profound effect of taking my partner’s family name, referring to myself in this way – The Huntress – has helped me to remember who I am and who I yearn to be in this life. We live in a time when our understandings of what it means to be human are changing.

    As the big, so the little. I am changing, too.

    I am called to dance with life, breathing in all the fractals of experience I can, and equally called to distill it into a quintessence for you. One that reminds you of something important.

    That’s all this is – a “portal” into my beingness. It’s also quite experimental! 😜

    Step through the door, into perspective that feels other – and notice how familiar and how strange your world may seem on the other side. And, now, how you can never go back and how you are different from now on.