Tag Archives: happiness

These Are My People: Carrie Jones

Always!

Love is an active participation one to another.

It is a tribute to those who taught us

who moved our spirits

who shook up our souls like a snowglobe scene

we kept dusty and hidden on a shelf that we don’t remember building

but suddenly are embarrassed to realize was there all along

Love is an active embrace of warm energy

It is an honoring of those who taught us

who helped us realize our worth

who took our broken pieces scattered everywhere

and meticulously hugged each one until we learned

until we believed that we were worth the love they gave.

Love is an active bond between two spirit kin

It is an abiding reminder of those who taught us

who helped us understand what forever means

who took the disappointments and broken promises

and ALWAYS loved us no matter what.

Love is Always.

Always love is the greatest gift I can forward

because it is given to me every day for always.

I See You

Kaleidoscope_13I see you. You are not invisible to me. When I look at you, you wear no clothes. You wear no physical form. There is a ball around your body that lights up when you’re around people you like and dims when you’re not fond of them. The ball has colors and patterns that are spectacularly blended to me. I see you.

You’re a kaleidoscope of vivid colors that ebb and flow depending on how you move the liquid essence that you float in unwittingly. Where there is pain, I see the darkness. Where there is love, I see the light. Where you reside is usually a central color that tells me everything I need to know about you. I am a voyeur of sorts but not the creepy kind. I will not jump from your closet unexpectedly one night. I will meet you on the terms you’ve established. Because I can feel your intent.

I’m sorry if you feel I’ve invaded your privacy. I don’t know how to turn it off. I don’t really don’t want to because it’s served me so well. It’s proven invaluable to me to seek others of the light. It’s proven invaluable to me when I know I can’t trust a person because they are too consumed by material things to know they’re spiritual beings. It’s guided me effectively to incredible experiences through people with knowledge so deeply profound that I sometimes weep with gratefulness while others cause me deep caution.

It’s a feeling of authentic appreciation of identity that can only bloom with the watering of confidence when I see people that fit into their spirits; That “get it”. When I see someone working actively to grow into their spirits, I can forgive almost anything they do because I witness the evolution of color as if a perfect painting were in the works and I get to watch the brushstrokes fall on the canvas. It’s glorious to see. My gift allows me the privilege without effort.

There are also people who are not exactly dark and not exactly light. They are in a flux between worlds. The material world grabs their ankles and wrists tugging them away from their destiny. Their spirit self does a watoosie trying to find footing, trying to fill in the blanks. There are some that stand in this disarray and cry out that they don’t know who they are or that they don’t know what they’re doing. Nobody knows for sure what we’re doing. We just come up with a plan and see how it pans out. If we’re lucky, we have guides to show us the way out. I am one of those guides but I don’t know everything.

It is increasingly difficult when I feel as if I am carrying/dragging them towards the light. They start off saying, “Oh yes! I really want to do something different and I really like your ideas. Let’s go on this journey together.” I comply and we have long talks deep into the night. The kind that feels like it is the most important conversation I’ll ever have. For that moment in time that glimpse into the moonlight or the daylight it truly is. The intensity can’t be matched because it is so relevant. It is crucially real. But they fall back asleep and forget that we’d every spoken the conversation. With some, that shine so brightly but fear themselves, I keep trying to wake them up because I believe they need to be; because they said they wanted to be.

I don’t say anything to people who are dark. I don’t squeal with delight when I see them. Their wounds run far too deep for me to do anything other than shine a light at the end of their tunnel and coax them from sleep if they’re ready. There have been times when words came out of my mouth that weren’t mine but were intended for a particular person. Just like that, it’s as if a small miracle, sometimes large, happens but it isn’t mine. That’s when my light can reach into that dark place and help bring them home to the light where they belong. Those are the people that shoot past me like a rocket grinning from ear to ear on the tides of self-discovery and I cherish each one that finds that place. I do not gift them because it’s already theirs as it is yours. I may just nudge the light a tad to the right so they can see they’re really okay.

