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.



*
*

How to Ruin Your Life - response

How to Ruin Your Life (Without Even Noticing That You Are)  
By Bianca Sparacino on Thought Catalog 

"You are allowed to figure out what inspires you. You are allowed time, and I think we often forget that. We take the next step, and the next step, and the next step, thinking that we are fulfilling some checklist for life, and one day we wake up depressed. What is it with our need to fast-track relationships? Why are we so enamored with the idea of first becoming somebody’s rather than somebodies?"

I've blogged about this, but I've never said it in these exact words. I wanted to respond to this post that resonated so deeply in hopes others hear Bianca's words, and my words. What she writes about in the blog above is exactly what I would tell my younger self. I regret nothing, as it made me who I am, but with that I can now help someone else learn these lessons earlier than I did, or find comfort or inspiration in these words.

I got caught up living the checklist and not my truth. 

If I go back and read over old journal entries I am blown away by the girl in the pages. She wants acting school in NYC to hurry and be done. She wants to be a success and she wants people to know her name now. She wants love. She wants to be married. She feels like the clock is ticking and there is a deadline and she is panicked. She needs these things to happen and she needs it now. I'm not sure she understands the why behind the wants, but nevertheless, she feels she must hurry. She has her checklist and as she begins to knock each one off, she feels a bit more successful. She is getting it done. She is getting what she wants, right? And by the way, she is so so terribly young. Of course she doesn't know this. She just knows that time is never on anyone's side. She even lists age she is sure she needs to be married by! And by the way, this age is so, so terribly young. 

I knew nothing back then of self awareness. I hadn't dug deep, gotten to know truly and deeply who I was or what I wanted. I had yet to find out what city felt like home, what "success" meant to me in this career, my strengths and my shortcomings, let alone what kind of partner would best serve me. I simply hadn't experienced enough. I hadn't lived enough life. But there is no time to explore the world, your mind, or your heart when you have tunnel vision and only see the list in front of you.

But I had a list. The list gave me a purpose and a focus and I knocked the items off, more often than not so desperate for it that I lived almost always in the future. All that mattered was what came next. 

Fast forward a number of years later. Checklist completed. And you know what was most surprising? I felt young. So, so terribly young. I was. I am. I'd completed my list. I was done. 

I had nothing left on it and I was at the very beginning of the rest of my life. 

Oh shit. And it's in the moments of the biggest "oh shits" we learn and grow the most. I was only starting to dig, to uncover who I was, and what I wanted. I reflected on the choices I had made and I realized that each time I said yes to the next step, I said yes to the checklist, but not always to what was true for me. I'd led myself right down the most unsatisfied, stagnant, and small path I could have.

Suddenly, I had never felt so convoluted in my whole life. It was the scariest, and messiest time. For a couple of years I stayed bound to the checklist. The funny thing was, from the outside, I had it all. But nobody knew my internal journey. Nobody knew what had governed me inside up to this point. I had made a string of choices based on fear. Fear of running out of time, and now I was trapped. I had no plan, no list, to guide me through what happens next. Yet there I was. The boat had been cruising along at a high speed, when suddenly the motor gave out. I was stuck. Still. Feeling the weight of the waves and water now upon me. 

I know I'm not the only one. I know I am describing a lot of people. This is the crucial point. Where you stay bound, or you leave to find what truly aligns with your soul. It took me some time to make the leap, but I chose to do it. I chose to live completely differently. No guidelines, lists, or rules. I jumped. I only knew I had to follow my gut. What I'd done before wasn't working, so I went the other way. The way of the unknown. I started be patient with myself. I started saying yes to the things and the people that lit me up. That made me feel like me. That felt like passion, and joy. 

Everything changed. My relationship status, my home, my car, my jobs, you name it and it was shaken up in all kinds of ways. 

I said yes to the right things for me for once. I tuned in. I finally realized there is no rushing anything, just like there is no forcing a fit. I spent time with men who hurt me, who I hurt, who were mean to me, who were good to me, but who were not it no matter how much I tried to tell myself they were. When I did meet the love of my life (and now husband), it happened much later than my old diary would have liked, but that's ok when you know there is no deadline. Do you hear me? There is no deadline. Hold out. Hold out for anything that you are still looking for to fuel your soul if you haven't found it yet. It's there, and you won't get a chance to see it or live it if you are filling your life with what "should" be, or settling for mediocrity because it's good enough, and you're afraid great isn't out there. 

It is. I promise that it is. Make the space in your mind, life, and heart for it so you can find it. Don't give yourself to the job or relationship that is only okay, because you're scared that its as good as it gets. That doesn't make you an ideal partner, employee, or person, nor is it fair to those around you. Nobody grows up excited to only get so far, only so happy, to choose to live life at half mass. And are you drawn to the people who do live at half mass? Do they inspire you? Do they bring you to life? No. 

