Candles, Wishes and Grounding Velvet - A Happy New Year

I thought I was going to have a quiet evening at home. And I did - from 9:30 to 1:30. The regular gang plopped on to the sofa for an after party. As usual, they were well behaved, politically astute and aware of current events. For example, one of the boys is Israeli and shared his ideas on the situation in Gaza. He didn't get too far since Batman and Subzero were fighting on the Xbox - but if you're going to listen to someone's perspective on a war, it might as well be someone whose own ass could land in the middle of it.

Perhaps my patience was running thin because the previous night Velvet was supposed to stay with his father, but told his dad he was out at a party and didn't have to be over there until 1:00am. Never mind that the damn party was in MY living room. So that was two nights in a row I was supposed to have a stretch of peace and quiet and instead had a house full of boys eating Pop Tarts.

At 3:43am I informed the children that the party was over at 4:00 and went back to bed cherishing a vision of them putting on their coats and leaving quietly. To my surprise, Velvet came into my room a few minutes later asking if his friends could stay until 4:20. They thought it was a fine idea to smoke a joint at 4:20am in my living room on New Years Eve/Day. I'm sure it was a fine idea, but I had to say "Not no, but HELL no."

Velvet looks at finding his limits as if he were wading out into a lake. Some people take a step and stay there for a while before stepping a little farther out and deeper into the lake. Others charge in with energy and vigor, getting deeper by the second until they splash into some kind of trouble. To stretch this metaphor a bit farther, we could say that Velvet will even use a rope swing to get as far in one leap as a kid can get.

Random kid on internet - Not the Real Velvet

420 was the limit, and now he's grounded for 48 hours. Maybe he can go out tomorrow - but there will be no Xbox soirees over here for a long time. Fortunately, the boys who like it here the most are all going back to college this weekend.

Meanwhile, I have decided that I'm not so into the Summer Boyfriend Reality Show this year because I'd rather explore my relationship with God than with some man. As I have been contemplating Grace, it has occurred to me that the hole we often feel in our soul is the longing to be at one with God. I use the term God for lack of a better word. It may be God, for real, or it might be Higher Consciousness, The Force - I don't know. To me, it means Something Big and With a Purpose Beyond Human Understanding. I like the word God because it is short.

People go to great lengths to fill the hole in their souls. However, it may be that the hole needs to be there for The Light to come in. As I recall, the chakra on the top of our heads is supposed to connect us to the Divine, but in my body I feel like the hole is closer to the heart chakra. It may be that my heart has been very heavy for as long as I can remember, and as a result of a tearful but productive conversation with my mom and dad, my heart is beginning to lighten up.

Last night, in my few quiet moments, I felt the light inside myself. I felt it a little bit down in Texas, but it's hard to fully experience anything except in solitude. Without all those damn kids, my living room is my sanctuary. I can stretch on my giant, Pilate's ball - on my back with my heart wide open to the sky. As it happens, I was listening to a CD I had made for myself when I need to Calm Down. The first song is Judy Collins singing "Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen which happens to be a song my mother listened to a million times when I was a kid.

Between Jesus himself and feeling like maybe I will turn out to be as cool as Suzanne, able to look between the garbage and the flowers, holding the mirror for someone who is stretching out for love, my internal self was so warm, bright and revelling in endless possibility that all I could do was sit in the floor and bawl. The best part was knowing hundreds and hundreds of women have probably sat in the floor bawling to the very same song. It's a tradition.

For the record, I have not, nor will I ever, accept Jesus as my personal savior. He's great and everything - best ethics ever taught. But as a confirmed Universalist, I cannot say Jesus is the one and only path to The Light. Besides, I'd rather light candles at full moon all by myself than go to Church any day.

What has become blazingly clear, however, is that for more than thirty years, I've used a boyfriend to fill the hole in my soul when all along I needed it open to see my own light. I may have even been so afraid of my own light that I had to block it with a man. Or maybe it was that dang internal judge - the fat, naked Emporer chucking rocks from his glass palace who was convincing me that I didn't deserve to be in the Light. Either way, I made sure I couldn't feel it.

In Texas, I sobbed in my mother's arms, pouring my lifelong sadness into acceptance, and it was good. No one ever has the kind of mother they needed as a child, but if you're lucky, when you're older, you get the mother you need maybe when you need her the most.

Anyway - I don't feel like fooling around with a bunch of dumb shits showing off their houses and cars on Match.com. I'll still go out with the Doctor because it might be fun for a time. I'll be surprised if he can compete with Teiwaz - an internal character I'm almost certain does not exist in real life but who continues to symbolize the end of isolation.

I'll light a candle and keep wishing as my own light fills the holes in my soul.

There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind