+ Her Barefoot Heart

Tag: 365altars (Page 7 of 7)

thresholds

Sunset06jan2012

When we moved last spring, we dumped a lot of stuff on our daughter – things she could probably use, most of it good stuff, but still it was enough stuff to fill her garage, leaving her to park outside. Today we waded through the boxes and bags, tossing, giving, putting up.

Funny how good it makes my daughter and me feel to bring order to the physical chaos that surrounds us . . . now. Up until today, she has scoffed and called me anal. Up until today, I have made unilateral decisions about what stays and what goes, telling myself it was in the name of expediency.

Just at 5 p.m., while my smile remained strong but my energy waned, I looked up to see the sun setting. And just like that I thought of Naples, Florida where people applaud each sunset, dazzling or no. And I thought of Retreat – of the bugle that played every evening at 5 or 6 p.m. (depending on the season), of how everything and everyone came to a halt and stood in silence as the flag was lowered and the cannon fired. And though I am not on a beach and no longer on a military college campus, I stopped, snapped a couple of photographs, and in my own way, saluted the changing of the guard, sun to moon.

It was a good day, a good start. We cleared many layers of junk. We cleared more than a garage. It is a good and satisfying tired, and there is much to place on my altar today.

More about 365 Altars

quests and questions

Who am I now?

What do I want next?

These are questions asked by Sally G. at her altar today, questions I ask myself regularly – questions I have asked myself for a long, long time. These are the questions at the top of the list of questions that enkindled 365 Altars.

What do I know, not What degrees do I have, but What do I know?

Who am I now – not who have I been, but who am I now?

What can I contribute, and not just in terms of money?

How does this longing look dressed in words?

Where do I go from here?

What does the culmination of all the things I’ve done look like?

and the ever popular: What is the purpose/Why am I here, anyway?

I look for clues in my childhood – what did I like that got shoved aside in the mad rush to adulthood? What did I want to do with my life when my life was the only thing that mattered, the only thing I was responsible for?

Inspired by Sally G, I place on my altar today a recording of the first record I purchased with my own money. I moved into the basement apartment that my daddy’s daddy declined to inhabit, and I took the record player that was replaced by a fancy new console entertainment center. On any given day, I’d put this 45 rpm record on the turntable, lower the diamond stylus onto the vinyl, and skate around and around and around the unfinished basement just outside my door, feeling completely free, completely in charge of my own destiny, completely sated. Anything was possible. I was capable, on the ready, and darn near invincible. It was enough just to be me.

It’s how I feel now only in the dark thirty hours on the occasional day.

It’s how I long to feel again on any given moment of any given day (minus the roller skating part, mind you).

As I skated, I knew with my entire being that this song was written for and about me. It’s still necessary to escape occasionally to go downtown and get lost in the crowd, to see brightly lit organized spaces filled with colorful goods that promise to make my life perfect (whatever that is). But I no longer want to leave home to dance. It’s no longer comforting, reassuring, or convincing, this notion that I can crawl through some escape hatch and leave all my troubles and worries behind. I am tired of being encouraged to live for the future.

I don’t want to have to leave myself to be myself.

So maybe I’m a wee bit further along on my quest to self definition, to self determination. And while the lyrics don’t hold what they once did for me, the music still beckons me to get up and dance right here, right now. (Which is good ’cause I’ve vowed to move more this year – preferring the word “move” eversomuchmore than “exercise.”)

And with lingering questions that outnumber answers, I leave you with Petula Clark singing the first record I bought with my own money: Downtown . . .

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365 Altars: honoring our deepest sumptuous selves. 4/365

enough

Path

seems like all my life i’ve had somebody professing to take care of me. and truth be known, i’ve kinda’ wanted somebody to take care of me, someone to watch over me to make sure i don’t misstep or misspeak or miss the boat. somebody to take care of me. and at the same time, i learned during as early as the group projects in elementary school that i am responsible for myself. i have to be.

i don’t have to forage for food or a place to sleep every day, but i do forage for something more.

i am many different people, and maybe i’m just not evolved enough, but my idea of wholeness is not to meld the entire committee into one generic version of self, not to be the same jeanne every single day of every single week of every single month of every single year of every single decade. shoot no. wholeness is welcoming each Committee Of Jeanne Member to the table (with one or two possible exceptions), and go on about my business.

i would like to say there’ll be no more trying to remake myself into an image others will find pleasing and acceptable – i’d love to commit to that – but the truth is, i know me too well by now. there will always be a committee member in search of the gold star, the pat on the head, the atta’ girl. one committee member will always advocate abandoning any idea that isn’t readily met with enthusiasm from somebody outside our committee.

i have committed to walking down this path of 365 Altars, to honoring my deepest sumptuous self every single day, and it is my fervent hope that eventually i will become stronger, more sure of myself, and that i won’t grow another single wrinkle worrying about being found pleasing in the sight of others. that i will stand in front of the mirror and smile at the sight of my self (even first thing in the morning), and that that smile will fill me up.

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365 Altars: honoring our deepest sumptuous selves. 3/365

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a most important note: The notion of 365 Altars was fueled by talking with my sister-in-writing-and-more-much-more Julie Daly of UnabashedlyFemale.com and talks with my sister-in-spirituality-and-so-very-much-more, Angela Kelsey of (of all things) AngelaKelsey.com. I love them.

a funny thing happened on the way to

BackDoor1

: 1 :
i look at the houses
on that flat, straight 2-lane country road,
not much distinguishing
one house from another
save the
vehicles in the yard,
some resting on concrete blocks,
others simply parked.
waiting.

: 2 :
“i’d like to stop
at every house,” i say aloud,
“knock on the door,
and ask the woman who answers:
‘has your life turned out
the way you hoped it would?
the way you wanted it to?
if not, why
and what will you do about it?'”

: 3 :
the epiphany:
i am the woman
on both sides
of the door.

Neglected

More about 365 Altars

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