Happy Full Moon Blessings and Merry New Year

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Not sure about all of you but 2012 was an insane year for me.  One of complete emotional and spiritual evolution.  The largest portion of which was releasing myself of people, things, memories, places, actions, reactions, and emotions, which no longer served my present or my future.  This was something I have needed to do for a long time but hadn’t been able.  It was an intense year but a cathartic year – one of which I believe has built the foundation that will allow me the ability to have much greater light in my life moving ahead.

It was the year of the Shaman, and the therapist, hopping on many airplanes, strangely amazing conversations with strangers, slamming into a soul mate, a hawk, sunshine, music, rainbows, quitting my job to begin a new adventure, giving myself time, growing a garden, forgiveness without an apology, painting a fence blue, past life regression, writing, healing, crying, anchors, laughing hysterically, loving hard, communing with the Universe, pictures, water, and above all else, friendship. 

In many ways, I’d like to believe it was the year that became my beginning.  The beginning of everything to come. The beginning of the next story.  I’m still processing it all.  There is emptiness in release and now my priority is to fill that space with the right things.  The best things.  Light.  Lasting light.

Which brings me to my New Years Resolution.  Which I never make – because I believe who we are, what we should do and be - should be a constant state of being, not a yearly effort, but this year, I’m going to force myself into remembering something.

I will no longer give what I do not receive.  There are 3 types of people in this world.  There are givers, there are takers and there are inbetweeners – (those that do neither).  I no longer have an interest in the latter two.  I am who I am.  I can’t help but give of myself.  It’s the only way that makes sense to me.  If I look you in the eye, tell you that you are loved by me, you will be, in every form I have for as long as I exist.  However, through most of my life, my mistake at times, has been to be to give to those who are undeserving.  For a long time I thought it was my destiny, to save and help others, to guide them, show them another way.  No.  It’s not.  It’s only the case for those that I learn from and am guided by as well.  The exhaustion of purging all of your soul, the lessons that you have learned through thousands of lifetimes and handing them a ginormous secret that many search lifetimes for is a robbery.  They need to find it themselves.  I have served no others of late by giving them light when it is their darkness they need to understand the most.

I will release myself of those who say they, they don’t have ‘time’…fuck off.  Time never ends.  You have time for anything that you choose.  Excuses are boring.  I have walked out of meetings, dinners, parties, and moments for a friend in need or for someone who just needed a smile – or more importantly acknowledgement.  Nothing is more important than to take a moment to acknowledge those in your Universe.  I will no longer make excuses for, or appease those that don’t exemplify this to make them feel better about their lack of depth.  We all have time to listen, to ask, to respond, to laugh, to care, to pay attention.  We have time for everything that means enough.  So, if I feel that I don’t mean enough, I’m eliminating you from my inner sanctity because trust me, those that are there are enough and you don’t belong within our circle. 

I speak all of this with love.  I can’t fault those that haven’t been through as much, or as many lives to understand.  But I will say this….this will be the year of Tarah going more quiet and focusing solely on those that love me as much as I love them.  I am blessed enough to have so many.  I stood outside with Kara this morning and said, “You guys make it really hard to be depressed.  I guess that’s why I always have you around me – because you always make me laugh.”  And that will be my mantra moving ahead - add to my spirit, - and my soul, love and friendship is yours.  Offer me nothing, and you will receive exactly that. 

The full moon blessing and purging to myself is one in the same.  Love, and be loved.  If not, let go because there is no place in my life for ambivalence.  Ambivalence is the opposite of love – or so the song says.  I am ambivalent about nothing.  You either have all of me or nothing and I won't waste your time with an in between.  Therefore I will choose to surround myself with the same.  If you love me, as a stranger, an acquaintance, a friend, a lover, then give me 100% - otherwise go away.  I have no need for half of anything.  This does not mean I will not always speak, interact and respond to you with kindness, it just means, you are no longer given back stage passes to my soul.

I will always have a life preserver on hand for those in need, however I’m going to conserve energy, and tend to my light and give it out sparingly to only those that have the same within them.  I will not be cold - I will just now be selective.  I’ve given enough.

So that is it.  My New Year.  A year of TT dimming her light so that it can preserved to shine brightest for those that need and deserve it most.  Perhaps even upon myself.  Time will tell – but my hope is for someone else to shine bright enough for me to take it in.  It would be nice to feel the warmth of something else.  I’ve spent a lifetime searching for that – I think I’m close…we shall see. 

Many full moon blessings.  I wish nothing but the greatest of love for each of us moving ahead.  The tides have turned; we stand in a place of release and hope if we allow for it.  Appreciate the gifts that you have been given.  Acknowledge them, show them gratitude and release the rest.  Stand with sunlight on your face and take a deep breath.  The best is yet to come.  Just love well and love right.  Right.  Don’t disregard those and that which has brought you beauty.  Nourish it - them...  For those that have stripped you from joy, I pray you can find a way to forgive and wash them away with the tide and begin anew.  We have lost so much, and gained even more.  Find your more and hold that tightly.

