Happy

4.26.2020


I am happy today. I don't feel this way often. Let me explain.

I have always inherently understood that happiness is not sustainable. It's not a place we end, but a place we land...from time to time. That we each come earth-side with our natural dispositions, and while we can adjust, and be influenced to a point, our temperature seems to be set where it's set, and we inevitably come back to land there.

I remember reading a book in my 20's that finally explained what I'd always known, which was that there are a million other things to be, rather than "happy". That is not to say I never land in "happiness", but the feeling of happiness that comes full on, that lasts the majority of the day, the whole body all-encompassing feeling of joy, just doesn't hit often.

And this is not to say that if one does not experience joy, that they must be experiencing it's opposite, for I do not exist full time in sadness, but rather, am a mix of many things.

I default in: a bit of melancholia, wistfulness, nostalgia, wonder, curiosity, and my other things I lack the vocabulary for, that make up my inner storm.

But when days like this hit, where my body is light, where I dwell lightly in it, when I have a pep in my step, a twinkle in my eye, and a smile on my face, when I have landed for a moment in happy...those days feel so good.

And I think they are extra special, because they don't come often.

Like a holiday.

I appreciate it like a holiday...


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Now.

This morning was different.

Out for a walk, I could hear it. I could feel the pulse. I was so away of the universe breathing. It was alive, I was a part of it, and I was in sync like I hadn't been in five years.

I am focusing on breathing today. I am aware. I am alive. I am breathing deeply and purposefully.

What if this is exactly where I am supposed to be? What if, after a false start, this is the beginning...of everything?


Eternal retour, eternal retour, eternal retour.


Inhale. Exhale. Begin.



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Neither here nor there

You know the space between sleep and awake? The hazy and mystical place where new ideas flow freely, and revelations are had? Where you are neither here nor there, but existing somewhere other than this plane? Where dreaming and reality meet? You know how sometimes it's a little more revelatory than others? Me too.

I had one of these visions/experiences the other night. My dad recently sent me the above photos. They speak to me so strongly as familiar and right and me, and only now when I thought to post them did I realize how closely they resemble to what I saw and felt the other day/night.

I was in and out. I was deeply aware of a stillness through the universe. A vastness, a beautiful darkness. All was quiet, calm, peaceful, and so still. All existing as it always had and always will. No time. There is no time. There is no clock, no need nor way to mark a date, or an hour, or the minute.

All was one, breathing together, and time felt suspended and infinite.

I was comforted, remembering that I'm part of that. The most natural thing in the world. Home. I could see the planets through a purple and blue and feel myself around them, and everywhere, for I was (am) part of everything.

It's one of those things you can't quite experience the same when fully conscious, no matter how hard you try. It's fleeting, but so real. So deep. A reminder, a re-awakening, a comfort sent your way. Letting you know that you know more than you think, to believe, and to trust.

For a brief moment, I was let out. Of my physical body, out of this world, out of time. Back to my origins. Back to my home. It's so beautiful there.

In the neither here nor there I've seen heaven. I wrote about it a couple of years ago. After Chuck died, I saw it. It is gold and grand and moves slowly.

In the neither here nor there I've seen my Grandpa and Chuck. They were young, they were happy, they were playing with a baby in a meadow. The grass was so green, the sun was shining, it was warm although they both wore jackets. They had huge smiles on their faces as they spun him around. This little blonde boy.

In the neither here nor there, the same night I was released to the cosmos for awhile, I also felt my future baby. My daughter? All around me. She is there. She is near me. It will soon be time. We're connected already.

A few nights ago my mom had a dream Chuck was teaching me a dance on a stage. He was around 30. He was in a tuxedo. He looked great. As he taught me, others gathered behind us. I think I'm supposed to share a message of his.

A few nights after that, she had another dream that Chuck was buckling a little baby girl into a car seat. She was wearing a dress. All I know, is they are together. She is in good hands. And she will soon be on her way.

She is waiting, watching over me. He'll send her when we're ready.

She knows best.


Thanks for reading,

Deena Marie

xo

Who are you?

