A Year in Review

We are at the 11th hour literally, to the next decade.  It is now 1:00 p.m. (Pacific Standard time) and in eleven hours we will be ringing in 2010.  At this point it is a good time to review the year for highlights and disappointments.

Highlights include our health, recovery, and blessings.  We are both employed and have a home which we own.  We woke up everyday in 2009 indoors.

James' highlights include a wonderful art show in December, his ability to participate in his mother's passing, his 50th birthday and his 20 year recovery celebration in April, and the growth and establishment of his success at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Library in San Jose.


My highlight is my promotion to Unit Leader in Partylite, and the birth of our new Unit "Lovin' Lites." Other highlights include my daughter, who is beautiful, healthy, smart and capable of doing much more that she has been in the past three months; my husband, a champion of the downtrodden in the program of AA, and who never stops being of maximum service; Thanksgiving in New York (2008) with my sisters who all are alive and healthy, along with my beautiful niece and nephew and their husbands who are also alive and healthy.  

I remember my brothers at this time, and give thanks for their presence in our lives, the memories and the gifts they bestowed upon the family and the community while they walked on the planet. Here's to you Jay and Tom!

Disappointments include the loss of Jame's mother, Johanna Lynn Elin,  in November 2009; changes in leadership at work; not passing the licensing exam on my first try; not losing all the weight I hoped I would, and not being our new home by Christmas.

We look forward to 2010 with gratitude and grace as our creator gentle guides our lives to be trusted servants in the world, and to be good examples of love and peace. 

Door(s) Stop, #3809

(c)2009 James W. Murray All Rights Reserved

(click on image for full-sized version) 

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Limiting ourselves through loyalty

Human beings need choices.  Choices can balance powerlessness with hope. We must hone our vision to see possibilities.

I limit my own possibilities.  I believed I was designated to be mediocre because I was born into a middle class family.  My father used to say "we are blue collar" with pride.  Blue collar was the gold standard. Why? I never gave this much thought. I just sort of accepted this attitude, along with many others. Those attitudes, beliefs and limitations eventually just become unconscious processes running all the time.


After high school, I went to college.  I drifted about trying to figure out what I wanted to "be" for the rest of my life.  I did not have a clue as to the vast choices available.  I only knew what I knew. My degree was largely selected by default. I know this sounds closed minded, and it is. Our closed mind is the result of programming by family, society, education, etc.

How is one to know what lies beyond their own personal horizon? 

Up until the 20th Century man had not discovered galaxies beyond our solar system. Mankind's notion of the sum of the universe was unimaginatively constrained.  

Do we keep our universes small in order for us to conform to familial or social expectations? 

Do we limit our possibilities to remain in a contract that was hoist upon us in childhood? 

Maybe we stay small minded in order to play it safe?


We each have to go back and review agreements we have made in the past about who we are and what we believe is possible. This type of inventory aids us in seeing where our loyalties lay. Are we loyal to ideas and misinformation which diminish us?

Once we are conscious to limiting beliefs we have about ourselves and the world we can change our minds.  With new understanding we can see choices previously unfathomable and then we can manifest exponential expansion in our lives.

Steps and Window (Abstract #2406)

(c)2009 James W. Murray All Rights Reserved

(click on image for full-sized version) 

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Keep it Simple

Simple pleasures include the smell of home brewed Peet's Holiday Blend, the sound of my cats fighting like sisters in a bathroom, and the image of my beautiful daughter cutting heirloom tomatoes in the kitchen.

I am simply having a wonderful holiday season.  
I am simply appreciating the blessings in our lives including health, prosperity and love. 
I am grateful my parents are still with us, and relatively healthy. 
I am grateful my sisters are healthy, even if one of them no longer speaks to me.  At least she is alive and well enough to be resentful.


I am also grateful I never gave up on myself. 