This is everything I would have told my younger self. While she was stubborn and wouldn't have listened, maybe now I needed to write this simply as my love letter to her in order to forgive her. To tell her I now understand, and it's going to be okay. 

Going forward all I can say is that fear is so often not real, and it passes. All is temporary. Good and bad. And time is both endless and fleeting. And there is no reason to be in this world other than to live your truth. No one else can do it. You are here, and that is your one job. That's it. Whatever it means, whatever it looks like, whenever it happens. You don't have to look like, or do, or be anything. And you can change your mind. And change it again. Be many things and anything that makes you happy. 

There are no rules. 

Only the boundaries you learn to set for yourself over time. The ones that are authentic to your soul. What kinds of things and people you should learn to say yes to, and should learn to say no to. 

Life didn't begin for me until I set myself free,
and released the "should be's". 
The world cracked open, and it turned out she loved me. 
I loved her back, and I soared. 

You are here to live, and thrive, and shine. 
The more you do, the easier things get. 

Free yourself, the world needs you to. 



DM

Schrödinger's Cat

When exactly does quantum superstition end and reality collapse into one possibility or another?

My husband and I are in limbo. We are waiting to find out things (three very specific things at the moment) that will shape our future paths and the rest of our lives.  Yeah, no big deal.

I've been known to be impatient. Not as much as I once was, but it's in me. My sweet love is stressed. Yet, for some reason I find myself a little more comfortable in this situation than I would expect. 

Maybe it's time, getting older, or the comfort I take knowing from experience that the universe is to be trusted. I can't help but feel some magic in the air before anything is known, and all is possible. No matter the outcomes, it's okay. The universe knows, and keeps steering us to things we never saw coming. All in it's own time, I suppose. 

Right now we are with, and without. As much as I want to know, I also don't.

I kinda like this feeling of possibility. 

Thanks for reading,

DM

At this very moment.

leeds, UT | 4.17.2015 


She used to come here to escape. To try to mend her broken soul. Heart shattered, she missed him terribly. She hoped that the farther away she got, maybe the easier it would be to forget he'd existed. But the truth was, when he tore through her world he changed everything. Left her in flames.

She spent so much time looking at the sky here, and teaching herself to find the beauty in everything. She had to find a way to live in the word again, and to see the good. And when she did not find it at times, "at least he's given me new eyes with which to see", she'd think.

She was open to the omens in a way she'd never been before. She was thankful for her new eyes. But just as she was resigning herself to the fact that he was lost forever, the universe stepped in, not done with them after all.

Now he is here. Her husband, holding the camera. She sees the sky in a different way now. Gone is the longing to be off of the earth and into the blue, for she loves so much what grounds her here.

Right at this moment, this is what's going through her head. And as she turns from the sunset to look at him, these are the thoughts she wants captured in this photo.



~DM

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 

If you always do what you've always done...

...you'll always get what you've always got.

My mantra of the moment.  The foundation of my new year buzzwords I mentioned a couple of posts ago.  Passion, and create.

Let me elaborate.  

One thing I love about getting older, is learning to say no.  Not in general (as your answer for saying no must be better than your answer for saying yes to most situations), but when something doesn't align with your soul, you can decline the experience before it begins.  Be it a job, a relationship, an outing with friends.  More than ever this year, if it doesn't feel like a fit instantly and instinctually, I'm not going to give it my time.  

It also becomes easier to trust your instincts with each passing year, and as you learn this, it seems ludicrous to ever try something out you knew deep down was going to end in a no. 

I'm going to be a step ahead this year.  Decisions will be brave and bold.  At first glance, risky.  But I've learned each time that the universe is here to provide me with abundance when I make a choice that aligns with what is true for me.  Simple.  Why does this take years to learn?

As 2015 rang in, I couldn't help feel the most powerful energy! It was palpable, sweeping, and positive.  How to harness this? It was full of change.  I found myself wanting to put my bold moves into action.  I've felt certain things whisper to me over the years, but I fall back into the old habits eventually.  Nothing changes.  I've been longing for certain things, but they haven't manifested.  You know why? I'm not holding up my end of the bargain by being truthful about what I want, or how I'm spending my time.  Know what else?

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

There are things that I don't want anymore.  And I need space to make room for the things that I do.  The only requirement? Complete and total trust.  Unexpected circumstances left me with a clean slate just as 2014 was ending.  2015 is fresh and new.  That was no mistake.  My canvas sprawls before me to know create my truth, and only my truth. 