So inspired by what a friend asked today on her Facebook page. "WHO ARE YOU? Who are you behind your fb page, your business title, or any other mask you have out there. Deep down, behind closed doors, who are you?" I  wanted to pose the question, too.  When you answer, let it pour out of you quickly. Don't think too much, just let the answer come. Stream of consciousness.  Here's mine: 

I am the most sensitive person I know. I feel everything deeply. Too deeply, I think, at times. I recently learned I get caught up in past wounds more than I was conscious of. I think being a human is unnatural and I don't like it all that much at times. Yet I often exist in a state of opposites. I have felt more in the moment the last couple of years more than I ever have, and I am currently so in love with my life that I get terribly sad thinking I don't get to keep it. I have to die someday. I don't want to. I want to freeze time. I don't want my husband and I to age, or die. I find this heartbreaking. 

I came to this life an old soul, but the memories of whatever I was are getting farther away. As if I am growing younger. I believe in reincarnation only because of how strongly I feel that I've always been here and will be again. I can almost remember the in-between of each round.  I identify with warrior and wise sage archetypes. Joan of Arc. Sylvia Plath. Carl Sagan. I also find it small and strange that we all fit into the same archetypes again and again. I always want there to be more. There probably is, but I don't know enough to see it.  

I believe humankind sets incredibly silly rules about things like money and politics and priorities. I don't like the boundaries and labels we draw with the earth and with each other. I've never belonged to an organized religion, but understand people need to believe what they believe to get through life with comfort and hope. We are all entitled to that, and should never be told or tell another they are wrong for their path. I believe we all end up in the same place, so whatever road you take to get there is fine. 

I think it is impossible and nonsensical to judge another, therefore when you do it's all about you and your beliefs, perceptions. I can't wrap my head around people shunning other people because of who they love, what they wear, or skin color. I suppose it's because I know I'm not my body. I identify with my inside, my soul. I feel my soul is not so limited as the vessel that houses it this round. I don't know if it's male or female or human, or what it is.  But I know it's me.  I also think my shell and my jobs here betray who I am.  Funny, isn't it? I do believe it's meant to be this way, for the greater good of our evolution. 

I crave salt to the point where I swear it could be a medical issue.  Always have. I prefer to sit on the floor rather than on a piece of furniture and have to reassure new people again and again that yes, I really am fine to do so. I have gone longer without red meat and pork in my diet than I ever did with it, even though there was a time when steak, mashed potatoes, and corn was my favorite meal.

When people have conversations about decorating their homes and shopping for material possessions I want to cry with boredom. I'd rather you talk about what makes you sad, and alive, and scared, and where you think our soul is, and what you think it is, and what you know to be true without ever having experienced it. 

I often feel I don't belong here in this place and time because I know better, I see past the illusion. I often imagine there is a force, a presence, or creator sitting back watching all of us here on planet Earth get it so wrong.  I'm sure they shake their head at us.  But I feel it is also loving and patient, and knows all.  I truly believe one day mankind will be enlightened, yet I'm surprised at our slow progress.  But we are young. 

I feel at times a more masculine energy in myself than female. I think nurture and nature have a huge hand in shaping us. I am an aries and only child through and through. For a highly sensitive person who has been on the path to expand and enlighten herself for four years now, at times I am scared how stubborn and borderline narcissistic I am. I try to forgive myself and chalk it up to the fact that I do have to live this life.  I have to be temporarily human.

I tattoo bits and pieces on my shell that mean something and mark phases, memories, and decades. It's a collection of the people I once was. When I die, I like that someone who doesn't know me could look at my body and in seeing those tattoos, understand a bit of who I was. That makes me smile just thinking about it. 

I believe this round my lessons are to learn how to truly forgive other people, to accept, allow, embrace, be present, and have patience.  

I believe my dog and I have been together before. I know it when I look into his eyes.  I believe dreams are sometimes memories.  I have had the same recurring dream about him and it has nothing to do with anything we've ever experienced.  He is always about to drown in various bodies of water, he is sinking.  At the last minute I save him.  I believe it's because we've lived it.  Maybe he's been my son.  