A friend called me this week because we were supposed to get together Tuesday afternoon.  I had too many things on my calendar, as usual.  I wanted to "re-arrange" our time.  She felt unimportant and told me she was not getting enough time from me. This is not a new complaint for my ears.  I have heard this complaint several times, from different sources. I have faced this demon through loved ones eyes and I have made lots of noble declarations about changing how much I try to put into each day.  The habit is compulsive business.  Do you know about this? Scheduling myself from seven o'clock in the morning until I drop into bed at midnight.


I don't like New Years' resolutions because I think they're bullshit.  So, I have decided what I am giving myself for Christmas, and it is simply permission not to be so hard on myself, put less on my calendar and put my needs first and foremost.  I want to be a good example of keeping my own well full of water before I try to care for the thirsty masses. 

I owe amends to my friends, my family, my creator and myself due to compulsive business.  Being purposeful and busy is a good thing.  It is whole other problem to run ragged trying to catch up with yourself.  2010 is the year of Simple Scheduling.  I will ask myself two questions before I commit myself:
1) Is this necessary right now? 
2) Is this activity/engagement/commitment  for my highest good?

If the answer to both questions is YES, then "book 'em Danno"~otherwise I will Keep It Simple & preserve my sanity, serenity and self respect.

Cornered/Vector Convergence (Abstract #2471)

(c)2009 James W. Murray All Rights Reserved

(click on image for full-sized version) 

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Lighten Up

Winter Solstice occurs on December 21, 2009.  The solstice is the one day of the year where lightness and darkness are equal. Following solstice light begins to increase culminating on Summer Solstice.  Light, the all giving and illuminating beauty of the Sun, and the stars. As the sun's brilliance presence grows we anticipate increased levity and joy. 

Annually, monthly and daily the Sun, Moon and Mother Earth engage in their primitive and everlasting dance to create life and prosperity>

How am I engaged in my own life?

How am I responding to the dance of the seasons?

Has darkness embedded itself into my heart and colored my view of life? 

Do I recognize that seasonal doldrums will pass, and how that is different from chronic hopelessness?

What am I doing to compensate for the lack of light in my life?

My last blog post rattled a few readers.  A Talking Stick is metaphor based, allegorical and lyrical.  When the subject is hard, the writing is dark, but not intended to be hopeless. Even when life is hard, there is always hope.

Hope is that small ray of light growing from beneath the blinds in the early morning hours. The golden light grows and changes while we are  fast asleep.

My husband's grief and my response to feeling powerless over his depression is only temporary.  This too shall pass.  Our marriage will survive the ups and downs of serotonin, seasonal light and loss of loved ones.  Our marriage is based on something much stronger than changing seasons.  It is based on love and trust.  When you have a strong foundation in your relationship all storms can be weathered.

May your Winter Solstice be brilliant and filled with illumination and inspiration.

Early Morning Light (Another Day), #2801

(c)2009 James W. Murray All Rights Reserved

(click on image for full-sized version) 

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Treading Water

Help.  I am drowning in the deep end of the pool.

I was thrown into the deep end of the pool by my father at the Disneyland Hotel when I was six years old. 

My father had a few too many martinis and decided it would a good time to teach me to how to swim in the deep end.  He picked me up over his head, screaming and kicking, and tossed me into the deep end of the pool.   I remember thrashing around in the water and feeling the powerlessness of sinking below the water.  I trod water long enough to grab hold of my big sister Donna and push her under so I could lift my head out of the water and breath.  She was under the water struggling to get free.  Finally my dad jumped in and helped us both.

I never wanted to learn how to swim thereafter. I assumed I could not swim based on this experience. I still don't swim well.  I used to cringe as my thirteen year old daughter made the mad dash towards the ocean at the beach. I no longer have a panic attack, or stand frantically at the water's edge screaming for her to come back.  She can swim and surf. Her father swims very well and like him, she loves the ocean and water.  She can take care of herself in the water. She keeps herself safe in the water.

