My Love of the Cowboy

I have been thinking and wondering why I don't have the peace that seems to intrude on my mind, but not stay as long as I would like.  Then it hit me.  I am not trusting.  That is not a surprise to me.  I have hope, but trust sometimes elludes me.  Maybe it's because I am an American and I just want cowboy it out.  I love the image of the cowboy and I think it really embodies many of the American ideals: self reliance, wide open spaces, freedom in thought, life on our own terms, hard working, life in extreme, etc.  I love the cowboy image, but he's not great trusting everything is going to work out just fine unless he does his work.  Now, there is a fine line between trusting in things being just fine and waiting to be rescued.  Maybe here is where I have gone wrong.    Perhaps, I have not looked deeper at him.  He must rely on nature and trust that he can get his herd to market.  He must believe otherwise or why would he even try?  It's a dangerous life. There are not too many things that he can be sure of, yet he believes he can get his cattle where they need to go. I find myself in a similar situation.  I am not on the range, but I have this crazy plan to move my family to another country.  I believe it is very possible and I want to do it with all my heart.  Sometimes, however, I feel like I am on the open plain in a down pour. My father once told me that all I had to do was what was in front of me.  Maybe that is true.  Maybe first things are first.  Maybe this crazy plan will work out it if I trust that the plan is a good one and remember why we have made this decision.

Thoughts

Silence intruding in the cacophony of my heart, causes me to yearn for simple quiet.  A little light peeking in.  Looking forward.  Lent seeping in.  Slowly, slowly I realize that I am made for peace, but this I find myself not in peaceful times.  Standing up, I want to sleep.  I look where I am supposed to be.  I am where I am supposed to be, but I find little comfort.  Seeking my path, but find it is not just my path, but the path I must travel with my beloveds. That is my comfort.  Peace will find me.  Love I already have.

Whole

Setting my face toward my goal.  This works best and easiest when the goal is done with your whole heart.  I whole hearted want to go back home.  In 1992, I left home for New York and Seminary.  I loved New York and when I graduated I wanted to stay and stay I did.  I fell in love and married my sweet man.  We moved to Canada and had two beautiful children, but now I feel the draw homeward.  I know it is right and good.  I am done with that adventure and am ready for the next one back home.  My heart wants it so much.  I want to live where my life is. I want the two haves of my heart together for once. All these years I have felt pulled in two directions and I am done with that.  I want to be centered and live forward.  I long to be whole.  I want to spend holidays with people I love without having to drive twelve hours. I want a church where I can pray with my sister.  I want my children to have a sense of their whole family.  I want to work and feel free.  I want to know that the government has not told the radio stations how much music to play from domestic artists.  I want freedom of thought and voice.  I want freedom of being who I am and where my people came from.  I want my children to love both their Canadian  and American Heritage.  I want to be home.

Light in Darkness

It's funny to me how I can be so full of angst about something, then I say it and the anxiety disappears.  Like shining a light in the darkness.  I have small boys.  My younger one would wake up screaming and have to sleep next to me until I figured out that the darkness was bothering him.  That day I bought flashlights.  I had to make a rule about them, because he is a small child.  He could only use it at night when I was not around. The screaming stopped.  I love that.  I feel so much more free having said what it was that I wanted to do for and with my family.  I have been able to start to clean and get ready because of it, and I am not so anxious.  I have work, lots of work, and if I keep working it will all come together.

I had a vision in the trees once.

What Next

I am feeling out off sorts.  I suppose this is to be expected.  I have been through so much in the last few years that I find I have lost my bearings for the moment.  I am feeling in limbo between what I thought I was going to do with my life, and what I am deciding to do next.  In the next few months, I will have to choose what I take with me to the next stage: what things are worth the effort to move to another country and what things get left behind.  My husband and I are planning on moving to The States.  I long to go back home, and my mother is not well.  We both feel that Mom and the kids deserve to spend lots of time together, and quite frankly, I miss home. What remains now is the foot work and the planning.  I do not wish to take loads of things with us, but we have family stuff that we need to keep.  These things belong to the future, and I have to be careful of what we take with us.  I have never been very good at sorting through things and letting go of them, but that is what I am about to do.  As for my art and my work as an artist, I will be using the blog and my photography.  I might never make it to the big leagues as an artist, but I know I need to make art for my own health.

Already

Grey skies in winter make me feel still and look inwardly.  Today, the Triodion opens and Lent starts to creep into our lives.  I love that.  I am so grateful for Lent because it opens the door of my heart which somehow Summer fun and Christmas festivities close, or rather becomes clogged with the things that are not ssential.  The Church cycle is so wise in that it reflects the natural cycle.  Somehow, I am most ready to listen in the still of winter and look for the new life of Spring and Pascha.  One is the door to the other.  Like the rooster that shows the morning, there is no time between the crowing of the morning and the morning.  The herald is the sign that it is already.