comfortably unconditionally

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This is what I told a friend this morning about putting yourself first:
Here's the thing, in order to have healthy relationships (of any kind), you need to accept yourself for who you are (the good and the "bad") and find compassion for yourself (just as you daily do for others) and truly like yourself (I know this is hard to do, but once you understand that you are enough and worthy, it becomes so much easier to give to others unconditionally... unconditionally does not mean ignoring your needs, it means truly not needing anything from someone else because you've taken care of yourself first.) This makes a huge difference in how comfortable you are in relationships and in how comfortable or uncomfortable you make others.
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(C) Photograph, MJ Calitz, 2010

see everything. judge nothing

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The answer to almost all of you existential questions is meditation. It teaches you to acknowledge your thoughts and emotions, and the people in your life, and the situations you find yourself in, without judgment. And to trust that things are exactly as they are supposed to be and that everything will work out in the end. It allows you to be open to the possibilities, be one with the universe, and in touch with your own soul. It gives you balance, perspective, acceptance, a moment of quietness from a world screaming with confusion. It moves you forward in ways that you cannot always see.
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This is not complicated. Simply take an uninterrupted moment every day to sit down and breathe and be in the moment. See everything that crosses your mind randomly. Judge nothing, make no lists, seek no solutions, have no expectations. Just breathe. And when you are ready, end with saying the word “namaste” (meaning the light in me salutes the light in you) thanking both yourself, for showing up, and the universe, for seeing you and wanting the best for you.
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The answers will present itself. Life is whispering to you about your life all the time, in the little things that scratches at the edge of your consciousness trying to give you the answers you are seeking or the warnings that you need to heed or the pushes you need to move forward. And sometimes, if you keep ignoring the whispers, it dumps a brick wall on top of you. The answers are all around us. All we need to do is still our minds with meditation and open our eyes [ears, instincts, etc.] to the possibilities.

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(C) Photographs, MJ Calitz, 2010

PLEASE READ THIS

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IT IS IMPORTANT TO FACE YOUR FEARS.
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Find out what the universe is trying to tell you, because your fears are just code for the boundaries that you need to overcome in your personal journey. Find out what's really at the core of your individual fears. What lies behind your obsessions, aggression (passive or active) and ignorance? What is blinding you to the existence of anyone or anything but your gnawing need? What do you want to make go away (by either avoiding it or fighting/hurting it) because it or they are not to your liking? What or who do you keep blaming for your circumstances that makes you pleasantly numb and/or passive in your life? What fears don't you even know about... for this, take a hard look at what keeps on repeating in your life and know that LIFE (God, the Universe) is continually busy to whisper to you and if you keep on ignoring it, it will become a brick wall that comes crashing down on you at some point.
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It is important to face your fears.
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For instance, last year out of the blue, I had this intense fear of becoming disabled and that fear only subsided when I was willing to dig for answers. I had to ask hard questions, each time going deeper until I found what it was that really scared me. And once I dealt with that, the fear faded.
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This year I dealt with a continuous fear of the possibility of torture, which is not surprising after months of listening to hours of horrendous screaming while my husband went through a horror movie craze, specifically about serial torturers and killers. I refused to watch, but I could still hear and imagine the terror unless I chose to flee my own home. Even after his craze faded, the fear returned over and over again. At first I tried to banish the thoughts and fears, then I tried to reason it away like you do with a scared child. ("Look nothing's happening, you're perfectly safe." or "Every body's scared of this, but they don't go around obsessing about it," etc) When that didn't work, I returned to banishing it as silly or trying to let it bounce off me. Without success. Until I made a link in my brain to what the threat of torture was code for: dominance. For years I've been dealing with dominant people in my life, struggling to be safe or to not be dismissed or diminished or manipulated or abused. And suddenly I realized if my fear of disability, that was really all about acceptance, was because of finding what really matters and that I am enough no matter my physical appearance or abilities, then my fear for torture, that is really about dominance, is about loving myself enough to start doing what needs to be done, to become more assertive in my life, not just vaguely, but seriously. To start LISTENING to my own instincts.
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It is important to face your fears. THEY ARE THERE TO PUSH YOU FORWARD.
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The second thing that I'm learning that is important in life is to do whatever it takes to make you happy. YES, do consider the consequences and make sure you don't hurt innocent people in the process. But also consider that sometimes the cruel thing is the compassionate kind thing to do, if that means the other person will get the opportunity to grow from it too, whether they take it or not (that is not your responsibility). The important thing is your intention, which is (1) always strive to become the fullest highest expression of your soul and (2) do no harm.
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ALSO, (1) never allow another person to diminish you. and (2) when someone shows you who they really are, BELIEVE THEM, and when a situation is futile, move on.
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Here are some good tips I got from the book I mentioned in the previous post, on how to deal with:

• OBSESSIONS - take moments to shift your focus away from the thing you crave. if you keep doing it, the moments will add up and you will eventually be able to move on.
• AGGRESSION - get perspective. it is always possible to take one more step back (to see why... find the reason behind the act or the situation) until you find your compassion again.
• IGNORANCE - keeping a journal will allow you to tune in to what may be lying beneath the surface of your unhappiness or your inability to move forward or the underlying reasons for why the same unpleasant things keep on happening to you. Ask these questions: What is it that the universe is trying to tell me? What is the lesson I need to learn?
  