Treading water is effortful but not fruitful. One tires easily treading water.  Treading water amounts to being stuck in the same place and trying your very hardest to move in any direction.  Treading water is very much like being depressed without any intervention.  To continue effortful activities without much change breeds hopelessness. Pretty soon I simply want to slip under the water and rest.

My husband is slipping under the water; he too finds himself in the deep end of an emotional pool. He is tired. He is sad, shut down, in grief, scared, ashamed and feeling like he is not a good person. He is so overwhelmed with the death of his mother and the unexpected tidal wave of unresolved childhood issues he is having considerable difficulty holding his own.  He yearns for a familiar psychic landscape, with predictable weather and comforting clime.  Instead he's entered a foreign land, without familiar landmarks and the known horizon behind heavy fog.  He is searching for the safe harbor at the surface of a stormy sea.


I am tired.  I don't swim well enough to rescue him.  I must save myself.  It is very difficult to save one's self versus saving the person you love.  It's not black or white.  It's both.  However, if I try to save him we both could perish.  Saving myself allows me  to model how to stop treading water and move towards the pool's edge and climb out.  Once safe I can toss him a life preserver and offer to help.  Helping a loved one when they are in need is equal to helping one's self. First I must take care of myself and then offer help to another. Being a partner is not always easy. Partnership is not always intuitive and it does require tolerance and acceptance of things I do not like or understand.  

Grate Bubble, #5779

(c)2009 James W. Murray All Rights Reserved

(click on image for full-sized version) 

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Who's Calling?

My job involves collecting, analyzing and interpreting data.

Data, objective measures and evidence are all very important elements in the concrete world of reality.  The  illogical stuff of dreams, magic, intuition, spirit,  the great mystery, legends and stories are the elements that spark my passion.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a job that allows you to live your passion?

Is it possible to get paid to do the thing you love the most?

I believe the answer to these questions is YES!!!

I believe the universe wants us to live our own unique purpose.  My journey involves fine tuning my purpose and creating avenues to get paid abundantly to spread my unique gifts in the world.

Where is it I am most passionate in my life?

What activites give me energy?

What opens my heart chakra and allows me to be vulnerable and safe in the same instant?

I am at the midway point of my life and I intend to live the rest of my days doing what I love.  I hear the call and I am now prepared to answer.

Do you hear the call?

San Francisco Heart (A Better You), #2924

(c)2009 James W. Murray All Rights Reserved

(click on image for full-sized version) 

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Buoyantly Adrift

Into the pain isn't where I want to go when I am emotionally drained and beat up by life. The pain has kidnapped and sold me into prostitution.  I free fall into the world of mind numbing substances to drown the hurt. We cannot outrun our destiny. We can only be aware that it is there beckoning us. 

Destiny is the blaze from the light house that leads me back to shore from my shipwrecked voyage.  I have been buoyantly adrift, lost and alone, riding the waves, cold and hungry. This painful state of emotional disconnection forces me to seek shelter from the internal storm raging within my heart and head. 

There is no eye in the storm. There is only the eye of my inner knowing, leading me home towards the light.  The eye of the tiger burning bright in the darkness of the night. The evil eye of my grandmother's Sicilian neighbor who never believed I was Italian because of my strawberry blonde hair. The strega herself, who fell and broke her hip in the foyer of my mother's home.

I feel your eyes upon me as I bob up and down like a downed gull unable to lift myself from the water, waiting for the inevitable.  I know you are here with me as I lay tired and thirsty.  I know when I awake, the light will be so bright I will be blindly at peace.

Pacific Coast By Full Moon, Cambria, California, #4668

(c)2009 James W. Murray All Rights Reserved

(click on image for full-sized version) 

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Unbearable Winter

Winter is cold, lonely, and unpredictable.  Darkness descends upon us as the days grow shorter and nights grow longer. Winter brings winds of isolation and a depressing sense of endless effort. Trudging to work in the early morning hours with my breath clearly visible in the crisp morning air, eyes swollen and hands frozen. Wishing for another hour under the warm comforter pressed up against him like a personal space heater.