Okay, universe.  I hear you.  Please help me make my dreams come true.  I keep getting so close! I just need one more nudge and we're there. 

Symbols of creation are even showing up in my dreams.

So let's go.  

I'm yours.  Wish me luck. 

Thanks for reading,

Deena Marie

Eternity in a decade.

I am leaving New York.  I'm laying on the couch of a Brooklyn apartment in pink pajama bottoms and a pink tank top and I am sure I'm going to die.  I will die of a broken heart right here.  Tomorrow when I leave, I will look my best.  I will pick myself up and do my hair and my makeup and I will singlehandedly lug these bursting-at-the-seams suitcases home.  I'll have a giant bruise to show for it on my thigh from where one of my bags will keep hitting me.  At the time, I won't notice the pain.  When the young man at the airport asks to help me and I say yes, I won't think that there is a tip involved.  And when he won't leave until I find my money I'll snap at him.  Can't he see the world as I know it just ended?

My life is over.

But little do I know, I'm only at the beginning.

Funny, isn't it? How looking back everything has fallen so perfectly into place? Yes, even the times you were certain all was lost, and you'd never survive.  As if the universe designed earth specifically for you.  Here is your planet, and your path is laid out.  It is designed to protect you.  In the times your heart shatters, it's because it needs to heal differently, bigger than before, with new knowledge that you needed.  But it's up to you to learn, and grow and listen.  To tune in and hear your truth.

I'm amazed how eternity can be crammed into one decade.  I've been so many people.  Who else will I be? At least now I can trust the process.  No fear.

You can only tune in when the time is right.  I couldn't have told the girl laying on the couch in the pink pajamas just how okay it would be.  That her big dreams will play out, what it will feel like to hold her puppy, that the best day of her life will be when she marries the man of her dreams in the mountains.  There will be a hard battle of fighting to be in the same place at the same time, emotionally, and physically.  But there will be love.  Every heartache will be worth it when she finally lands on this love.

I truly can't imagine what I might tell myself in another decade.  What will she say to to the girl who's sitting at her kitchen table typing on her laptop this December 2014, with a pup on her lap and a husband by her side, approaching their first Christmas married?

What eternities are in store?

I hope to remember heart shattering is survivable, and inevitable.  And okay.  And needed.  And the ebbs and flows are constant.  And to keep going, and growing, and tuning deeper into truth.  That life will be a constant experiment in feeling too much, and feeling nothing at all.  That you should sink fully into whatever the day calls for.

I feel both suspension, and forward motion.  A strange mix of being in the present, and looking ahead.

This is where the universe has me placed today, in time, for a needed reason on this blue planet.

And everything is okay.


Deena Marie

Embracing the empath

Recently I shared an article on my Facebook from Elephant Journal called, "How to love an empath."  I've blogged about this before, and I think about it all the time.  What it's like to exist as a highly sensitive person (HSP).  How to describe it, and how overloaded my mind and emotions can get.  They are at level ten just about all the time, and while I've lived this way my entire life, there are times when all I want is out.  To be somewhere else for awhile.  I want to crawl out of my body and escape it for awhile.  It took me a long time to realize it's not only okay to be a HSP, but that it actually has a name.  While I appreciate those things, I often long for a break.

I don't let many people in deeply, so if you don't know me well you'd never know.  I am often outgoing and funny and lighthearted on the outside.  This also reminds me of how complex every human must be, and how they must be going through a million things at any given moment, no matter the scale or the depth of their feelings.  Being human is weird and hard and unnatural for everyone, not just me.  I am not alone.

Back to this article.  I posted the link and tagged a couple of my friends who I know exist at this level with me, and one of them, Sarah, responded with this: "It's by far and away not the easiest creature to be, but to experience the highest highs and the deepest depths of being human is something I'd never give up at any cost."  A few days later, her Facebook status read, "Some nights, the swirl of human emotion surrounding me reaches a feverish vibrational pitch and sleep escapes.  Still, I'd rather be turned into the song of the universe than be deaf to it's cadence and somnolent."

I realized that my feelings have been betraying me for some time now when it comes to the accepting of being a HSP.  She appreciates the being she is.  But do I? I constantly struggle with "surrender, accept, allow."  In fact, I'm sure at this point that those are the lessons I am in this life to learn.  Since I'm in a line of warrior archetypes, this is the hardest thing you can ask of me.

Dear Athena before me, how did you do it?

