Perhaps Love - John Denver & Placido Domingo

I've been working on my new website while listening to this song. John Denver's singing takes me to a place that absolutely fills me, but this song in particular just floods me with massive quantities of love. And... it could be from memories that certainly skyrocket to the forefront of my mind when I hear it, and maybe that's why I've been playing it almost nonstop these couple of days.

This song takes me back to a morning when I awoke to birds singing outside the window. I was hunkered down underneath a white down comforter and what seemed like twenty pillows, and upon opening my eyes, I could look at my Aspen lover. We'd fall asleep in each other's arms, but soon I'd need to be turning over and stretching out across the bed, leaving him lying behind me, my naked butt scooched up to his hip.

One morning in particular the song lyrics were playing in my mind: "The memory of love will bring you home..." My leg was splayed across his, and this went through my head: "If I should live forever, and all my dreams come true, my memories of love will be of you." When I rolled over to look at him, his eyes were closed, mouth slightly open, and his breathing was solid. I put my hand on his chest, and spun his hair between my fingers. Slowly his eyes opened. There was this instant recognition of seeing me beside him and being so pleased because of it, that when he wrapped his arms around me, pulled me close, and kissed me, I knew my love memory bank was full of him.

time to weep...

I keep thinking I'm going to run out of tears, but they keep flowing. When I least expect it, down my face they run as if they're in a race. I wonder how much weight I've lost from spilling out all these tears. I walk to Square Burger as if I'm under water, everything blurred by welled-up eyes. I don't know how to make it stop, and maybe it's not necessary. What if this is how it works to say good bye to so many people I love? Oh, my heart keeps breaking over and over and over. Just as it feels okay to breathe again, there goes another round of such deep grief that I feel as if I can't take another step.

Why can't I have everyone I love be with me? How can I move to Santa Fe and take part of McKinney with me? I don't want to live without Square Burger and Brandon. Thinking about being without him breaks my heart in two. When I was in Santa Fe last week I got a taste of what it's going to be like without my seat at the bar and my arms around him. I don't like how that feels. I don't want to live without him. The tears are flowing steadily right now. My dad died of a heart attack, and I just wonder how different that pain is from how my heart feels right now. My heart hurts. It just hurts, and I don't know what else to do about it.

I sit with the pain. I sit here and describe it and feel it intensely. It's the only way I know to excavate. I can't run from it. I want to dig it up and spit it out, so I can move on. This is baggage I don't want to take with me. I want to show up in Santa Fe as complete and whole as I can possibly be. I want to arrive with my authenticity intact, not shy at all about being me and shining through. I want to land there with arms wide open, heart blossomed, and totally trusting that all falls into place.

I keep loving. I keep falling in love with my life, with this town, with these people, and still I volunteer to go because my heart leads me to Santa Fe with Tammy and the magic there. I do not say good bye to McKinney. I don't say good bye to anyone because this time when I leave, I know I'll be coming back.

Time to leap

I'm moving to Santa Fe on 9/11/10. It's exciting, exhilarating, thrilling, and also very sad. You see, this is the first time in my life that I'm moving away from a place that I love and more importantly people that I absolutely treasure. Tonight was one of those nights that brought it right home to me.

After working all day I went out with a dear friend to have some beer at Churchill's, a local pub on the square. To my wonderful surprise I got to see someone I am truly so in love with. I just look at him and my heart melts. I call him my son, but his real name is Aaron. I wasn't expecting to see him tonight, but it broke my heart open to have him wrap me in his arms and hold me close when I told him I was moving. I told him I'd be back several times before I left, and next time I'll bring my camera. I want pictures of us together to take with me.

This place, this square holds my heart nicely. I walked past the MPAC, the large building in the middle of the square to get to my most favorite place here, Square Burger. I had to see Brandon. I told him that I would stop by every day before I left. Holding him made my heart break open even more.

I love easily. To me there's so much to love, so many to cherish, and I'm betting that in the next two weeks, my heart busts open a little more each day to make room for all the love I feel for these people right here in McKinney.

