Life is about playing and it is hard work! That is where I come from! For those who aren’t given a silver spoon of monetary wealth it is a gift. These types get creative.
What I miss about Jim: I miss his ability to assemble. Like my dad, he could see scrap as a potential. We didn’t really get to play out the “fun” things in creation together. The assembly of the house and land was full on for both of us. We worked equally hard. Jim did a great, no a wonderful job. As I look back, I see he was tired so very tired. He was giving it his all. I do think that drive was to match my drive. I am beginning to understand we were competitive. But, our energy of competition was a good thing.
We were changing together. We created our individual parts, together. We did help each other and we also had very different parts.
For me, living close to the land and putting effort into making a difference isn’t for the faint of heart. Jim helped but in his illness, his efforts were hard. It was hard to watch and experience. We both hoped and desired our family =(my family) would participate. They were not so inclined. But, we didn’t judged and continued on our way. Today, iIt is super hard doing it alone too. The lists of what needs to be done is always aggregating. Sometimes I am overwhelmed. However, I feel enormous gratitude for where I am at and realizing it is meant to be. When I met Jim I left a situation and a circumstance where I was living a freedom. But, it was also a prison. He was my hero.
I am learning and discovering solo management of thing happening here and the land and projects at hand. It isn’t one handed though. On one hand, easy and on another, hard. I witness and realize the gifts as I get to move without distraction. Distraction! I am always distracting (doing many things at once). I was telling a friend the other day my time management formula is like going from a to b and stopping at c, d, e, f along the way so that b is gets done eventually.
I encourage those who read my sharings to consider their own a, b. c within the story I share. We are all main characters in our stories. If you are a thinker of a questioner, you realize something is “UP”. Something isn’t right about this world! And, you are correct. I adored that Jim and I connected on this. We didn’t have the answers nor the realization of what is going on, but we took time to contemplate a specialness about “who we are” due to the lies we saw presented us.
Everyone is living out their own journey. I am just sharing my part. To be honest, mys posts is a small attempt to play a supporting role in your life. I hope you question things? My main supportive character left, disappeared. I hope and pray he is happy and content. His leaving advanced the plot for me. Jim continues to sculpted me…and he was a tough one to be sculpted by and it was a honor too. I was worthy and he knew that. Now, at this point in time, I am moving forward with intention and positive actions and, hopefully, positive and forward moving reactions. It is moving from the victim to the hero. It is the story of life.
They say the hero phase occurs in the form of the wise sage. The hero is someone who has suffered in victim-hood and found a way up and out. My work actually BIG. The soil is fermenting, the herbs meshing in mediums; the dehydrator is crisping; the stills are separating; the vinegars are alchemizing; the microscope is giving glimpses to the micro; the gardens are grativiting; the note pads are recording. It is actually a little crazy are here. I am sure if you entered my daily world, you would think it insane. I am fully occupied with everything I have gathered in my life. But it is good! I intend further study in the soil microbiology. The cost is out of my reach but it is appearing. My kitchen is a factory of elixirs and tonics. The laboratory is testing, distilling and alchemizing. I am slowly getting back into helping others with my work. I am in the gardens a lot. I care for four leggeds and two winged beings. I watch how things grow. For every plant I harvest for medicine or oils, I create 10 times more plants. That is a rule I have for my own give-back in taking to receive. I clean. I create. I flop into bed each night with aches and pains and satisfaction. I might be my own worst enemy and die from a failure to do. Jim loved this about me and I adored this about him.
So, here I intend to share my own hero’s journey into the story of the Purple Carrot Club only to impart wisdom to someone else who is moving through an initiatory and/or suffering process and is questioning everything going on. Let’s be questioners. A gift is a gift only when shared and that arises when you ask the questions I do this by sharing here with my words…and maybe it acts as a catalyst and a stepping stone along your road. Maybe not! Maybe I am just a lone voice echoing into my own little garden bowl of experience!