I'm recently experiencing things that are setting off an alarm deep in my subconscious.  I'm not yet accepting.  I can say it, but it's not true.  I'm still fighting all that I am.  When I wake up in the morning and I'm already overwhelmed with my questions of the universe and instantly analyzing every choice in my life that led me to this journey…well, it can be a bit much.  I want to fight it off, get out for awhile.  I start to tell myself how alone I am and how strange this is, and that it's just too much.  I think how much easier it would be to be a being who's thoughts and feelings never ran too deep.  I want out of my gift.  Gift.  Is it a gift?

Is it a blessing or a curse?

What we learn in childhood really does stick.  It can be undone, I do believe that, but boy is it deeply seated.  Maybe I'm truly not over being told in my youth, "you're too sensitive!" Almost as if I was in trouble for it! Long before my family knew better.

The thing is, I just thought I was squared away, and I've recently learned I've still got a lot of work to do.

That's all for now.


Deena Marie

Thank goodness for poets.

I've posted this before.  It's been in my head again the last few days.

This is why I love to read, why I love poetry, and words.  Bits and pieces stick with me and pop up when I need them, reminding me I'm never alone, never the first (nor the last) person to feel a certain way.  I can't think of anything more comforting.

Thank goodness for poets.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” - Rainer Maria Rilke  

I've also recently been reminded,

"Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't" - Bill Nye

And maybe more importantly, I've been reminded that every person we ever encounter has something to teach us.  Every one of them.

Thanks for reading.


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Write as if you were dying.

This article from the New York Times was sent to me yesterday by a fellow writer, poet, and all around fabulous lady.  I'm so glad she thought to send this to me.  My brain has been spinning ever since.

Read the full article here: Write Til You Drop by Annie Dillard.  While many sentences and paragraphs jumped out at me, what hit me most were these: 

There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?

It's funny (although it's actually perfect) that I just read this because my brain had just bee trying to form a little snippet of poetry similar to this idea.  Something along the lines of, "I want to give you everything.  I want to show you everything I have, and everything I know.  But I'm afraid that if I do, I'll have nothing left for me."

I'm wondering about all of this.  John P. Shanley says, "what you leave out is the story."  And boy, if that's true do I have a story for you.  And boy, if I found out I was dying it would be yours.  Now.  Today.  It would be urgent and it would be out.  But I'm not dying, and I'm afraid to reveal.  I'm also afraid that I'll never reveal.  Is that the fear? That I could die without my story being told?

I have more story.  All that I leave out.  My most personal trials and tribulations.

I also have what I find interesting for reasons hard to explain because I've never read it on any page.  Do I try to explain it? I thought of that last night, actually as I watched the moon for a very long time.  Why the cosmos stir me the way they do.  Why cosmology, astronomy, and science seem the most crucial and important way a human could spend a life.  What I am so inherently sure of when I'm watching the moon without knowing as fact, other than I just know.  Why I have a strong pull to leave the earth.  To see it from the outside.  Why it feels familiar.  Why I know I've been there before.  

So where do I start? 

And what do I do?

How much of myself should I give to you?

Deena Marie

I think, therefore...

I'm on the freeway and I'm taking a minute to think about the magnitude of the universe.  I see it in my minds eye.  I start with my center of awareness and expand from there.  I see the pale blue dot called Earth.  I see how tiny it is.  I try in vain to keep expanding my view.  I know (although I don't really know) it's too big to every honestly comprehend.

I consciously like to remind myself daily of how big the scale is.  How small we are.  I like to remind myself of the fluke that we are.  That we still have a long way to go.  We've only gotten started.  This never fails to reset me.  It calms and comforts me.  I accept my place in time and all is bearable.  Dare I say, good.

I also think about something that's been in my head the last few days, and that's wondering why I experience my consciousness and awareness from the point of view of what those on earth know as Deena Marie.  This body.  This particular time in the history of the world.  This life.  Why this? Is it random? Or is it perfectly matched?

I think about how a man and a woman can create a human life, and how that means suddenly a new consciousness comes spinning into being.  Bam.  Just like that.  This leads me to struggle to remember the exact Rumi quote, "we come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust."  

I then realize it's not even 10 am and this is what I've spent my first few hours thinking about on a monday morning.  Then I think about the Frida Kahlo quote, "I used to think I was the strangest person in the world.  But then I thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed int he same ways I do.  I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too.  Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you."

I'm suddenly inspired to keep track of my thoughts through the day and decide to ask my friend JayC to do the same, and put it in a blog that we could both post tomorrow.  I think he'll dig the idea, I think it'll make a great joint post and I guess that he's probably already had a million ideas, deep thoughts, or profound moments this morning as well.

It's been coming and going for the last few days.  My suddenly remembering I'm driving a personalized car with not only my name on it, but three cartoon faces of me, and a unicorn.  I'm struck with the words, "this is my lot in life."  I find this so funny.  My life has always thrown me unexpected and strange turns.  Who gets to do these kinds of things? I do.  Why? Who knows.  But I'll take it.  It fits.