I'm leaving two months shy of being here two years. I'm still in disbelief that I would consider leaving here, but there are so many doors opening for me elsewhere. I am driven to move on. This time I will not say good bye. This time it won't be celebrating seeing McKinney in my rear view mirror. However, seeing the Rocky Mountains through my windshield will be exhilarating. I'm moving towards something so thrilling to me that there are times I can't sleep at night. I believe in a world so full of magical possibilities that I can't wait to see what lies ahead, so I'm moving towards it. I'm showing up in a world I've only seen once before a couple of days ago. I'm arriving with what I can bring with me, and I'm throwing open my arms and welcoming in the new adventure, whatever it may be.

This will be my third move in four years. In my childhood I lived in the same house from third grade until high school graduation. While married I lived in the same town from 1980 until I entered singledom in 2006, so you see I'm used to be settled in for years. I'm used to having one day look the same as the next until I moved to Steamboat on 9/11/06. Life hasn't been the same since.

And now a new venture lurks on the horizon. Again I'm packing up my stuff, and with each move there's less to take to the next place. This is the first move I'm making without a big truck and big boys. This time I take me and the few essentials. This time I travel light. This time I take with me the most important piece of the puzzle -- me, everything else is extra.

I go to Santa Fe willingly. It's not where I thought I'd be next, but it's the place for me to be next. I need to be in an environment that embraces my work, and a place where I can easily, with no man distractions, build my practice. This isn't a time for me to heal so much as it is a place for me to grow, expand, and really soar. It's time for me to stop making noises and step up to the plate. It's time for me to show up as the person I've always wanted to be. It's time for me to love so fully, be so ripe with possibilities, and spread my arms wide to welcome it all in because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that magnificence awaits me.

It's time to leap.

Again.

Magical Mystery Tour

So I've stolen this from Tammy... This trip that we're on together is definitely the magical mystery tour. Tammy and I are in Santa Fe right now. We showed up because we felt like it. When she told me she was going to Santa Fe I immediately jumped in on her plans. I rearranged my own schedule and created a way for me to be able to go on such short notice. Everything we've needed has shown up just when we needed it. Everything.

Tammy was asked to come here to take a look at a healing facility in town. I jumped in on the opportunity. Yay me! Tammy showed me around the plaza. We ate lunch outside in the sunshine staring at some very lovely men. It was our first time to be outside in months and not sweat or swelter or have our heartbeats go faint due to the heat. We stepped outside to cool air and were able to breathe deeply. That alone was well worth my taking the trip. Getting out of 106 degree temperatures and ungodly humidity was such a gift. I've never smiled so much and danced so openly in the sunshine.

Years ago I took a Tom Crum workshop in the CO mountains, and while having a late night discussion with his daughter, Ali, she asked me if place mattered. Would I need to be in a certain place to be happy? I wasn't really sure how to answer her then. Was it the location I was in that made me unhappy in my marriage? No. Do I want to live in that town where I had lived with that husband again? Nope. Not at all. It wasn't ever my town. Did it detract from my happiness? Hm, don't think so. I don't think I knew to even consider my happiness back then.

The next stop was Steamboat Springs. Did that place matter? Did it add or detract from my happiness? You know, I would love to be able to say that I am so frickin' enlightened that my true happiness lies only within, and not only believe that statement, but also know that it's true for me all the time. Well, it's not. I still allow outside circumstances to color my demeanor. Every now and then my humanity sneaks in. So, there came a time while in Steamboat that I had to go, even though I was with an amazing man who truly loved me deeply. I knew for me the best thing I could do was to move on, and so I did.

Next stop, McKinney, TX. Wow, I went from a playground to a place filled with work horses. I've never seen so many people so willing to help network and move and shake. The downtown square became my home like none other, until now...

After a summer in hell, the energy has shifted for me again. Is it the place or is it simply correction of course like I did while flying? A tap on the rudder pedal, a slight tug on the yoke and back on course I'd be. What if it's not so much place as where I need to be to meet the right people and enjoy certain circumstances that lead me to the next correction and the next and the next?

When looking back on my life post marriage I see how important it was for me to be in Steamboat, to meet the people I met, and to have the experiences I had. The same for McKinney. Each stop has fine-tuned my skills, my gifts, my energy, and definitely my inner sanctity. Each person who has played a part in this has done their job exceptionally well, because I feel I'm showing up to the next adventure so prepared, I could even be classified as overqualified. Ha! We'll see...