But I can’t carry them. I can’t wake them up. I can’t do that. I can’t pick someone up and force them to embrace their colors. It is ALWAYS the individual choices that color their spirits. It is ALWAYS their responsibility. I learned this and other rules of engagement when watching the masterpieces I encounter.

I can’t tell people what color they will become but I can tell them what color I see. The colors don’t have traits as much as they have emotions attached to them. When I see the colors and I really like them, I have to wait. I can’t immediately bond with them because rarely, but it does happen, they are wearing someone else’s colors. Like maybe they had a bad interaction with someone so it clouds their spirit or they’ve just received great news and are wearing that instead of their normal vestments. It’s the wolf in sheep’s clothing that causes me to ease my steps.

The physical being, the way you wish people to see you comes second. When I see someone that matches their physical self with their spirit self, it’s a feeling of home. It’s a feeling of such personal integrity, I think, “YOU! You’re there!” Sometimes it surprises me so much to find an authentic person that I actually say that out loud. There are many people who come close to matching but, it’s like they choose the wrong pair of socks or the wrong shade of happy. It’s just enough off for me to recognize that they’re missing parts of themselves or aren’t aware they are. It is my experience that it’s typically the latter.

The physical being does matter. I don’t wish you to have the wrong impression. I do see it, but not until I’ve peered through the spirit. When I tell someone that they are beautiful, I see them as I’ve described to you. I wish I could paint each person so they could see their beauty too. As if, if I could create them on canvas, they might appreciate their own divinity that seems apparent to me. But instead I’ll follow the advice of my kind Uncle Les who said, “Mare, whatever you do, keep doing it. The world needs more of it.” So it is written, so it is done.

I really dig

I really dig that when I open up my blog reader

I find people-y readers lurking about, liking this or that.

I really dig that when I peer back through the shop window

the readers grunt, groan, lust, hug, love and hate like I do.

I really dig that when I peer through the looking glass

I don’t find my readers slumped sleeping in side-chairs.

I really dig that they poke fingers to keys while:

drinking coffee

popping pills

drinking bourbon

honoring artists

dancing with desires for origami people on paper they will print.

I really dig that the people I don’t know by face

stare back at me as we travel, passing on our reader’s train.

I really dig when we arrive at the same destination of personal truth.

Because that’s when the shit gets real.

Box up your crap. Part One: The Spirit Self

happy box

happy box (clipped to polyvore.com)

There are a lot of people doing what they need or have to do to get by in this world. They often sacrifice who they are in order to keep the peace, to meet the status quo, to maintain a balance no matter how precarious that may be in unhealthy emotional, intellectual, spiritual, or even physical realms. The lamentations of their despair become a litany of unresolved, unrecognized, and unheeded personal warnings. They have compromised more than they should have when faced with difficulties that, at the time, seemed insurmountable.

It may seem like one just can’t catch a break. Everything such as family issues, occupational hazards like co-workers or bosses, neighbors that fight at 2AM, they all seem to pile up around the edges of our minds, creep in until they become so daunting that curling up in a ball is the only way to feel protected. But, as an adult, we know that’s not responsible towards fulfilling our own needs, wants, desires, or beliefs.

What is required to stabilize the influx of either permitted or illicit chaos in our lives? It’s your Happy Room.

Imagine standing in the middle of a room. It can be any color with as many or as few of windows as you desire. There is a shifting floor and an infinite ceiling. Each wall of this room has shelves from the floor on up to as high as you can reach and beyond. Each wall represents different aspects of our lives, each shelf dictates the significance we place on those aspects. On the many shelves are boxes made of all types of materials such as wood, cardboard, concrete, tissue paper, etc. In those boxes are everything you’ve ever learned, thought of, forgotten, seen, heard, felt, dealt with, avoided but acknowledged, believed, discarded, been, and done.

The wall to your left is filled with the MUST things like paying bills, feeding yourself, going to work. The basic essentials. (To be expanded later) The wall in front of you is filled with RELATIONSHIPS. Every one you’ve ever had; The good, the bad, and the mediums. The wall to your right is filled with TEMPORARY issues. Nearly running out of gas, having to run to the store, remembering the kid’s field trip money, things that although are important when occurring don’t have a dominant impact because of their transience. Behind you is, of course, your PAST. Anything before this moment is there. The floor is constantly shifting with the emotions that can sometimes bog down the spirit or uplift the Divinity within. Looking up, the ceiling is infinite with possibilities, goals, and dreams.

In the middle of this room stands your Spirit Self. The quintessential you that’s filled with, sometimes, an innate Divinity begging to be discovered and experienced. It is the part of you that begs for you to follow your Personal Best path by embracing everything that you can be. It’s the part of you that sometimes gets neglected because the boxes on the surrounding walls fall off the shelves and distract you from following your path. This is the essence of who YOU actually are and what orchestrates how you deal with and work through situations.

When we live our lives, we have all the information we need to deal with whatever situation we’re currently facing. It could be something as simple as when to go to the store, or as complex as death of a loved one, or as mundane as how to meet that seemingly impossible deadline. Regardless of what issues we are dealing with, our Spirit Self knows what to do if we’d only listen and trust that to be true.

Everything you’ve experienced has shown you how to do THIS. Whatever IT is, you already have the tools to handle it. But, sometimes our tools get broken or we don’t value the lessons we’re learning. It’s easy to throw up the hands while declaring, “I don’t know what to do!” Those are the times, in my personal experience, that we do actually know what to do but it may require confrontation, a difficult decision, or a letting go of the past. Distasteful difficulties that pop onto the radar with a sharp bang that indicates another box falling from the shelves. They could be from any of the walls or a combination of them, but whatever it is, the floor of emotions rises up and our Spirit Self has to figure out how to coordinate efforts.

Think of what makes the floor rise with happiness under and throughout your Spirit Self. If you could do ANYthing right now and get paid to do what you love, what would you do? If that’s too difficult, go with what you wanted to be when you grew up. Start there then expand your ideas like a snowball. Lists are helpful to find the common thread between what you wanted to be and what you became.

I always wanted to be a writer. My mother used to read to my brother and me aloud. No matter if it were the newspaper, her college books or papers, stories, she read. Because of that, I don’t ever remember not being able to read or write (except cursive, I remember learning that.) The places she’d take us when she’d tell us stories fascinated me. When I got old enough to understand fact vs. fiction, the world exploded with possibilities. I decided that I wanted to write stories. I wanted to hold the moniker of Author. But life happened and although I piddled around with this or that, I didn’t do it.

February of 2013, I broke my foot. I was unable to keep the job I’d gotten in December. It was not a good point for me on so many levels. But, as if by a magical force, my Spirit Self said, now you have time to do what you wanted to do all along. Take advantage of it. I had time to get involved in my community, which I love to do. I had time to write articles, stories, and to begin a blog. With each word I put down on paper or here, I’ve found myself filling my Spirit Self with the destiny I dreamed about since I was a young girl.

You remember too. If you listen to your Spirit Self and tune in to your personal happiness, you’ll hear it calling you. It may be just a whisper for having been neglected, but it is there. It is waiting. It is willing to give to you. It wants you to remember your Spirit Self title and discover an entirely wonderful new world exactly where you are right now.

It does sound farfetched. It may seem like there isn’t enough time in the day to devote to “discovering yourself.” But truly, the gifts you hold inside of you, the wonders of your unique perspective, your personal voice expanding into Spiritual practice via acts of happiness changes perspectives, clarifies the muddy waters of emotions, and guides you back to the lighted path of your Spiritual Self’s personal Divinity.