I get into the building where I've been headed and it's cold.  I start thinking about how soon it will be fall.  How last summer was the worst of my life and while this one has certainly come with it's share of surprises and transitions, it's also been the best in many ways.  A dream come true.  How I only have August now and that's it.  Done.  I'm already starting to mourn the sun and this summer and prepare for the nostalgia and melancholia that only fall can bring me.  But I don't want to.  I don't want to rush it.  I don't mean to rush.

This reminds me of being a little girl and discovering for myself the concept that as soon as we're born we start to die.  Sure I'm growing up, growing older, but I'm dying every day.  This didn't make me sad, it just made sense, and I didn't understand why people didn't like to teach this or to think of life that way.

Despite the dying and the rushing, I never have nor will I ever consider myself a pessimist.  It's just that I want more of everything, always.  I am better at being in the moment nowadays more often than not, but I just want more...time.  That's what it is.  More time to savor.  I want to savor.

I'm aware I'm thinking poetically again and I like that.  I'm getting back to the me that I am at the core, when I'm not covered up by too much of the goings on around me.  I'm settling in once again after another storm of change that kept me swept up over the last few months.

I think about how open I am now.  How if last year hadn't cracked me open and rebuilt me, I wouldn't be who I am today to receive what I'm being given and know how to deal with it.  The dark and light.  I've been braver than I ever thought possible and I feel the difference in what I'm doing now.  It's living.

I'm not existing, I am living.

Manifestation.  That word keeps bubbling up.  I'm contemplating.  Thinking that the old cliche, "be careful what you wish for" is absolutely true.  It may look different.  It may not come at the moment you think it should, but if you manifest it, get ready to live it.

I also think about manifestation in another way.  How holding too much in for too long, and never letting it out manifests itself physically.  Months of anxiety attacks, dizzy spells and feeling at times like I was losing my mind are finally behind me.  Be careful.  It's okay to let it out.  And follow your heart.  Listen, listen, listen.  Hear that voice? You can follow it.  I swear to god.  You can.

An F. Scott Fitzgerald quote comes up, "there are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice."  Each love I've experienced brings out a different version of me.  It molds me ever so gently.  It is a delicate difference.  It turns me up in some areas, and turns me down in others.  I love differently each time.  I am so different as I awaken.  I am better at love as time goes on.  At loving.  At being loved.  At recognizing the right, or best, love for me.

That evening I find myself at a read through.  How strange it seems to me that I get to do this.  That this is what fuels me in this life.  That when I leave, I leave happier, having been surrounded by creative folk I very much admire in this community.  How smart they are, I think.  How lucky I am, I think.

Later, it hits me that the key to my feeling happier overall has to do with the word yes.  Over the last few months the yeses have replaced the nos.  It's been so slight it took a minute for me to see it.

Delicate differences.  Molding me ever so gently.  I tune into my truth a little more each day.  I am getting better at this life thing as time goes on.

Instagram me

Ford Fiesta Movement 

Thanks for reading,

Deena Marie

Made of Stars

When I'm asked about my religious beliefs, it's hard for me to answer.  Simply because I don't know that there's an existing label that fits, nor do I find the vague answer of "I'm spiritual", satisfying or informative.  I can claim New Age more than anything, as I don't dig dogma.  I can tell you I lean toward Eastern Philosophy.  That I find a lot about Hinduism and Buddhism both beautiful and sensical. That maybe a part of me deep down feels like we can't be anything other than agnostic.  That I believe all religions are true, because they are all someone's truth, meaning it's their reality and their right to believe what they need to believe to guide and comfort them through their human experience.  That "if there is only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?" That "we are all just walking each other home".

But maybe the pairing of words that ring truest for me are a combination I came up with myself back when I was writing my speech for the funeral for my uncle Chuck, last May.  I called myself a Spiritual Scientist.  I feel the most comfort and the deepest sense of truth in my Scientific Spirituality leanings and learnings.

Funny enough, my deepest sense of home, truth, soul, magic, absolute wonder, view of humanity, and comfort have come from science.

Some people come to Earth with minds so ahead of their time.  We are so lucky that sometimes they not only choose to share their thoughts and knowledge, but find themselves with a vocation or status to do so.  Like Carl Sagan.  Nothing has opened me up quite like his influence of understanding the universe, or of finding and trying to endlessly understand our origins.