So, opportunities have opened for us here in Santa Fe. Beautiful, monumental opportunities and people. However, there is something about Santa Fe that feels like a place for me to visit, not necessarily a place to put down roots. When we were coming into town, Tammy teared up with so much joy for being home again. I told her, "just wait til you see me back in the Colorado mountains..." I know there will be much blubbering going on when that occurs. So, next month Evergreen, Colorado...

So, does place matter? What I know for sure is that the journey matters, the enjoying the moments during it, no matter what the place. So, rock on Magical Mystery Tour, because I am being taken away...

It's now safe to love.

Today was my first visit to Santa Fe. It won't be my last. I awoke with such bliss, and I knew something magical and wonderful was going to pop for me today. It did. It was such a great surprise, and it was life altering.

While living in Steamboat a couple of years ago, I did breathwork with a female shaman, Cyndy Clemens. We did it for a year and my visions during each session built upon each other until finally by the end of the year, it came to a conclusion, or so I thought.

I was led through a life I had lived in 1547 as an Indian maiden and was in love with a warrior who was killed in a battle. I was on the battlefield at the end of the fight, holding him when he died. Cyndy had told me that now it was safe for me to love. At the time of the session it was 460 years after my Indian lover had died, and it was now safe to love. How 'bout that one?

My friend, Tammy, and I had an appointment at a healing facility in Santa Fe today, and when we pulled up to park outside the building, the address was right in front of us. It read: 1547. Now, most people might have blown that off or not even have noticed, but for me everything is to be paid attention to. It makes for a magical life.

I went into the office with Tammy, had the interview and the tour, and before leaving turned to the acupuncturist, Emily, who ran the place, and told her a little more about me. The difference was that when I spoke this time, I saw myself as that female Indian. I felt her love for this man. I knew her courage for continuing her life and her passions without him by her side, and what that did for me was make me stand taller. My words were firmer, clearer, and more determined because for the first time I could feel within me just who I am. I told Emily and Tammy what I could do and what I had to offer as if for the first time I truly recognized it in myself. The love that Indian woman had for her man welled up in me and filled me with such potency that I felt I could've said anything amazing about myself and it would've been true. Raised as a southern Catholic girl with three brothers, this was a totally different experience for me. I have never spoken (or felt) such conviction for myself or my gifts.

This was something so far out in left field that I couldn't have figured out how magical my day would've been if I had tried, but for some reason that doesn't keep me from doing just that. I still get hell-bent on trying to figure out things, and all for nothing because it's always so much more amazing than I could possibly imagine. And this happened today, and changed my life and altered my soul. I stood up for me, for who I am, for what I am able to do with such incredible ease and love. And love.

For me, it always comes back to love. In 1547 it was an Indian warrior. Right now... Well, right now is so very different. I love many. My heart is so full. My love overflows. There is a beautiful man that I write stunning prose and poetry with. I allowed him in. I told him I'd go deep with him, and then deeper, and then deeper still. I have. I have traveled to places with him that I've never gone before. Over and over I excavate those deep wounds that I've held onto for years. Once uncovered, those painful, deep-seated emotions release, and let me tell you, it's been painful, agonizing, and torturous, but, and here's the really big but -- I want to get rid of the shit and live my life to the fullest. I want to stand on a mountaintop, raise my voice to the heavens, and sing the song that only I can.

So, here it is. I desire a man who I can be so open, so purely me, so laid bare, and no matter what his response, I love and accept me anyway. I choose to declare my worthiness and my love for the god within me by showing up as the being I am, especially through my energy, my words, and my actions. I choose purity of my heart with openness and honesty. And I choose this no matter how the man shows up.

I've never said this before. I've never felt so strongly about this before. Connecting with you has led to some very deep excavations because the truth is that I want a man in my life who shows up like you have. When I read your messages to me, I realized how I have shouted a vibrant yes! to the universe and claimed myself worthy of a mirror like you.

And, my precious friend, I offer to you what you have to me. I too, am a great listener. I too, fully open my divine heart to you and welcome you in because I am your mirror, and I so love what you're looking at. Whew! Thank you for opening me up to that discovery.