As my husband made the decision to  remove his mother from life support, I observed him going into to a state of emotional hibernation. His once gregarious and connective nature with others was diminished by his overwhelming sense of loss.  He became spiritually and emotional off balance. He was without his bearings and soon was far from the place where I might connect with him.

His deepening sense of loss and withdrawal from the world crept into our kitchen, living room and bedroom.  We became two strangers in the same space yet not anchored to each other.  We were lifeboats drifting further and further apart.  I even began to actively row in the other direction.

We luckily had an appointment to speak to our  therapist, who accurately described the presence of two disconnected people in his office.  He asked us to talk to one another.  I thought to myself, "talk to him, talk about what, exactly..." It literally felt like weeks since we had actually spoken to one another.

In my husband's defense, he had no idea he was slipping into the abyss of grief and loss. He did not realize that his mother, with all of her failings and peculiar ways, meant something so primary and so archetypal to him that her death had taken a piece of his identity away.

I think we all believe at some level when someone we love dies, that we will experience closure and resolution to issues that have long blocked our spiritual growth.  In James case, the death opened up a vacuum of vast and unexplored territories that he felt ill equipped to deal with.  So, he set out on a solo journey and marched promptly into the chasm of grief. A solo journey into the darkness of maternal abandonment and despair.

I wish I knew the right words to say or how to help him be "alright" however that is his process.  He will be on his journey of healing for however long it takes.  I cannot make it better. I can only make myself available to his needs and being a loving supportive presence in his life. My job as his wife is to be available for his comfort and be prepared to provide love and tenderness.  There is no more important act to perform when someone I love hurts, other than to love them as they are in the moment, and become that ray of sunshine in the dreary state of separation from all that is familiar and comforting.

Nightshirt Self-Portrait (For Lease), #5123

(c)2009 James W. Murray All Rights Reserved

(click on image for full-sized version) 

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Suffering is the trickster

I was bent over, pale and in severe pain.  I could hardly sit up.  My appendix was the culprit.

Pain in no stranger to me.  Pain once was a constant companion.

Today I am no longer defined by my individual pain.

When two people love another they have the capacity to cause so much pleasure and so much pain.  We get close to each other and we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. Bending back our necks to the sharpened teeth of pain, we risk death, dismemberment, and sacrifice. We also risk grace.

Pain and suffering are kissing cousins. They are not really related, but have been spotted together so often that urban lore implores they are related. Pain is a real phenomenon while suffering is purely optional.

Suffering is the ego's hologram.
Suffering is the trickster
Suffering is an obvious poor choice, dressed in expensive tight jeans.

While I lay recovering in my bed reading books, doing crossword puzzles and thinking, I gave thanks to my pain for all it has gifted to me.

Today I can experience pain and move on..

Are you able to spot the trickster in your life?

Trickster, #4815

 

(c)2009 James W. Murray, all rights reserved.

(click image for larger version)

Details: October 3, 2009; Canon 20D; f/11 @ 1/600 sec; -1/3 EV; ISO 400; 44mm.

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Rainbow of Love

I have lived most of my life in the world of black and white, not understanding the variations of gray fog that hovered low to the ground between the two extremes.  Black and white are absolutes.  I was imprisoned between the two monstrous monoliths.  Neither black nor white represent reality.  It was in the gray fog where I found the door to world of color.

Yes, I had to wander blindly in the gray fog for along time. 
Yes, I was lost and disoriented. 
And yes, I lost faith in my creator.  But then I felt the doorknob.  

I stood before the door for a very long time, paralyzed.  I was not sure what would happen if I opened the door.  What would be on the other side?  Would I be safe? Would I live?

Standing for many, many moons before the door, I finally built up the courage to turn the doorknob.  The door blew open with colors and music.  And, I was transformed.  I saw with my own eyes the brilliance of life. Not only did I see, but I was seen.  I was witnessed. I was forever changed.