Merry New Year.  

Thanks for listening. xo

After the Storm

Please note, there might be exaggerations to the actuality of this story, however in the moment, it is what I felt…and so that is what I will write. 

It was a gorgeous summer weekend.  Jon, Rosie, Mikey and I had decided to hide out at a yacht club on the boats in Rockport.  We spent two days lounging in the sun, swimming, tooling around in the skiff, sipping on cocktails, reading, napping, laughing…being.  Although we were only a matter of miles from home, it felt like we were a million miles away.  For a moment, life was quiet and perfect and peaceful.

As Sunday began to come to a close, Mikey and I decided to head back.  Leaving the placid waters of the inlet that had protected us for two days, everything turned.

When we got out into the open ocean, there was no peace.  There was no calm.  The ocean had turned.  A southeasterly wind kicked in, slamming 6-foot swells sideways against the boat.  There was no choice but to get across, unprotected in an open Sea Vee.  We were too far out to turn around and ultimately, what was the point, we were already too deep in.  It felt as if we were in a fucking tornado spinning us sideways.

For anyone who has ever been on the boat with Mikey, you know that he is the most solid and safe of sailors.  Nobody knows or interprets the sea or the land better than him.  I have always had the ultimate faith that he will protect me.  But in that moment, with the boat flying in the air, with water filling and covering the boat sideways, I was terrified.  My hands were melting from gripping the bars of the boat so intensely to stay grounded.  Tears were streaming down my cheeks and for a moment, I believed the one thing that I have always loved the most, the ocean, was going to be the one thing that would destroy me. 

For the first time in all of these years on the water together, Mikey turned around and looked at me and said, “T, I think you should put a life jacket on.”  My heart stopped.  So this is it….I thought.  This is how it all ends.  “If you aren’t going to put one on, neither am I,” I said back.  And so I sat there, gripping, holding on for dear life as the boat was throttled from side to side being pounded and assaulted by waves. 

Mikey has always been an anchor for me since I met him.  A source of calm and peace.  The intensity of which he was navigating us through this moment and his silence more than anything was all too telling of the severity of it.  His normal sense of humor and ease was lost and I felt nothing short of complete dread. 

And then, there was strange peace.  In ultimate fear, I found this ironic peace.  I looked around me.  Sailboats toppling on their sides, the Sea Vee crashing against waves, my skin and body drenched, and I felt peace.  There was nothing I could do but hold on.  And when you have nothing else, that’s what’s you do.  Hold on. 

Every minute or two Mikey would shout out how many minutes more we had to go through this to get across and so I counted minutes and held on.  I had to have faith in something so I had faith in minutes.  After all, anyone can get through a minute.  So each minute we got through. 

About 40 minutes later, we had made it across.  We waited for a bridge to open across the other side of Gloucester Harbor - the boat still being slammed but closer to shore I had found grounding. And then the bridge opened and we crossed. 

What happened next, seemed almost surreal.

We crossed underneath this bridge.  This seemingly simple understated, quiet, small bridge and there, the water was placid, quiet.  The sun was shining and there wasn’t an inkling of evidence that there had ever been even a remote wake.  All was calm.  In my mind, we had almost died and then there was this?  How could this even be?  I looked at Mikey, and all I knew to say was, “Drinks?” and I turned to the cooler to grab anything that would imbibe me with a sense of calm.

We traveled quietly through the waters of the Annisquam and said nothing.  Each of us I believe unraveling from the chaos.  At times, there are no words, when you feel such intensity and come down to realize that you had in fact survived. 

Once we passed through the river, we had one more pass of open ocean to find our way home.  I was afraid, and Mikey looked at me and promised it would be easier.  And it was.

We drove home across the ocean with the sun setting in the West and Mikey did something he never does.  He left his Captain’s stance.  He sat beside me and drove the boat with his feet.  And we laughed.  A delirious, holy shit we made it laugh.  The ocean was calm again and we were silly and insane and we toasted to our survival and we mocked my fear and breathed sighs of relief.  We had made it and the sun was guiding us home.

For all of the chaos in life over the past many months I think of this moment often.  Making it through the storm.  Finding calm, the sun shining on my face.  Isn’t it so symbolic?  This is life.  Terrifying, confusing, breakable, but then you have these glimpses of placidity. 

Isn’t this the past many months?  A tornado that we’ve all been flying and spun in?  And here we are, waiting for the bridge to open, to bring us to the other side.  To calm, quiet waters and sun shining on our face…..isn’t it?  You just have to hold on.  Grip as hard as you can.  But don’t let go. Because there is another side.  Promise.  The waves will calm and the sun will always guide you home.

Tornado

I was asked yesterday, “Who do you want to be through this process?  What do you need to get you through it and who do you want to be when it’s done?”  It sort of stopped me in my tracks.  I had thought for so long that I knew exactly who I was but in truth, all of that seems a bit lost and scattered these days.  This process of change, growth, and the re-birth I’ve been fighting for over the past year is so overwhelming that at times I stumble.  Not to disregard the beauty in it - but letting go of that which you can't control can at times invoke such fear of the unknown that we falter.