The first time you experience a death of someone close to you is probably the most profound experience possible.  When I did three years ago, I believe now I suffered from the beginnings of cotard delusion . I could feel my soul trying to escape, I felt I could barley contain it.  I kept trying to transition. I felt I was flickering and wasn't here in this world. I kept worrying I'd died.  

I've known what it is like to want to die, and what it's like to want to live.  I have had a thing for awhile with wanting to be in the air, off the earth. But as I seek and find my truth in this life, I am far more okay with being rooted to earth. Love is my number one, above all else. It is our essence, after all. I probably love too much, nearing the point of worship. I am so full of it, it hurts sometimes.  

Social media is a blessing and a curse.  I secretly long to live off the grid. I've got a hippie soul. Being in nature away from technology feels most natural.  I believe we are all one. I am another you, you are another me. If we all understood this there would be no enemies, no war. 

I believe happiness is not a place you get to and sustain, but society wants us to think so. All emotions are fleeting. It's okay to exist as something other than happy, and more often than not.  Sometimes I think I feel most in my natural state when I've got a bit of melancholia or nostalgia.  

I wish I was a cosmologist. Science is spiritual. If I could dub my "religion" with the title "Scientific Spirituality", I would. When I remember how we are so much tinier than we can ever comprehend, I want to cry over the fact I'll never be out exploring the universe in this lifetime.  

I feel most like "me" when I forget "me", and experience something that reminds me I am part of something bigger. I believe the universe is kind, and will give you what you need at every single moment.  It might not be what you think you want, and you probably won't fit the puzzle pieces together until far down the road.  Every time you trust your instincts and jump, the universe provides.  Everything is a lesson. And all, all, all, is temporary.  

I don't know if I've ever truly met another of my kind, but take comfort knowing they are out there somewhere, feeling the same way I do.

So, who are you?

Thanks for reading,

Deena Marie 

~ Insatiable ~

I am an insatiable person. As in:

(definitions)
Impossible to satisfy.
Incapable of being satisfied.
Voracious, wanting.
Not satiable.
Someone who is insatiable can never be full.
It can be used for spiritual as well as physical desires.

In what ways, you ask? In romantic relationships, mainly. It takes a lot to be my partner. In every relationship I've ever been in, I've known I've required a lot from my partner.  While each of them (and there have been four long term) were very different, there are always similarities with what I ask and what I need. This isn't necessarily new information for myself, but it's become clearer. I don't apologize for being me. I apologize if I've hurt you because of how I am. I always want to grow and be a better version of myself. I am aware I can be demanding and draining.

I love love. I love experiencing the kind of romantic love I'm finally experiencing. I am so in love with this love, there can never be enough of it to fill me. "Someone who is insatiable can never be full." Even when I have it, when I have someone who worships me it's never enough. When I have someone who loves me, I want to feel it more. I want to hear it, see it, breathe it, live it, tenfold every second of every day. I want it proven to me moment after moment. Even though I am a wife, it is not done. It is just beginning. It will never be done. More, more, more.

I am how I am, yet I am adaptable. I've experienced changes within me time and time again. I don't believe anyone is set in their ways. To say that and leave it at that is lazy, a cop out. It just takes work. It just takes experience, knowledge, perspective, an opening of the heart and mind.

To those of you who have been my partners, be it years or months, you have been warriors. You didn't know you were coming up against me, loving someone who will never have enough. Some of you battled longer and harder than others. But you were all brave, and all (mostly) gave a valiant effort. Some ran away from it. I was too much. They couldn't do it. Some I left behind. Drained, depleted. Done. For that I apologize. I know loving me is…the way it is. It takes someone special to stick with me. To be the man who will not waver. Who will not run. And even then, when I have you completely, I will push you.

So here we are now. Love of my life. And I find I still want more of you. I want you to give me all of you, in every moment. More, more, more. Yet I know I can't consume you, entire. You must have something for yourself. You must not let me drain you. How do I find a way to satiate myself in this love? How do I let myself rest, and breathe, and accept it? You are it though. Boy, are you it.

You are also the only one who ever pushed me back.  

I have so much love in me. I have so much to give. That's something I've recently learned. How lucky am I? To be made with such a heart. To have the capacity to love someone so fully and then some. The issue is, I need it back.

