My Seattle

I've been back for a while and just like any over-extended person, there was way too much to catch up on at the farm to sit down and write. This is a way of thinking, I am making every effort to dislodge. I'm back in full force, got all planted that I needed to and now I wait for germination and kids and lambs! Thanks to the rain, pastures are well watered and ponds are filled. The trip to Seattle was good but I realized something rather disturbing. I've lived in Oklahoma now for almost nine years, I've been home to visit plenty of times but my memories of Seattle are in grey scale.  No blue skies, always grayish. The water, grey, the sand, grey and black, the rocks, the streets, the buildings etc, grey scale. No blue, greens reds, oranges. What is this?

I have no doubt my move to Oklahoma nine years ago was an effort to run away from my suffering, run away from the pain I felt had inflicted on others and myself. But no one has to tell me running from oneself isn't futile. I caught up with myself pretty fast and luckily decided to stay put and step up to the challenge of searching and nurture my well being. But still I have skeletons . I still have pain. I'm reading a book right now by Thich Nhat Hanh,  The Heart of Buddha's Teaching. He suggests that to come to a place of well being one must first acknowledged the pain that they feel, embrace it like a crying child and then try to understand the root cause of the pain.

This goes against everything I was taught. I was taught to ignore my pain. Even now I might accidentally slam my shin to the point of raising a tear and shake myself out of it and force myself to stand tall, ignore it and keep working. I'll check for blood and if its not bleeding enough I just let the wound alone and pretend its not there. Just yesterday I hit my thumb with the hammer really hard and I ignored it. I caught myself and forced myself to sit there for a moment feeling. Ouch! How did I learn this? How did I learn to ignore my pain? I don't do this anymore at least as much, and recently I've come to seek out my pain. Physical and emotional. Sadness,? I always looked for a cure. But it was just this morning I said to myself after my meditation, you know its okay to be sad. Trying to be happy all the time just isn't feasible or necessarily good for me. So I'm feeling sad, sad for many things, and many people, just sad. I don't want to find a cure I just want to feel it. I'm not saying I want to become attached to it. I wont, but I have to quit ignoring it.

My trip home opened a door for me. While I was there I began to see color, blue and greens in millions of shades. I looked into the faces of my niece and nephew and saw such light and tenderness in them, no judgment, no disappointment. The ocean was so green and there was so much color in the sky.  My memories don't reflect the truth. Hmmm.....I'm making my peace, slowly making my peace.

There is just so much to be sad about and so much to be grateful for, and so much to be joyous about. There is so much to feel and so much to love. There is so much love to be had, felt and received. So many opportunities to feel each step and each breath with a smile or a tear or both. I guess really living is the ability to feel and experience it all, not just feeling one thing or the other. But learning to feel it all at once while still keeping both feet on the ground.