Anyways, this bittersweet feeling. It's like last week when I was walking to my client's house. I watched the big crows landing on grass and sitting in trees, plotting their own bird soap operas, and I was suddenly reminded of mom in a really profound way. I remembered when I went to visit her in Illinois at her last apartment. She was doing a lot of guided journey shamanistic stuff and was showing me books and having me lie down with her on the floor as we listened to this cd of drumming. I took a few of those journeys without my mom because she bought me the same book/cd so I could see where I "went" and it was fascinating. I wrote my "visual journeys" or whatever you want to call them down. My visions were always full of crows or ravens and I determined back then that was my animal totem. They guided and protected me in these dream states. I feel embarrassed writing about this for some reason. It is spirituality that is perhaps best kept in paper diaries or in the membranes of my mind.
I saw that crow the other day and my heart was singing and bleeding all at once. Bittersweet. I feel so happy to be alive and I marvel at human beings and the animal kingdom, yet sometimes I walk by this stream close to our house and feeling like jumping off the bridge into it. I don't want to die. It goes back to these weird, morbid "realisms" I've always had. These strange "What If's?"
What if I just suddenly jumped out of this window that is on the 4th floor. How would it feel to land on the pavement below? What would it look like?
Really weird shit like that. I think having those thoughts (which aren't suicidal but more like a strange curiosity) is probably more common than I think.
Switching topics. The winds have been fairly fierce for this area in the past 24 hours. On the Coast (Lincoln City) the winds last night reached 100 mph. Wind leaves me in complete awe. Any violent weather does. It sends electrical currents up my spine. I love storms. I love that I am nothing, that I am just a clump of cells and some DNA when compared to Mighty Mother Nature..compared to the Universe and all of that. When I walk through wind I feel powerful. I feel like the wind is possessing a part of me. I have this image of myself. I am standing in a huge field and I have my arms outstretched. My hair whips around. I feel witchy. I am unbreakable. Everything else around me is in chaos, but I withstand the wind and my feet are so firmly planted. It's a nice feeling to feel strong and powerful. I'm not the type to want to use power to manipulate others. It just feels like a huge surge of self confidence or something. I'm always thinking of Mary Poppins when I stagger around in heavy wind. I love Mary. I wish I had a magic carpet bag. I wish I could snap my fingers and cause order or disorder...reverse or speed up time.
Besides wind I also love fire. I love to gaze into it and watch it change colors. I love the smell of wood burning stoves and fireplaces as I walk. I know they pollute but I inhale the cinders deeply. My sister-in-law is wanting a bathtub like nothing else right now. Her desire is so great that I wonder if she dreams about taking baths? I currently want a fireplace. I want to burn wood. I'll even burn those stupid Presto Logs. I remember when I was still married to Rob. He used to burn old chairs and other pieces of furniture when we were going to replace them with new ones (or things our nice neighbors gave us)...It was strange and exhilirating to see him snap wood into pieces and throw it on the fire. I guess we were recycling.
Speaking of soot and cinders and darkness. Dicken's "David Copperfield" is on tonight. It is the version from the 1930's and I can't wait to watch it. I was born in the wrong decade. Hell, sometimes I think I was born in the wrong century. Still, what would my life (as a woman) have been like living in Victorian England? Not easy, that is for sure, but is it easy now? Yes and No.