This man lives far from me, but distance does nothing to diminish what we feel for each other and what we can feel of each other. I can be in a meeting or out to dinner, and I can feel his energy merge with mine. I've been in a room where heated conflict arose, and once I began to feel him with me I could only smile and look at the dynamics in the room as a dance I chose not to jump into. Instead, I remained in bliss.

I sit with him and euphoria rises. Meditation or yoga has never brought the kind of peace within me as I feel when I allow him in. It's a beautiful ride downstream with a heart so full of joy that nothing interrupts the flow of it. Often I've wondered what it could possibly be to have a man like that in my life not only like we experience each other, but also in the physical. Wow! I'm not sure I'd ever get dressed again...

It is safe to love now. I didn't know that apparently when I got married a hundred years ago. Otherwise I wouldn't have married my mirror -- someone totally emotionally unavailable. We became good business partners, but never dove below the surface. Didn't even know that a man would want to look at my body while making love until my Aspen pilot showed up 6 years ago. The first time we were alone in a hotel room the lights were on, and he undressed me very slowly. I never heard the word beautiful so many times. He loved every inch of my 48 year old body. No, he adored it. He worshipped it, and for the first time I thought that maybe, just maybe, I might not be hard to look at. I hadn't known that before.

A friend of mine who saw us together pulled me aside and told me that she could tell how much he loved me. I was shocked. Really? Just like that? This beautiful man could possibly love me? Really? She said that she could tell just by the way he looked at me. And, I had to admit that I adored seeing me through his eyes. For the first time in my life I had a lover who believed in me, heard me, and loved it all. He still does. He held my hand until I was able to let go. I have let go. I'm still soaring because of who I've become because of him, and I see no reason in the world to stop loving this man no matter who else is in my life.

I find it fascinating to see how relationships have gone for me since being single, and I love saying that I'm single. I've sculpted a life of simplicity since singledom. It allows great mobility and freedom. I can create myself anew every day. I can fine-tune my wants and desires at every turn, and I can do it without taking anyone else into consideration. I can say yes to me over and over and over. Is this being selfish? You bet, and it's about damn time! I say yes to honesty and openness. I say yes to unconditional love and gratitude. I say yes to these beautiful men, and to the others I have not written about. I am so grateful to what they each have brought into my life because I'm loving the moments immensely. Every text, phone call, Facebook comment, etc. is a love note. Every single one. Every word, every breath is an opening up to divinity. It's a widening of who I am, of who we all are. It's another chance to say yes to each other and to be able to break open another heart a bit wider and let the love in. That's all there is. That's all there is.

Come With Me by Richard Gary Butler

I'm sitting in a coffee shop here in McKinney, Texas with a pile of papers in my lap. These aren't just any piles of paper. Nope. They're Richard Gary Butler's poetry and other writings he has sent to me. I read his poetry daily. It not only soothes my soul, but I'm uplifted and transcended with every word. I don't know why millions haven't bought his ebook, Come With Me, on his sensual erotic poetry. If you haven't bought it yet because you don't know about it, then let me help you. Click here and buy:  http://richardgbutler.webs.com/

Here's just a sampling that's on my lap, and believe me, just reading his words does something very tantalizing and amazing to me.

Come With Me

Come with me,
as I take you where
time swirls
through the hourglass,
and the ethosphere
swells with our energy.

Has my touch
sent your world
spinning off
into the cosmos?

Or did the flicking
warmth of my tongue,
bathing your breasts,
wind you?

Have you felt
this planet shake
suddenly for you,
when my body
slowly melted
within your arms?

And, if you can read those words and feel nothing, then get them translated into your own language, because there is no way anyone can absorb those words, those sentiments and not feel the wetness build where your legs cross. I dare you to sit in a coffee shop amidst your friends and not feel the tingling that begins where the sun don't shine and rises like fire up your spine, igniting every inch of your body with the magnitude of possibilities. I read his poetry and fill up on his magnetizing energy that's loving and pure. It helps me transcend the craziness of life and remain in a blissful state.