• FEAR- acknowledge and explore the fear without judgment. ponder possible solutions. give it over to a higher power and trust that the answers will present itself when the time is right. if all else fails, recognize what isn't working and stop doing it.

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I know this is a long post, but if you read this, and really recognize this, you can deeply benefit by applying it to your life. Oprah says: "WHEN YOU KNOW BETTER, YOU DO BETTER," meaning once you are aware of something that is not right, you can't ignore it anymore.
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Being fearless doesn't mean being arrogant or stupid or ignorant, it means opening yourself up to finding what you need to do to move forward.

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grandmother

a picture as promised
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PS. Read this book:
"How not to be afraid of your own life" by Susan Piver
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and if you're interested in learning to crochet or pick it up again:
"Crochet" from the "Teach yourself visually" book series
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jarred memories

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Sometimes we get inspiration from the most unlikely sources. Last Friday when I got dressed for the day, I subtly felt a pull towards wearing my late paternal grandmother's antique locket. I don't usually wear it because it's this big heavy oval object and the chain is broken and amateurishly mended, but the locket still holds the original photographs my grandmother crudely cut out and placed inside. On one side is a picture of me, about 9 years old, wearing a dress she made for me, and on the other side is a picture of her, me and my late brother taken that same day. VERY sentimental. So maybe I chose to wear it for that very reason, or maybe it's because I've got this nagging feeling that started little over a year ago and occasionally pops up, that she's somehow here, with me.
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There's one thing that you have to understand about my grandmother. She was creative and fearless. About the creative part I'm very sure. She was a participant and judge in various cooking competitions and even got published in a local magazine for hosting awesome parties. And she dabbled in various arts and crafts including pottery, sewing, painting, flower arranging and everything and anything creative grabbing her attention. The fearless part is something I just felt in her spirit every time we were together. She was a brave woman who took on pig farming, lived half her life with half a stomach, permanently wore tightly curled wigs and smoked long skinny cigarettes that looked particularly glamorous to me at 9 years old. She was something of a regal entity during my growing up years. And then she got smaller and frailer and moved into a retirement home and before I could really appreciate her as an adult, she was gone. A life lived on her terms. (I'll dig up a photo and post it later.)
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So Friday, I went to the craft store to fill up on supplies and inspiration hit me from several directions. I found this beautiful apothecary jar (i'm in love with apothecary jars now) that I filled with old family pictures, found the perfect frame and background for the antique cutlery I had no clue what to do with (watch this space...), got yards of beautiful trim to finish the old traveling trunk we're restoring, and fell in love with a yarn so creamy and dreamy it makes you want to cuddle all day long. (I'll post some pics of the finished projects soon.)
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I'm convinced that part of this inspiration came from my grandmother. I've come to believe that her spirit is lingering near me for some reason. Usually something like that would freak me out, but this time, it makes me feel safe and happy. Last year a psychic friend told me that she feels a female spirit lingering around me and said something that I could only link to her and a few months later she said she was buying some antique jewelry for her shop and felt like she had to get something for me. She gave me this locket so similar to my grandmother's that it awed me.
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Okay, enough about that. Up top are some pictures of the apothecary jar filled with some of my favorite family pictures. That's my mom sitting in front of a mirror when she was about my age, my mom and dad kissing, and my maternal grandparents with my late brother. The one of my mother in front of the mirror has tiny cracks all over the surface that makes it look like a work of art. I love this jar with these photographs. It makes me smile every time I pass it.
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(C) Posted photographs, MJ Calitz, 2011

why am i?

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brother, brilliant and dead, one year ahead. mold him an imaginary gravestone with clay & dreams & dirty, hungry fingers. glaze dripping on the earth, oozing, seeping in. not dormant. but. everything is frozen. pipes & fish hibernating under papery leaves falling from skeleton trees. what if i float away like a balloon animal. a cracker animal, crunched under your feet. i drown in opaque light. don’t filter me. so why am i? filtering me. why am i? sitting here in my pj’s. why am i? just a skeleton of me. you wouldn’t approve. and he doesn’t approve anyway. me. come back to me. i need to breathe. instead i hibernate under television glare & paper excuses crumpled in my hair, floating, not seeping in. brother, why am i? here.
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(C) Poetry, MJ Calitz, 2011. Photograph, MJ Calitz, 2009, edit, 2011.