So much so, I recently tattooed "star stuff" on my arm to serve as a reminder that we are so much more than these physical bodies and will be so much more again when they expire.  Literally.  As much as I'd love to think our consciousness goes on, and I'll wake up time and time again as something else (and even feel as if that's what I've always done) right now the literal is comfort enough.  The thought of recycling.  Reincarnation in the most literal sense.

It's enough that I can look into the sky and know I'm looking into my origins.
Ancestors.
My future.

Nothing else has ever brought me a deeper feeling of complete and total spirituality.

We are Literally Made from Stars

by Gerald Grow

---

I was moved by an editorial about how the Hubble telescope is showing us the immensity of the universe. With our sun one among 50 billion stars in our galaxy, among more than 50 billion galaxies, it is easy to think of ourselves as lost on a speck in space. 

Indeed, one common outcome of modern education is the widespread feeling that we humans are forever separated from the rest of the universe by unimaginable distances, and that the forces operating in the universe are utterly alien to us. 

Spiritual traditions give us ways of feeling connected with the universe. I want to remind you of another, scientific, way of feeling connected to the stars. 

The same science that reveals to us the vastness of the universe also tells us another story: Astronomers explain that all the elements heavier than hydrogen originated inside stars. The carbon in the ink on a page, and the silicon in glass and microchips, were created in the heart of a star, long ago, as that star shined by fusing hydrogen. The iron that carries the oxygen in your blood as you read this, was created when a star, in its dying phase, exploded. 

You and I are not merely separated from the galaxies by unimaginable immensities of space; we are also connected to them by unimaginable immensities of time. We are literally made from stars. We are their descendants. The only difference between us and stars is time. 

I don't know how this way of looking at things strikes you, but it raises in me an absurdly wonderful sense of celebration, and I look at the night sky not with a sense of hopeless separateness, but with a feeling of kinship: There shine the origins of every element in our bodies. Because stars exist, I exist. The processes that created those billions of unimaginably distant galaxies also created us. 

We human beings are not separate from the universe. Those galaxies are not merely distant--they are distant cousins. 

With this in mind, I urge you not to miss the nightly wintertime rising of Orion in the Southeastern sky, followed by the star, Sirius, flashing red, blue, and golden light. Or the summer rising of Scorpio across the Southern sky, with red Antares burning at its heart. 

That is a kinship worth celebrating. 

7:04

At 7:04 on March 27th, Mars sent down his child to occupy earth.
Spun into solid in the form of daughter she would temporarily belong
to one Lauren and Claude.
Bursting into being, she took her first breath between screams
louder than the average baby.
This 8 lb 8 ounce space traveling freedom fighter had not one moment to spare.

What she knew instantly, was that her bones were made of poetry
and her soul of the fire from her home planet.
She was also old.  This she knew best.  She was weary and worn.
The journey had been long.

She saw children as children and recognized herself only as the wise sage
who had just been sent back, now housed inside this tiny five year old body.
As for the scar on her cheek, she wondered how it would look as she grew.
It faded and vanished and as she got older, and her old age faded too.

She began to adapt and blend into humanity and forget
that in the beginning she knew all.
Nearly forgotten were the endless summer evenings outside
wondering why she was so old and how everything was so clear,
and the way it felt as the end of the last was reconciling itself with the start of the new.

Decades passed and her youth caught up to her
with a tap on the shoulder and a seep into her skin.
She would now temporarily belong.

Her way would be lost, but she would always find it a year or two later in the same orbit
when the time was right, for nothing had ever really gone away at all.

It had only moved.
Out of reach.
For a time.

She would take the form of wife.  And in the future she knew, mother.
And along the way, the alchemy inside the vessel would match
the movement of the cosmos
and whisper with her soul to follow the omens.

And this is where the story stops.
For a minute.  Because this is all we know of it.
The journey will be long.
She is weary.  
But she will continue.  Space traveling, freedom fighting child of Mars.
Because she is young now.  And getting closer each round.

There is something here to do.  It pulls her closer a little more each day.
She temporarily belongs.  And when the final round is up,
the poetry and flames can finally dismember,
streaking the sky, moving onward and upward,
and home she goes to rest.

Her name was Athena

There once was a little girl named Athena.
Formed in a star, created in eternity.
She came to live on Earth sometimes, and always found it difficult.
For you see, she simply didn't fit.
She carried too much recycled warrior stardust to pack neatly into human form.
The parts inside were just too big.
Ancestor tapestry of Sylvia Plath, Carl Sagan, Joan of Arc 
seemed at times the perfect, albeit unfortunate, melancholia.
Although lightly pinned together, she is trapped.
A temporary purgatory of constant fighting, forging, blazing,
It is relentless.  She must push through.
Until she returns once more, parts scattering,
releasing, before she becomes something else.
She longs for the day when she'll feel it again,
The freedom of the in between...home.
Where she belongs.
In the sky.
The galaxy's aching poet child can do nothing,
or she can do everything...while she waits.