You may never know how your story ends and if you do, you are privileged. In the end, the significance of life is the role you played. Maybe you get it on the other side? But that does not diminish the value of serving this role of stewardship on this side of things. I can’t express this any more poignantly. I do not understand the “meaning” but I know it is only in sharing we receive. Seeds planted do not need to be seen as a mature tree by the one who sowed it. One day it offers shade and sustenance to future generations.
So I share my lens and the seeds I am planting.
This site and the Purple Carrot Club began with so much hope. It tramped into despair when Jimi left. It become a clusterfuck map. The map is not the territory. It is a challenge to continue on the path.
Living life isn’t the same as telling a story. I am telling my story here. What I have learned through the story of late is I can not diminish my quality of life by ripping me out of the present (the me that is alone) due to my preoccupation with some yet unfinished story. It isn’t finished for me. It is a potent time.
The truth is we are all living and sometimes things don’t ever reach a satisfying conclusion. But that’s okay. The value of stories isn’t to form fit our lives into some predefined structure but to use the characters and experiences as inspiration to embody certain qualities during opportune moments. So, here I am telling stories.
I feel stronger. A few months ago I didn’t want to be here. A few months ago I felt very broken. Is it possible to defy impossible odds and use these humbling and hard experiences for greater fluid purpose? It doesn’t mean today is easier. Today I realize I have to continue on…despite and due too!
So, I share my forward journey quite openly but, trust me, I also leave out an enormous amount of details. So much is left on the cutting room floor. So much I want to say and share. So much comes to me in the craziness of my day. But, I do my best to explain the human-ness happening. I share the hell and the love. If we worship peak intensity and high drama at the expense of the moments that wouldn’t make it in the script. There are many mundane and high powered crazy moments in my day. I am learning that these moments are not be discarded but cherished.
Stories are alive, yes? They seem to be conscious and purposeful. Like living beings, stories have an agenda, something on their minds. I do have an agenda. But, I don’t want something from you. I want you wake you up. I desire to make you more conscious and more alive. It is not that I have attained the conscious and alive but I know I am part of it. So, I feel compelled to teach you a lesson disguised as entertainment. How strange is that? Under the guise of amusement, drama, dysfunction and tragedy, I hope my stories edify you, build up your character just a little by showing a moral situation, a struggle, a challenge, a lesson and an outcome. Can I change you in some small way, to make you just a bit more human by comparing your behavior to that of the character around you.
Maybe I am struggling with “enantiodromia”. This is a Jungian term that is defined as “the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time.” It is the blessing of changing one’s mind from one extreme to another. It is like the overly health conscious or religious person who becomes controlling, obsessive or compulsive and develops an eating or prothesizing disorder. It rises when you only see one side of a story so strong, it is the only story. It is like a pent up energy ready to explode in counterposition. But, It is the medicine for a breakthrough with conscious control.
I think we (or I) are at that point where I see a very defined line between the forces of pure good and irredeemable evil. But, it isn’t that simple. There isn’t just evil people doing evil things that we need to separate and destroy. It is time to take the power and realize the evil is possible within. That is the hero’s journey. That is where your soul gets pulled into the story and it develops and transmutes and things “happen”. You begin to see the dividing lines very clearly. It is a rabbit hole journey. It is not a matter of make-believe. It is real and there are timeless reasons for it. Awakening is not easy and it is easy too.
My hope is that reading this will plant the seeds to help you feel your significance in your muscles and bones. That it might burn so vividly that others can see it shining in my actions. And, who knows, maybe, you might even catch a glimpse of it in your own significance reflected in the gems of wisdom and wonder of suffering.
My life now, right and left
It is full and pregnant within the hollow of emptiness..
I remain sad and looking but catching glimpses through imaginings
I question things of past, present and future as one
I don’t get it and…I understand, at least accept
Gratitude is swelling and the fuel of my engine
The next steps are clear, crisp and crazy
I do with flair and spent-up fermenting
The task are crazy high, step by step…step by step
He watches me
And smiles a smile I can’t see but know.