This brilliant vibrant colorful me cannot survive in the world of black and white.  I must forge a new path on the rainbow of love. I must walk this path with those I love, or  walk alone.  But, one truth is certain, I must continue to walk.

Door and Brick, #3021

 

(c)2009 James W. Murray, all rights reserved.

(click image for larger version)

Details: May 28, 2008; Canon 20D; f/16 @ 1/500 sec; ±0 EV; ISO 400; 70mm.

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Hummingbird Medicine

Recently, while meditating, I lay on a blanket basking in the California sunshine while soaking up the rays of God. I opened my eyes and hovering directly above me was a tiny hummingbird.  She was peering down at me as if to say "I see you.  I know you. I witness you."  I felt her powerful presence and understood this was a holy moment. Her wings moving up and down frenetically, in a peaceful, purposeful way.

As I continue to lay still watching her watch me I felt visible, seen, and spiritually vulnerable. She darted to and fro, coming back to hover and look at me. This lasted for  less than 2 minutes, but felt like an afternoon. It was as if time slowed down as her wings quickened and propelled her energetically. When she took flight there was a distinct high pitched sound marking her leave taking. She sang her song to me as she flew away.

I want to honor my loved ones in a similar way. I want to cease my frenetic pace, and turn towards my partner, daughter, best friend and parent and meet their eyes when they speak. I want to witness them for who they are, just as I felt witnessed by hummingbird. 
Do I allow those I love in my life to sing their own song? 
Am I able to witness others and appreciate them for who they are? 
Am I able to sing my own song?  
Am I able to be witnessed?  
Are you? 

*  *  *

Untitled, #7154

(c)2009 James W. Murray, all rights reserved

(click image for full-sized version)

Details:  May 6, 2006; Canon 20D; f/10 @ 1/200 sec; -1/3 EV; ISO 200; 55mm

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Running With the Pack

A wolf is only as strong as it's pack, and the pack is only as strong the wolves that make it up.

Being a part of is one of the strongest desires of living creators, especially human beings.    We all live in a context.  Our family and the traditions we grew up with helped to shape our minds, our experiences, and to some extent our spiritual reality. 

Whether or not we had a warm den to take refuge in from the bitter cold world shaped our impressions of life.  Meaning and purpose in one's life is often shaped by family traditions and childhood experiences. A wolf pup being raised in a pack learns to share, to lean on others and to be strong for the pack. Can a wolf pup survive in the wild alone?


A wolf pack travels together, fiercely loyal and collectively strong.  A lone wolf, separated from the pack, holds the memory of such experiences in her heart and can evoke that strength and support in times of need.  When a wolf howls in the dark of night, is she calling to her pack?  Is she saying; "I am alive!"?  Or is it a howl of yearning to return to the warmth and comfort of the pack?

A marriage needs a warm den in which to take refuge from the cold world. 

Am I creating a warm den for my pack? 

Am I working within the limits and strength of the pack, or am acting like a lone wolf? 

When I howl into the darkness, what is my message?

What is your message?

Perseverence (leaf 2443)

(c)2009 James W. Murray All Rights Reserved

(click on image for full-sized version)

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First Pass

This is the very first day of A Talking Stick blog that my husband James and I are dedicating ourselves to for an entire year.

In many indigenous cultures worldwide, a talking stick is a tool used in ceremony or ritual as a spiritual diving rod for a person's own truth. It empowers one to dive deeply into their own inner world and discover that small still voice that is often buried under layers of social conditioning.

Our commitment to this blog and to one another is to speak our truth, individually and collectively. As with a talking stick, the tradition inspires the holder of the stick to speak in "truth tongue". In a marriage, or in life, one's ability to speak the truth will determine the course of one's life.

Are you speaking in "truth tongue" in your life?

A Talking Stick 

(c)2009 James W. Murray All Rights Reserved

(click on image for full-sized version)