- Deena Marie  3.11.2013

The Meteor

Right now a meteor is passing above us.
Above you, above me.
Above the blue planet everyone you have ever known or heard of dwells.

Can you feel it? 
Can you feel the stir of the cosmos?

I long to see past the sky beyond the blue and into the infinite
I try to imagine the rush, the sound, the look, the spinning, even the smell

Ancestor in motion,
I wish I could meet you.

I want.

I want.
I want to explore places far from here and feel my size in each.
I want to feel tiny while suspended in immensity.
I want to feel limitless while on my own two feet.
I want each moment to feel different.
I want to travel for hours, enter new time zones
and see things I don't yet know exist.
I want to learn constantly of my smallness on the earth
and try in vain to understand how grand the universe is
a little more with each bit of new.

I want to leave earth.
I want to see it from the outside in
I want to break my own heart with the beauty of the beyond
Only then will I feel like I've returned to my roots,
to where I was born.
in stars,
in sky.
I want my ears to ring with the music of the spheres.

I want to feel extreme climates and every texture of the earth
I want to see color that never ends
I want to grow bigger with each bit of new
I want to forget I'm human
I want to forget what I look like, my name, all I've done
I want to dissolve into oneness
dissipate into the whole...



That's how I feel when I see pictures like this:

Follow the omens

Do you believe in omens? Signs from the universe?

Every few years I read "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho.  I remember my first time through, years ago.  I wondered what all the talk of omens meant.  I sure wanted to believe that I could somehow follow a trail of omens to my destiny.  But how would I do it? Would these omens be something I would need to learn to conjure up?  Attract like "The Secret"? Whatever that means.  Why wasn't I lucky enough to have signs popping up around me, to show me I was on the right path? Or...could it be I wasn't quite understanding the concept?

Years later (and a whole bunch of books, life experience and new knowledge later) I got it.  It's not as literal as I originally thought.  You have to tune in.  You have to become aware.  You have to notice.  You can't brush them off.  They are there.  They are every bit as magical.

Deepak Chopra talks a lot about something similar, called syncrodestiny.  The coincidences of the universe.

"When a coincidence arises, don’t ignore it. Ask yourself, What is the message here? What is the significance of this? You don’t need to go digging for the answers. Ask the question, and the answers will emerge. They may arrive as a sudden insight, a spontaneous creative experience, or they may be something very different. Perhaps you will meet a person who is somehow related to the coincidence that occurred. An encounter, a relationship, a chance meeting, a situation, a circumstance will immediately give you a clue to its meaning. “Oh, so that’s what it was all about!”

The key is to pay attention and inquire.

I wanted neon signs with my name and and arrow signs, but if we're searching for something of that magnitude we don't see the our real guideposts.  

I have tuned in.  I have opened up.  I am listening.  I am slowing down and noticing.  In doing so over many months, I can tell you that we've got a great relationship, the universe and I.  She leaves me love notes to both teach and confirm what I know.  And she reminds me when I forget.  If we let the universe show us the way every day, we can't possibly go wrong.  

It is true that the greatest things we'll ever learn are love, self respect, that we are exactly enough just as we are, and that the greatest pilgrimage we'll ever make is within our own body.

Last year (my dark and dismal year) I started to take notice of peacocks.  Peacocks everywhere I looked.  On tv, online, on merchandise, painted on walls, in real life.  It got strange.  Really strange.  Okay, I thought.  I'm listening.  I wonder what they're trying to tell me? I looked up the symbolism of a peacock, and wouldn't you know it.  Renewal.  Resurrection.  A phoenix.  Spirituality.  AWAKENING.  And if you know me or follow me here then you'd know just how much that pertained to what I went through and how I'd describe the most trying and life changing year I'd ever had.  

One day last summer I was outside on a run, and out of nowhere on the sidewalk was this (just when I needed it more than you could know):

Something else happened that was so obvious.  So blatant.  I couldn't not see it as a sign.  It has to do with a name, but I'm keeping this one to myself.  

The one that really makes our jaws drop, happened right after my Grandpa died.  I was leaving Southern Utah a day after the funeral and on the way out my Grandma asked me if I wanted to take a box of candles.  My sweetheart loves candles so I said okay.  I took the big brown box and we put it in the car.  It smelled of my childhood home.  I brought it inside and it sat on the kitchen counter for a few days.  We all discussed my grandma.  At their age and after being partners for so long it can by typical for the other to pass shortly after losing their spouse.  We all wondered, would this happen with my Grandma? 