So, you come home from a lousy day of work. Plop yourself in a hot bath of bubbles while drinking some bubbly and read out loud to yourself:

Do you feel
my tongue,
like open satin in the rain,
slowly create ripples
in your conscience?

Do you feel the shudder
of the universe,
when my touch
on your button
pulled me into you
like a needful rush
of inhalation
from a deep dive?

Really, how can you not just slip into ecstasy and lap the pools of euphoria? Seriously, people! Wake up and feel ravaged. Wake up and allow the bliss to unfold. Buy the ebook and let the bliss out... Read it every day. Take it to bed with you and let it be the last words you see because you will wake up a more vibrant and rejuvenated person if you're willing to allow the words to enter you.

The poetry in this post is from the ebook written by Richard Gary Butler who has a ton of initials behind his name. You'll have to go to his website to download the poetry and photos and see what else this amazing man does with all the talent he has. Treat yourself. Pamper yourself. And for god's sake, buy the book right here, people.

http://richardgbutler.webs.com/

And, by the way, I am not compensated for doing this. I'm promoting his poetry because it's changed my life. His words are so potent, and I allowed them in, which has helped me transcend the stupid and crazy in my life. Thank you, sweet baby jesus! So, if you read this post and still don't buy his ebook, I won't be bothered by it at all because, like I said before, I've transcended the stupid and crazy in my life. Just sayin'...

He said yes!

Falling Feather


My timepiece shares
Your visage fair,
Etched upon the hours
That sever
Separate hemispheres;
I in darkness,
You in daylight,
Trade the time
Between existence.
You catch the wind,
I, the falling feather,
While you ride the gale
Of fantasy fixed
Between reality.
I, the wild eagle,
Clutch my talons tightly,
Embrace your quivering quill,
Draw you up with me,
Midst the misty mountain heights,
O’er the threatening thunderheads
To our own electric sky.

Copyright © 2003 Richard Gary Butler PhD DD
 
I watch the clock differently now. I look at it to see if he's sleeping or up. Is he eating dinner or breakfast?
 
I want to tell him that I miss him, but I don't. I feel him with me always. There is no place where I am and he is not. And when I feel him, it is an ecstasy that brings my awareness totally away from where I'm standing. He takes me to him. Like right now, I know I'm at my desk, but there's not a cell in my body that doesn't feel caressed by him.
 
I want to say this sounds crazy, but it feels like the most sane and loving thing I've ever done for myself to be open to a man that has shown up so fully and so vibrantly in my life, someone who wants to take me to depths I've yet to experience. He says that we've barely touched the tip of the iceberg, and yet I feel I've delved deeper than ever before. And we're going deeper together.
 
I was reading some of our correspondence to a friend of mine in Long Island, and she was magnetized by the energy in our words and the resonance we create together. She told me that it was beyond what she could ever imagine between two people, but yet this is what we're all striving for. That's when it hit me that maybe, just maybe, it would be a good idea to collaborate on a book together, my lover and I.
 
So... he said yes! Yes! We're writing our experiences together because they are so profound, so astonishing, and sooo climactic. They've changed everything about my life. I view the world through a totally different perspective now. I see through the eyes of someone who has fallen in love with herself, someone who can feel her lover when he's not physically in the room, and view herself through his eyes and know how mesmerizing she is.
 
This is the most sane, the most real, the most amazing thing I've ever done for myself. I have connected so deeply with another spiritual being that shares a human lifetime with me. I must dig deeply within myself to discover the language for writing about this incredible journey with this man.
 
I breathe him in right now feeling him surround me. I cannot be any other than his fully and openly. I spread my lips, my arms, my legs, and shout to the world how much love I feel for all, for every single thing I can think of, for everyone I come in contact with, and for every single breath I take. I am deeply and unequivocally in love with life. I have shown up, stood before him, and asked to be flung wide open. He has been the divine within me that has revealed itself as this incredible man who has said yes to me over and over and over. We are the mirrors willing to reflect to one another the most magnificent views possible.

raising the baton

I stand before the orchestra with baton raised and upon slicing the air, the trumpets blare. The maestro begins her orchestration of the latest crescendo of her masterpiece.

Last night/this morning was spent with a man beyond all my imaginations. I realized that by being with him, opening to him, I have expanded myself. I have flown into the ethers and back, across continents and over oceans, swimming through clouds, and raising my voice in crystal clear echoes of resounding love.

I have opened myself up to a man, laid myself bare before him, and not only felt safe, but ignited with the very juices of life.

I say yes to me!

I rise up and extend my hand in gratitude for his willingness to be that instrument, that prying tool, that was needed to pick the lock I had fixed into place lifetimes ago. The lock is gone. My heart is open, and I am so ready to keep swimming in this ecstasy, still ready to use my voice to moan and purr and scream to the heavens that I am so fully here, so amazingly alive, and so willing to keep raising that baton.

the magnificence of depth

The Lion and the Orchid

In the beginning,
it was innocence,
that charisma of curiosity,
a sense of fascination and attraction,
an enticing magnetism
that pulled her willingly
into his world,
but the more she became aware,
the more she desired to know,
because the more she knew,
the more she found pleasure
in the way he cared for her,
the way he made her feel,
and the stronger her feelings,
the more she came
to understand
that she had always craved someone
understanding enough to acknowledge
the woman she was,
the woman she had become,
and experienced enough to see
the woman she was coming to be,
someone strong enough
to allow her to feel secure and protected,
to really let herself enjoy this freedom,
sensitive enough
so that she could reveal her true,
innermost feelings,
someone to take her
to that special place
where everything is possible,
where the orchid is kissed
by the lion,
and the torrent of a waterfall
plunges and pounds deeply
into a pool
of clear, warm, fragrant waters.

Copyright © 2007 Richard Gary Butler PhD DD
 
A man has entered my life, my very being, and I allowed his love to transform me. He has given me the greatest gift imaginable -- the profound ability to open completely and honestly to another and love myself all the more. This love, this compassion, this true-ness is what I'm here for, to open to another, to lay myself completely naked before another and expand exponentially.
 
I spent the day with him, and am with him still. He is in me. Wherever I go, he is with me. We are one.
 
Yesterday I did a major excavation that laid open the groundwork for filling the void of what I had released. This morning was more excavating, more purging, more releasing. So, by the time I got to the spa and read this man's messages to me, I knew that the excavations were worth it because I had made space available for filling up with the love we could create together.
 
Right now, sitting at my desk typing on the keyboard I feel him as if he were physically sitting with me. I can feel his hands as "tiny footsteps" skipping down my back. I feel him. I feel him. I feel him. It's luscious and juicy and decadent. His energy washes over me and I'm ablaze in him. I wrote earlier in my blog (about David Deida and his videos on Spirit, Sex, and Love) that I intended someone in my life to open me up so fully that I could throw my arms and my heart wide open and yell a resounding yes to the universe! Someone who would open me up even more to God and take me deeper and deeper and even deeper. This beautiful man took on the challenge with relish and great pleasure, and I'm discovering the magnificence of depth. 
 
Since this was my intention to the universe, since it was my desire, the ultimate experience of my choosing,  does that make me the maestro of this orchestration? Or, are we co-maestros and orchestrating each and every morsel of sweet, wet, dripping love around each other, entwining our energies so completely that there is no differentiating one from the other?
 
I am full. I am overflowing with ripeness, bursting with luscious joy at being able to match the vibration of someone like him. He has taken me "to that special place where everything is possible, where the orchid is kissed by the lion..." I've agreed to diving down that waterfall with him, plunging and pounding deeply "into a pool of clear, warm, fragrant waters." Thank you, my love. Thank you.

opening a vein

I feel like I'm falling apart as if every cell is crumbling into a pile of dust on the floor. Everything I've ever thought or believed is not true. It's all been a game, a lovely, fascinating game. This excavation has cracked open that fine nugget of resistance, and now it's a dust pile on the floor.

I surrender. I wrote that to a dear friend this morning. When I got to the spa, I found the most genuine, heartfelt note I've ever received. It started the crumbling process. I told him I wanted a relationship where I could open a vein and bleed authenticity. How difficult it is to breathe right now. The crumbling process is painful. Letting go is excruciating, but I am doing just that.

I surrender.

You showed up this morning when your words were most needed. I've been in a mind fuck, and now I cry all those thoughts and let them weep onto the carpet. I am done holding on. I am done.

being peace

A few months after moving to McKinney my daughter took up MMA fighting, and during her first fight I was seriously trying not to lose my mind. All I could think of was when she was first born and I got to see her for the very first time. She was perfect, the sweetest round face that was totally unblemished with no lacerations or bruising. I remember how the hair at the nape of her neck would curl around my finger, and how she would lay her hand on my breast while she ate. I'd never seen such beautifully perfect eyelashes or such luscious deep blue eyes. I was in love for the very first time, the kind where there was no ability for it to lessen. It expanded with every second until it could no longer be contained.

And I sat on the couch that night while she was in Arkansas. I surfed the net doing everything I could to not think about what would be happening soon. I kept checking my cell phone, watching the time, reading her texts that let me know when her fight time was approaching.

The first time she ever hurt herself she was eight months old. She had fallen on the heater vent in the floor and cut her knee. We didn't even have band-aids. She screamed bloody murder, and as her father held her, I ran to the store to get the first of many first-aid supplies. I would never get used to the bites, the bruises, the cuts, the fractures, or the surgeries. I would stay up with her all night, hold her until she fell asleep, and never once think of doing anything else.

And then, as a grown woman she chose to get in a ring with another woman and get the shit beat out of her while I sat on the couch just breathing and checking my cell over and over. I don't remember exhaling fully until after she called to let me know she was all right.

Sometimes I still don't breathe deeply because I feel the hurt in her heart. Like this morning when I called her dad who I haven't spoken with in three and a half years. It would only be because of her that I would speak with him again. I told him the reason I was calling, and he went into his usual speak ease like he'd done all the years I was with him. I asked him if it was at all possible for him to show up with an open heart and with great compassion for his daughter, and he went right into a spiel about how divorces affect children no matter what the age.

I know he loves her. I know he loves her so much more than he can ever express, and that may be all that she can get from him. What I would love to see is for her to be able to see her father's traits in her and truly love them. She may never have a relationship with him, but if she could possibly see the greatness within herself, knowing that some of it came from him and appreciate it all anyway. Whew! What a gift. What a gift...

So, in the past almost thirty years I've seen my daughter get injured in so many ways, but it's when her heart is affected that it brings out in me the need to step in. So, I reached for the phone and dialed her father's number, one I still know by heart. I can't control how he handles this or what he does with this information, but I do know this. It was easy to talk with him. It felt good to let him know what was going on with his daughter, and it was a real moment when after hanging up, I felt calm. I was peace. Now that, my friends, was the finest gift yet.

Broken Glass

Reaching In

Share with me
your sentiment and sorrow,
every element contained.
I entirely embrace you,
utterly,
totally,
as tenderly
as you've held my hand
and heart,
without release,
the moment that
with hesitation
and uncertainty,
I gently laid my presence
into your welcoming acceptance.

Copyright © 2004 Richard Gary Butler PhD DD
 
This poem is written by someone I just met on Facebook. Richard's got some amazingly sensual pieces, but I found myself drawn to this one because, oddly enough, this is what I strive for. I've had extraordinary sexual experiences, but without the complete and honest opening of my heart and laying my pure presence into another's welcoming acceptance, I feel I've missed the mark. Because I want more.
 
I want the highest of highs of busting my heart wide open and laying myself purely and unequivocally at a lover's feet. What must it take to have such an open heart? What must it take to be that person who can be so wildly, furiously split open and savoring every single moment with delicious anticipation? 
 
And then, what must it take to allow that lover to do or say whatever he desires and still keep that openness alive and pure and growing?
 
What must it take to allow a man to take you deeper and deeper, farther than you've allowed yourself to go before? 
 
It's in the letting go, that we receive the purest of love. Ah, that moment of pure rapture, the moment of total honesty laid before one another like broken glass with all edges exposed. It's then that you see so easily how perfectly you fit together, how beautifully you expand into the ethers with blissful joy because you have touched your god within you and discovered who you really are.
 
And at that point, you are able to let go, to release your grip on his arms, to lick your lips and taste his juices, and know that wherever he goes, however far away he is, you have become more wholly you and his absence depletes nothing.