And then some.
And then some.
And then some.

Even when I have it, it's not enough.

The most insatiable girl in the world, me.


Thanks for reading,

Deena

Six minutes.

I am running from my front door to get my car, which is at a lot at the end of the road.
I will time it.  It will take six minutes.
In six minutes I will try to discover the secrets of the universe.

I start with remembering the Summer of Sad.  2012.
I always seem to find myself there at times like this.  In the in between.
How I can't do anything I used to before, or during, the Summer of Sad.
The association, you see.  This is the first time I've run outside since that summer.
Back when all I did was run outside.  Anything to keep moving.
This makes me sad.

Everything has changed, I'm a far cry from where I was.
Life is rich.  But I'm doing what I did then.
This running.  Outside.
Sumer of sad.  Sad, sad summer.

I am seized.  I almost slow down, but instead I pick up the pace.
If only you could know that summer.  Then you'd understand.
Why nothing could remain the same.
Why I tumbled inside and out until I was new.

It's sunny.  It's getting warm.
This makes me sad.
I'm sad because I'm so happy.
I have the realization that I'm always in a state of perpetual heartbreak.
Who would I be, without my undercurrent of melancholia?
The haunting nostalgia that so few get to see?
It must comfort me.  It must be familiar.
I know longer worry I'm the strangest person on the earth.
The only one who feels too deeply for her own good.
I'm proud to know my lineage of archetypes, and that the line of me
goes both backward and forward, endlessly...éternel retour.

I want to cry because I used to be so sad, because I overcame it,
because I'm so deeply in love, because my life is so incredibly good, because I don't get to keep it, because I'll die one day, because I can't imagine my parents getting old, because I never want to be alive without the people I love here with me, because I don't ever want to part from the love of my life, because I want us all to leave the earth in hundreds of years from now, painlessly, at the exact same second.

Because it is all so, so painfully beautiful.

I think about eyes.  Two tiny eyes to be shown the entire world with.
What I would do if I suddenly couldn't see.
How despite not hearing music anymore, I think I'd rather not hear.
Blocking out the noise of the world is something I suddenly feel I could do,
but if I didn't have my eyes…

I think about my love.  Again and again I return to my love.
Soul partner, sent to me.  The only one.  My everything.
Words cheapen here.  I haven't discovered the right words yet.
It hurts.  My love is constantly on the verge of spilling out of me at any given moment.
I am so full of love inside.  Swollen.  It's sometimes too much to bear.
I'm positive I will explode.

I play the game of back and forth between the present, and Sad Summer.
I wonder what the future will hold, and if I'll ever be that sad again.
I wonder if I'll always be this happy.
What could be worse? What could be better?
I am seized.  I almost slow down, but instead I keep running...

I left my world...

Poetry is the most magical, comforting, teacher I have.  Through words that bleed emotion I learn who I am, and that even when I am positive I am the only person to go through such trials and tribulations and that no one else could possibly have a life like mine, I learn that I'm not.  And that is everything.  I can crack open, and let my emotions bleed along with the words when I'm not yet ready or able to use my own. 


I left my world
to be with you
I had to escape
without telling anyone.

I know I left broken hearts
and I suffered for that
but nothing compares
with the suffering of being away
from you.

Today everything is happiness.

Being with you
in different cities
where nobody knows us
and forget our
boring
locked
past.

Walk in the woods
enjoying the sun
the rain
the wind
and the snow.

Today everything is happiness.

-Axel Marazzi


Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
Instagram: deena_marie
Facebook: TheDeenaShow

Nothing true can be forced

This came to me the other morning when I woke up and I made it my facebook Facebook status.  I wanted to share it here, as well:


"The older I get and the more I experience I see how impossible it is to ever pass judgement on another human being. We can only ever experience life from our point of view. Only we (the individual) will ever know our deepest thoughts, what our inner voice whispers (even when we don't want to hear it), what our heart truly wants. 