I had given them new nicknames and for the last few months I would refer to them as Tiny Brown or Little Brown and Mr. Shuffles when I would talk about them with my sweetheart or parents. One day, my sweetheart and I are sitting at the kitchen table and we can't believe we haven't noticed what the candle box says:

If you ask me, it doesn't get any more personal than that.  Her nickname.  And a message that her life is far from over.  

Two weeks ago I found this on the ground:

And today on a wall that was blank yesterday was:

For awhile I've been entertaining some thought about what I've jokingly called to my close friends and family, "quitting the biz".  Am I serious? Do I really want to give up acting? Kind of.  Hang on, let me explain.  I will never quit, but I do want more in my life.  I have too many other parts left waiting to be fueled.  And boy, they are hungry.  I'm suddenly craving adding more in and being okay with taking time away from.  But I also know how important it is to go with the flow.  To be open.  To have a plan but to be adaptable.  To follow the omens.  

The omens have shown me in huge and surprising ways that it's not meant for me to be announcing my "quitting" anytime soon.  From three theatres contacting me for various things at once, to my dream project that had only been a fantasy all but two weeks ago, to being recognized (as an actress) when I was in a place trying to get the ball rolling for the next new adventure in my life.  

And last but not least, a friend who had no idea I felt this way wrote me a message telling me he'd had a dream I wanted to quit and he was sent from the future telling me I wasn't supposed to.  

And then there is the number.  After my grandpa died I slipped back into a bad way...for a few days.  That's all I allowed myself.  I decided I needed to live.  I needed to go forward.  I needed to go on.  If I didn't, my sadness would eat me alive.  I would be gone.  So suddenly I did.  

And I have been okay.  I have been better than okay.  

As the year ended and the new one began, everything finally feels aligned! Things are right.  Things are in place.  Things are clear.  And during this time I started seeing a number.  The same number, everywhere.  Even more than the peacock.  It was starting to drive me crazy because I couldn't figure out what it meant.  Long story short this number is associated with a God of Healing.  My healing has been happening as I've been seeing this number everywhere.  

I've seen it less the more progress I made.

Now, I do find that a scientific truth about the world we live in is more magical to me than any religious story.  The amazements we can prove in discovering our own universe is far bigger and exciting to me than an organized religion with a god.  However, I believe that all religion is true.  What is your truth, is your truth.  What is my truth is my truth.  What his or hers is his or hers, etc.  We have no idea what each others journeys are about.  Who is anyone to tell another their truth is right or wrong? 

"If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it? - Yann Martel 

One thing I like about getting older is the need to explain yourself to others goes away.  You can finally just put it all out there and know that it is what you offer, and that it is enough. 

But despite anything that may be proven (as of right now), there are still things that can't be explained.  The omens being one.  

Could I have read too much into these? Could coincidence be just that and nothing more? Maybe.  Sure.  But I am going to choose to believe in taking notice.  In following my omens.  If it helps me to get to my final destination with a little more comfort, so be it.  

I'll see you at the end and I'll be able to tell you I have indeed enjoyed the journey.  

"We are all just walking each other home" - Ram Dass

This is the one of several joint blog / shared topics with JayC Stoddard.  It's amazing how our blogs on the same subject are so different, so similar, and so complimentary to the other persons.  Every time.  Coincidence? You be the judge: JAYC STODDARD his blog is brilliant, you should follow it :) 

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My life in pictures 

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Music of the Spheres

I'm a word collector.

Snippets that resonate with me stick to me.  They may be from a book, a song, a movie, a play, or someone I talk to.  They add up to what I've called before, The Library of Me.  They shape me.  They guide me.  I draw on them for inspiration, and many times they bubble up and announce themselves.  They reread themselves to me in a loud internal voice.  They come to me to tell me things.

I've been home from New York for nearly a month now.  One of the plays I saw early on was a production of Pericles.  I'd never read or seen it.  It just so happened I was considering a scene from it for my Shakespeare course at the same time.  I remember something catching my eye, "Music of the Spheres" and seeing the definition.  The music of the Universe.  Music we can't actually hear.  I wanted to know more.

I forgot about it.

Until the last few days it came knocking.

I couldn't remember exactly what it was I read or what character said it.  A few nights ago I finally found it.  It was Pericles himself.

In reading about The Music of the Spheres, or Musica Universalis, I came across a beautiful blog:
Tango Therapist: Tango and the Music of the Spheres 

I don't know why it's on my mind or what it's trying to tell me.  I'll keep reading.  I'll let you know.

Today I stumbled upon this TED talk.  It left me wiping away tears and getting the chills like crazy: