Beautiful darkness

Shadow...

What's the first thing that you think of when you hear or see that word? My guess is that most of us would agree that shadows signify darkness, or the part of ourselves that we try to keep others from discovering. Shadows lurk in dark, creepy alleys that we don't like to walk through at night. Shadows represent fear and darkness.

I used to agree. My past is littered with dark and scary spots. I sensed that darkness following me around all the time. I tried to hide it so that no one would ever see how truly dark it really was. A lot of the work I've been doing in my own life has revolved around changing the way I view things that I'm scared of or uncomfortable with. So, I've tried to re-frame my perception that the "shadow" side of me is dark and scary and needs to be kept hidden. It has started to sink in, and I am starting to like looking at things this way. My shadow is my friend--always following me and trusting my lead. Now the question is, how can I rest myself in that same serene trust that my shadow has in me? How can I trust my heart?

What joy can be found in my shadow? It's amazing, and totally blows my mind most of the time, but I think that is why it's amazing to consider this: there really is joy in all things. Intellectually, this makes my brain scream, "what the hell, Mandi! You're an idiot." No, I'm not. That's why I love it. It's the things that make absolutely no sense at all that are the most comforting to me lately. I can be incredibly sad and grieving, but also have joy and love in my heart at the same time. It's an amazing and comforting feeling to rest in the assurance that once you've felt joy, and let it settle within your heart, NOTHING can take it away. It's there to stay. It's like feeling home in your own heart--whatever state its in.

I don't know when I first discovered my own shadow. Do you? I'm talking about your shadow in the most literal interpretation of the word--the area of darkness that results from light's inability to pass through the physical mass of your body. You probably don't remember when you discovered your own shadow, unless someone has told you a story about this discovery. Developmentally, this usually occurs around the same time we discover our own reflection in the mirror, which is usually around the age of 18-24 months--an amazing time of discovery. At that age, we're just shy of being able to form long-term memories yet. This occurs around age 3. So, for as far as our memories serve us, we've probably always known about our companion shadow. We have an underlying knowledge, that as long as there's a light source, our shadow is around us somewhere. Our shadow is a subtle reminder of our relationship with light--the light doesn't pass through us, it's absorbed. We soak it in...

I actually find a shadow to be very amusing..fun to play around with and see how it changes and shifts with the various movements of my body. (Think shadow puppets...or Peter Pan trying to glue his shadow back on with soap) It's more forgiving than my reflection in a mirror for some reason. I've never criticized myself in front of my shadow, as I have so many times in front of my reflection in a mirror. There's something more compassionate about the shadow. My own shadow is a constant, very visible and personal reminder of my presence--even at times when I feel the most disconnected from my bodily existence. We all do this disconnecting from our own bodies sometimes. We temporarily leave our bodies (we sort of "space out"), distracted and lost in our thoughts, pasts, worries, or faults. In some of us this disconnection is very real and very strong if we've been abused or unloved. But, no matter how fast I run, how long I spin, or how often I wander, a quick flash of that shadow reminds me, in a very visceral way to come back. If my shadow could speak to me, it would speak to that scared part of me that is hesitant to trust my heart that wonders if I matter enough to exist or take up space in this world...

 No my dear, right now, you are right here. See? You're absorbing the light that is here right now. Your body uses it in whatever way it needs at this moment, and this one...and now this one, too. Watch and see as your shadow shows you just how you use this light, changing, shifting, moving, breathing. You are very much alive, present, and soaking in this light of life.

So my child, how do you choose to live and relate to this light of life? Will you ignore the shadow by your side, striving to change by frantically doing more and more, or paralyzed with shame of moments of the past, or dreading those to come? Or, my dear, will you embrace me, the very reminder of your miraculous aliveness in this moment? Can you feel the music of life and dance for joy for the the light and your life right now? This is your choice, my beautiful girl. But know that as your shadow, I will always be here to remind you how absolutely worthy you are to be here, present and alive right now. All you have to do is look down, and there I will always be. So stand in the light, feel it warm your heart and nourish the breath inside you. Open your eyes and dance with me! Take the lead--I promise to always trust your lead and follow you closely.

So, I've decided that my shadow, no matter how dark it is, is beautiful. For it truly has been through my darkest moments that I grown to become the strong, confident, enthusiastic, and reinvented person that I am today. Without those dark moments, my life would be a very empty place and I would never have discovered that I really capable of feeling and living joy! So, yes. I can dance with that beautiful shadow of mine! Will you?

photo courtesy of Pinterest

Wandering

I don't know exactly why I do it, but I wander--all the time! Perhaps it's my ADHD, or perhaps I'm just one of those "thinker" types.

I joke about being a little obnoxiously talkative sometimes, not quite knowing how to stop talking when I need to sort of thing. It's not really always true. I like to just wander around sometimes and think...all alone, with no one to tell me, "Mandi, let's go! I'm bored!" Most of the time, I love to wander outside. I love feeling the breeze (or in today's case, the howling wind) on my face, listen to the trees & grass respond to the wind, and feel the earth under my feet (most of the time I prefer bare foot walking, but unfortunately it's still too cold for that!) I would have loved to squish mud under my bare feet today, but I had to settle for my sister's pink rainboots.

I'm fascinated by trees. For some reason, I admire their intricacy and beauty. Even when everything is still dead and brown waiting desperately for spring like the rest of us, I find it breathtaking. The designs that the branches of the trees make against the cold, cloud-filled April sky make me dizzy if I stare for too long. I went searching for grapevine branches today on my parent's farm. We have acres and acres of land behind the house that my brother and sister-in-law live in, and the woods is one of the most beautiful, silent, and peaceful places I've ever visited. The woods are so thick with trees as a result of little to no human undertaking to thin out the vegetation and brush. This and its position on a high, glacial formation hill make it a fortress from the whipping, howling, icy wind--even when the trees are bare. Oh, and in case you haven't guessed, my interior decorations are aimed at bringing the outside into the inside. Home decor is often comprised of sticks, twigs, pinecones, and occasionally...rocks. Interspersed with some artificial flowers, leaves, and ribbon or burlap, makes it look just perfect. This is sort of a contradiction for me. My decor of choice is always natural and neutral, calm and earthy, but when it comes to dressing/decorating myself? None of that! My closet displays clothes from one end of the color spectrum to another, with very little black, brown, or gray.

I found my sticks....my decorations. However, I also found myself "lost in the woods" for over an hour. I saw sticks missing bark from where animals had gnawed it for food in the long winter. I saw tiny sprouts of vegetation poking through the fallen leaves, just waiting for the warmer spring days to arrive. I found more colors than just brown. Even though the woods looked somewhat like a war-zone with the fallen, uprooted, rotting, and dying trees, I found it beautiful. I walked in one side of the woods, and out the other. As I returned on the muddy, cold, wet path I scanned the field and found beautiful rocks that had showed me of billions of years of sedimentation and glacial movement. The wind blasted cold air onto my face causing tears to form as a result of its force and coldness. The tears ran down my cheeks without even being noticed, because when I got into the house, my sister said, "Mandi, were you crying? You have mascara all the way down your cheeks!" Oops, I guess I didn't even realize that the wind had made my eyes water! I'll show you a few of the pictures I played with.

Who would have thought to find such bright red?

This was the "war zone"

It looked so fuzzy; I almost wanted to touch it--but I left it 

See what I mean? the lines? the designs?

More color contrast. The bark on that fallen tree is completely stripped. The tree in the crux of the fallen one has grown up always being held by that fallen tree. If left like that, it will continue to grow and either bend outward away from the log, or it will grow around the log and envelop it. Only time will tell.

Animals are getting hungry for real food...not just bark off of saplings. The only eat the bark off of living trees...they won't touch the dead ones. They're smart, they know where the nutrition is...and it's not in dead food. We could probably take some lessons from the rabbits...eat your food fresh. 

Messing around with the focus and coloring on the photo. Yes, even dead trees fascinate me.

It looks like an oozing sandwich. But the lighter parts are actually granite that has been squished in-between the limestone.

Same tree, just the actual non-edited photo. Overlooking our barren fields. In a month or so, my dad and brother will be frantically planting corn and soybeans...and my sister and I will be scrambling to "rock pick" all of these fields. (driving a tractor with a wagon, up and down the lengths of the fields, picking up any rocks bigger than our fists so that they don't wreck the machinery in the fall when the crops are harvested---we hate rock picking. Thanks to the glacial formations in our area, there are fascinating different kinds of rocks, but always LOTS of them...and every year when the snow melts and the the frost heaves the ground upward, more rocks appear.)

laugh it up!

As I went to text to my sister asking her if we could have a play date today, I stopped and re-worded it to sound more "grown up," because I'm scared she might think I'm crazy if I say that. Even though I joke around about my silliness and lack of desire to grow up/act my age, etc., but I love making people laugh and smile just as much as I love it.  Here's why:
Being silly can actually make us healthier (and happier too, but that's a given). Acting silly, laughing, smiling, and playing are actually GOOD for you! Laughing, or even just smiling, signals the brain to switch out of the sympathetic nervous system (the nervous system that controls our fight/flight/freeze response) into the parasympathetic nervous system (responsible for calming & relaxing our bodies). Oh, and guess what? Our bodies can't tell the difference between a "fake" laugh/smile and an authentic one...the effects are the same! (So cool!) Laughing also makes us breathe more deeply and thus get more oxygenated blood into our hearts...and that's always a good thing! So...laugh until you're gasping to catch your breath! It's good for you! Or, just give the "ha ha, funny lame joke" laugh--your body will thank you either way! Just in case you don't believe me--here's a link.
Go do something fun today--I for one am going to blast my music and sing/dance to myself ALL the way on the hour+ drive to Ixonia. And yes, I hope somebody sees me looking ridiculous! No, I will not stop...because I bet they'll laugh at me. Then I've done my good deed for the day!

Here's a great link, just in case you want to know more! It's acutally quite fascniating!
 http://www.heartmdinstitute.com/v1/heart-healthy-lifestyles/mindbody-connection/laughter-medicine

Falling

I once tried to climb a massive tree that was calling me to sit up in the cradle of it's branches. In my excitement, I forgot to realize that pulling myself up on two branches that were only about as big around as my thumb, would probably end in disaster. It did. The branches snapped, and I was abruptly reacquainted with my old friend, gravity. As I laid on the very hard, lumpy, apple-strewn ground trying to find where my breath had gone, my sister leaned over me, laughing hysterically and attempted to inquire about my well-being. "Are you....ok.....Mandi?"
Even though I couldn't yet catch my breath, I was laughing as I looked up at the sky through the branches of the tree I'd tried to climb. Somehow, I wasn't embarrassed, hurt, or even remorseful. As I laughed at my falling, all I could think, "that was fun." The joy that my realization that I was indeed bound by the law of gravity brought to the face of my sister made the failed attempt to ascend the tree not a failure at all, but in fact, a much more profound success. I found and shared joy and laughter.

Falling can be fun.

Please, please, please...don't run away

On two separate occasions tonight, I found myself in tears thinking about lessons I have learned or acceptance and genuine friendship that I have felt from friends who are often overlooked themselves because they are "just kids." If you don't think your teenager "gets it," or cares, think again. I promise you, if you're willing to stop, sit down, and really listen, you might see what I've seen. There would still be an empty, dark place in my heart if it weren't for friends almost a decade or more younger than me who weren't scared to ask or care.

Rainy Day Mystery

"As I grew to love ALL of who I am, life started changing in beautiful and mysterious ways. My heart softened and I began to see through very different eyes." -- Kim McMillen, When I Loved Myself Enough

I no more than opened this book and BAM-- there it was! Words to match the feeling that I hadn't quite been able to describe yet. I'm learning to love this life I've been given (trying to abandon the notion that I am sinning by loving life--those old patterns are deeply rooted), and in doing so I have never been so slow. Yes, slow.

When I was little, I used to shuffle my little feet to make noise with my shoes and scuffs on the floors (yes, I did this purposely--sorry mom), I liked the sound of the 'click, shhhhhwoooop, click, shhhhhhwooooop, clip'  of the different types of shoes I would wear. (To this day, this is the ONLY reason I will wear heeled shoes--I like the "important" sounding click, click, click of the heels) Needless to say, in a family of go-go-go-get-it-done-er's, shuffling along was obnoxious and impeding the speed of productivity. I constantly heard, "Mandi! Pick up those feet! Quit poking along! Pick up the pace, etc." I think I was just observing...but I don't know. I was too afraid of getting in trouble for "shluffing" along to continue. For years it was a constant effort to speed it up. I was always the last one. I blamed my poor attention span.

I'm finding myself shuffling again. However, this time for a much different and much more conscious reason. I've been missing out on some of the most incredible beauty around me for my entire life! I'm sick of hurrying up to get everywhere, or to get something done, or to just be done. There is no joy in that. Today I made a list of what I discovered while "shluffing" along in my favorite boots--rain boots, pink rain boots.

1. the somewhat silly "thwup, thwup, thwup" noise that the top of the boots make as they collide with my calves to the rhythm of my walking pace. This isn't something you hear with snow boots.
2. The intricate patterns that water droplets make as they glide off of the surface of my slick, pink rainboots.
3. Rain and spring smell like worms. Yes. Worms. Worms sort of smell like wet dirt. Rain smells like wet dirt.
4. It takes my frizzy, unruly hair about 15 minutes after going inside from the rain, to begin to curl in on itself. 
5. Closing my eyes and letting the rain hit my eyelids. Why doesn't rain feel like tears running down my cheeks? The sensation is very different. 
6.  No one looks up when it's raining. How come?
7. Sometimes when it stops raining, the opaque, white sky is brighter than a clear, sunshine-filled sky. It makes my eyes all squinty.
8.  Best of all...I was the only one who was actually searching for the puddles through which to drag my feet. A grown adult made a conscious effort to yes, stomp through the puddles. Not just stomp--a triple jump. Both feet, squat, arms-reach back, pull forward, and follow with the whole body...once! twice! three times! jump....jump...jump. Pure delight. Embarrassing? Not one bit. 

What does this have to do with loving myself? Everything. I loved myself enough to listen to the urge to slow down and notice a beautiful rainy day. My deep, blue, and wide eyes haven't seen this kind of beauty and mystery in a long time.

Just a thought...

I can't seem to decide if I am easily amused, or just unusually grateful. I'm not sure that it really matters. Perhaps both are just fine.

Most 20-something-year-olds aren't spending their Friday nights like I am. I just spent over an hour listening to classical music (Baroque, actually. Bach was mostly a Baroque-era composer) laying on my bed, staring at my bedroom ceiling. For the most part, I did just stare at the ceiling. That is, until I discovered that when I moved my arm, the light from my lamp cast the shadow of my movement on to the ceiling. I was intrigued. I continued for some time to be somewhat mesmerized that moving my arms in different ways created beautiful, fluid, and interesting shadowed silhouettes on the ceiling. The lyric-less music made the movements seem almost magical as they floated across the ceiling. I never realized how cool shadows really are. I've never slowed down to notice what a little light can do. I must admit, I am amazed.

So, yes. I wonder. Easily amused or profoundly grateful for the little things? Yes, and I think both are perfectly beautiful.