Sometimes living your truth looks different than others want it to, or even you want it to. But one thing I know, is that the inner voice doesn't go away. You can listen to it. You can follow it. I promise. Sometimes unexpected events transform you into a new person. There is then a choice. You can stay the same and attempt to adapt, or you can let go and invite new teachers into your life, while thanking the old. Sometimes you stay and try your hardest to adapt, but it isn't meant to be. 

Nothing true can be forced in life. Gratitude, truth and forward momentum is the name of the game. And everything done with love."


I'm constantly learning lessons in Gratitude.  The other night I fell asleep with tears of gratitude in my eyes.  Crying myself to sleep, and I've never been happier.


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Thanks for reading, 

Deena Marie

Thumbs Up

This is the month.  On the 27th it will be the one year mark.  One year since Chuck left.  There's one story I've had and haven't been able to share.  I've wanted to, I just couldn't write it.  I wanted it documented and out in the word but could never find my own words to tell it.  So, I asked my mom.  It took her awhile to be able to do it, but over the weekend, she did.  Here is a very special story in her beautiful words.  May is definitely going to be about honoring our Chuck.

Thumbs Up

I want to share with you a small moment in my family’s life, that made a huge impact! Maybe I should say a moment between my daughter and my brother.  My handsome, humorous, brother Chuck, left us last May. So here we are at almost a year, still contending with shooting pains in our hearts.

What a unique guy my brother was, and I mean that in a most loving way.  Chuck was the prankster of the family, how he came up with some of the jokes he pulled on us is still a mystery.  We were his personal guinea pigs! This teasing also extended to his nieces and nephews.

I’ve told Deena she takes after her uncle Chuck that way.  The have the same humor, and they shared an invisible, mighty bond. 

Chuck was so proud of Deena, from the day she was born, until his last minutes on this earth.

As I ride that hideous roller coaster of sadness, certain memories linger.  One of my favorites happened while he was in the hospital for the last time.

Chuck was rushed by ambulance to the emergency on May 10^th, 2012.  He would be in the hospital for the next two weeks, all but one of those days in the ICU.  There the medical staff hovered over him and did their difficult jobs, and there were many.

Now my Chuck, this bigger than life guy, was on the brink of death.  He lay in his hospital bed, intubated and unconscious.  He was our sleeping giant.  This was a hard part for my family, we hugged and cried and dealt with our crumbling hearts. 

I existed in my stupor, wearing boots made of lead, seeing through gray lenses, and carrying an internal ball of fear.

That was how I functioned last May. 

Around the fourth or fifth day, the doctors decided it was time to wean him off his medications.  This would help determine how sick he really was.  This is the time the silent worry began, if he did wake up, would he be our same Chuck? Had he been oxygen deprived?

The nurses encouraged us to talk to Chuck and touch him during this time.  He began to turn his head toward the sounds of voices.  Or any loud noise.  He became restless, letting a leg hang off his bed.  But we needed more! Please Chuck, just open your eyes! Please give us a sign!

This process lasted maybe two days, it felt like years. 

Deena was on her way to the hospital when I suddenly had this feeling or premonition.  There was going to be a connection between Deena and Chuck! I JUST KNEW! Deena knew it too, she felt it as she walked down the hospital corridor. 

Deena walked into the room, stood at the foot of his bed, and said, “Hi Chuck”.  He raised his arm in the air and gave a big Thumbs Up! Oh my god! Did he just give us our sign?! He had reacted to her after all! I KNEW IT! That darn thumb caused so much emotion and elation at the same time!

Deena and Chuck were truly connected!

My mom burst out crying, which caused a slight domino effect.  But they were tears of joy!

Later mom would say it reminded her of a fairy tale, when the Prince awakens the Princess.  In our case, it was the niece, that woke her uncle!

I can only tell you, that in my minds eye, I relive this miracle moment, over and over. 

And so, to my daughter and big brother, I give you both, a Thumbs Up!

- Lauren Manzanares 

April, 2013

Speak a new language

Speak a new language 
so that the world 
will be 
a new world 

-Rumi 

April, June, December
Metamorphosis, Shed a skin

Just a little over six months in between
Grow, Rebirth

...2012 fades away, the evolution of a contained 365 days complete,
and a new year is being born...

Join me: Instagram 

Deena Marie 


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