12/6

Oh man, it’s taking a long time to get settled and I’m still thinking I need a couple of other things which necessitates getting up and then having to go through the settling process again. I don’t know why I’m reluctant to settle and write.


I suppose I’m afraid. I feel uncomfortable inside, a weight when I feel inside a desire to steer things when Daniel is here. Steer them to create more of that nice feeling before he goes. Knowing that steering has usually worked out with less than happy feelings, I feel fear that I will act uncomfortable and create discomfort and an atmosphere that is uncomfortable.

But now I’m thinking about my dream, the one of the river in particular. As I told Sharon last night, one of the reasons I quit kayaking was that I felt I couldn’t trust myself to not get paralyzed with fear and thus make a bad decision. Sharon is proposing that I can trust that I am being taken care of and the good news is I don’t HAVE to be so alert for openings and afraid I’m going to miss them.

But it’s tricky, because I can see myself on a path to that becoming a part of Old Pattern that’s shutting down this new way of being. I feel like I’m wavering on the crux of the pattern emerging and a strong compelling voice that wants me to know that I can screw it up by being afraid, get stuck to feelings of Old Pattern again. And stay stuck…I see how the fear is a part of that Pattern—and I can begin to discern that there are signs when it’s coming…perhaps to the extent I can also be part of Ground as opposed to totally Figure I have some advance warning of a force magnetizing me toward the …old way.

That’s peculiar how in some ways I get this and then in some ways I don’t. I guess it just makes sense to me for the first time how realization of the possibility of bad feelings in the Environment could cause me to split from it (in a de facto sort of way) and locate full responsibility for all feelings into myself and feel it is my duty to change them for everyone

I might as well admit that the happiness I have at the anticipation of Daniel coming is part of what triggers the currents of tension running through me—the fear that I will do something wrong—the fear that my Fear of doing something wrong will make me do something wrong. Will make an uncomfortable atmosphere between us and I’ll be responsible for having created it and responsible for fixing it. I'm afraid my fear of doing something wrong will render me powerless to fix it.

Later

So Daniel just left. And the job’s still not finished so he’s got probably one more trip left. Gee, he’s a nice guy.

My guess is that he’s a born-again Christian. It’s probably unlikely that he’s of the metaphysical stripe…though he seems to respond to things from a place of depth (and to appreciate the humor that is there)…so maybe his Christianity is the true kind, that is a gateway to the divine in himself. I feel like my gateway to the divine in my self is a far broader interpretation of Christianity than I think most mainstream Christians are comfortable with; but the themes are there—loss, cut off from God, sacrifice, redemption, heroic journey. It’s there in Christianity and it seems to be there in the way that’s called me all my life. Some Christians recognize there are many paths to deep inner communion with God. I think most Christians, at least in my experience growing up that I encountered, do not see Christianity as a doorway at all, but an end in itself. They’ve gotten enamored of the trappings, the rules, the rituals and so it is an imposition from the outside-in (and all that implies about will-power and obedience). A certain part of the person has to die in order to live like that.

He just seems to respond with delight when our eyes meet talking. He seems happy talking to me too.

It’s just unmistakable that I like the way I feel after I’ve seen him. It gives me pleasure to look back on it. Perhaps I’m experiencing these feelings as being in the Ground (and not crammed up inside of Figure, causing anxiety). It’s kind of nice to think that if these feelings are in Ground, then it’s not just me—that it’s in the Ground *between* us. And that’s kind of neat to acknowledge it. It’s in the Ground between us.

It’s also sweet to have it feel so uncomplicated, this happiness. It’s been special and unexpected, but I think it’s also something that doesn’t require anything…so I’ll be able to let go of it when the time comes.

It’s very funny what a difference it made, the quality of the time with Daniel today. I felt free of the second-guessing and the self-consciousness that comes from that. I felt what it was like to wait until I had an internal prompting telling me to do something before I’d act, and I think I had an experience of the difference.

I know that before seeing him today I was inclined to be embarrassed and afraid of being more embarrassed.


12/07

I flashed on something…about how happiness IS people’s best natural state. People who are happy, in that deep abiding sense inside, behave well I would be willing to bet.

So perhaps what I’ve been experiencing, especially yesterday and also today, is happiness that’s located in the Ground. It’s not necessarily located inside of me, or inside of Daniel, or even in the enjoyment of his presence (Presence). There is some temptation to locate it inside of him.

So anyway, this happiness seems like it should be the foundation from which humans move. Because the best behavior is inspired by it, and it’s like being held. Yes, lifted up. I feel lifted up, and I feel happy. That’s a lot, for me to write that down.



It certainly does reach into a sexual pulse, though. Or I experience Life Force as a heightened sexual awareness.

When I have no internal input coming in I try to fill it with some activity: I imagine a Voice inside and wonder if it’s God telling me what to do. Or substitute “True Self” for God. Every impulse (often prompted by anxiety). That’s what I was describing to Sharon—the realization that I feel jabbed inside about an action to take and I don’t know if it’s my Real Voice or not…and so I feel afraid to act on it and I feel afraid to not act. Afraid I’ll act too soon and fuck something up and miss an opportunity and afraid I’ll wait too long and fuck up and miss an opportunity.

The slightest direction toward falling has been enough to push me full-on into falling. And a good deal of my life has been occupied with anxiety over that. Fear of fear, anxiety of anxiety.

Something was going on that was nice. Period. And it was like there was an undercurrent when he first arrived of a bit of checking: did I guess right when you seemed like a friend? Is it still ok to not be guarded with you? It IS? Hooray! I think just that brought a certain ease, the eye contact we made and there was a smile behind that.


12/08

It seems the primary happiness has passed into memory, where it becomes available to second-guessing, self-doubt, a little distortion.

We had a nice encounter. It was generative, for whatever reason, which makes it easy for me to divert that energy into a sexual realm. He may not do that. He may not experience it as sexual at all, but as a manifestation of God in me, and what I was experiencing was God in him. That’s a way of saying it, is that feeling lighter, better, while talking to him is a direct result of his living his life as such to let God shine through. That’s why, I guess, I feel maybe it’s ‘wrong’ or something to go ahead and let it express for me sexually.

I guess what’s dangerous about letting my thoughts go full tilt with the sexual aspect of the energy between Daniel and me is that it might ‘spoil’ it. It’ll become tasteless and then I’ll feel restless and unhappy; sated when I don’t want to be. Stale; I’m afraid it will become stale if I allow images and fantasies through.

What I was experiencing was the afterglow experience of having been in his presence…it was like an afterglow. It’s not so much I was thinking about him in specifics, like what he’d said and what I’d said, but more like being in the influence of his field. And liking it. Just feeling positively influenced by his field.

Maybe he’s a person who is gifted that way and does it wherever he goes. Leaves behind a field that brings out the best in people.

I suppose one of the reasons I revisit this is because it’s reassurring: it helps reassure me that I didn’t imagine it, or make it up.

What I seem to be noticing is that there are many lights to shed on a same experience, and it’s very possible that while one may think she’s holding a bouquet of flowers in one light she may see the same as a handful of wilted weeds in another. Can that be true of anything, any experience, thought, or concept?

There seems to be a way that there’s something magic in the experience I’ve had with Daniel. And paying attention to staying with what I really wanted inside seemed to enhance that and lead to a nice experience for me for sure and possibly us both. With that sense of magic comes some sense of future magic. Again, I don’t know if that would be him specifically, or if he just represents it.