I question this: If what we do in life is ultimately so that we can teach it to ourselves because we need it for ourselves then why aren’t I learning?  Why can’t I feel it? If at the core of my being I find true solace in helping others why is it that I can’t be the same comfort to myself?   Heed my own words and guidance.  Most often, I do the exact opposite of what I would advise to all of you because I can only shine light outward.  Does that make sense? 

Every time I try to move lately, it feels as if my feet are about to buckle underneath me.  And all of the energy that I hold is barely my own and it’s taken over the rest.  I spin in this circle, like a fucking tornado sinking into the ocean and I am drowning – and I have no idea why.  I just need a rope…something to fall out of the sky to hold on to but there’s nothing there.  It’s the blessing and the curse of being an empath.  I feel everything that emanates off of everyone else and it sinks me. 

All of this came after finding myself spiritually in the best place I’ve ever been just a few short months ago.  And then smack – brute force gravity pulled me back to earth.  I have been told that I’m still moving on a forward trajectory but that like a roller coaster, you have to dip down to build momentum to climb back up.  But it doesn’t feel like that today and existing with all of these human emotions of anguish is a road I’m having difficulty navigating. 

Who I want to be in this process is a light to myself.  A compass.  An anchor.  And who I want to be when it’s done is lighter.  Free with no rearview mirrors.  I want to be sitting with the sunlight on my face knowing that I made it to the edge of the cliff and I didn’t fall off…I dove.  My choice.  Because that’s what we all need to understand isn’t it?  That all of this is our choice.  Who we choose to be.  What we choose to feel and what we choose to believe.  What we allow ourselves to hold onto or release. I’m creating my own tornado right now.  I know this.  Everything that was beautiful still exists, it’s just a matter of letting it back in.  But to do that, I have to release the idea of what it’s supposed to be because I can’t choose that.  Only the Universe can.  Because the Universe doesn't give you what you want, it gives you what you need - as difficult as that is at times to embrace.

You know when you wake up at night, and walk in darkness and you kind of know where you’re going but you hold onto the wall to guide you and you're half asleep and more than tired – and then you trip over something on the floor and stub your toe?  That’s what this is.  I’ve stubbed my toe but I still know where I’m going.  And it hurts but by the time I get across the darkness that will have passed.  That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. 

Thanks for listening.  xo

 

Everything Beautiful Began After

I read a book recently…well maybe not that recently…but it was titled Everything Beautiful Began After.  For some reason I keep repeating this in my head today.  

Something beautiful came.  Something beautiful left.  And now begins the after.  There is always an after.

The after is the rewriting of the story.  

I sat in London a couple of months ago and decided then that I was going to rewrite things.  I was going to create a beautiful story.  But how can I create a new story based on the first chapters?  Can I rewrite what ended to create a new book?  

Because if I could, I think it would have gone something like this.

I wouldn’t have left.  I wouldn’t have run away.  I would’ve stayed.  I would’ve been grounded and had faith.  I was strong enough to do that, I just didn’t know it at the time.  

Leaving London has always been my greatest regret.  I have spent years of my life tied to a moment – moments and I’ve never quite gotten over them.  It was a time in my life that I was most alive.  I felt everything.  Love.  Fear.  Passion.  Pain.  I had everything in the palm of my anguished hands but I was hurt and scared and confused so I ran away.  Instead of fighting through my fear, I left.  I let someone else’s decision become my reality instead of creating a new one for myself.  

I had enough.  I was enough.  But I couldn’t see outside of myself then.  I hadn’t honed my intuition and I was completely reactionary to every emotion that I felt.  I had no capacity to be present and believe that I was exactly where I was supposed to be – because I was too busy placing my energy on all that was wrong and not everything that was right.

And so I hopped on a plane and disappeared.  

It solved nothing.  Because wherever you go, there you are and I had taken myself right with me.  I should’ve stayed.  The years I spent trying to get to the beautiful bits again were in no way a measure of moving forward.  I was looking behind me the entire time missing everything that I had run away from.  And although I always go back, it will never be the same as it was in that beautiful moment...because I let the beauty slip out from underneath me.  I've spent so much time trying to find it ever since.

So, I will rewrite it to be the beautiful that began after.  Because I would have stayed.  That will be the ending of that.  Let the new story commence.

Preface

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
Khalil Gibran

 

It’s strange when life happens whilst you’re busy preparing for something else.  When you find yourself in a moment that days or even minutes before you couldn’t have predicted.  It’s the universe.  She has her way when she’s ready.  

I found myself in a moment recently, a quiet intertwinement - and I realized for the first time in what has seemed like decades, I was actually fully, wholeheartedly and completely present.  I wasn’t making comparisons.  I wasn’t staring into my rearview mirror grappling with skeletons.  I was free.  Melting into liberation and a feeling that I have long believed I would never again experience.  

An attribution could be placed on the Shaman that I met with last week.  Her work to rid my spirit of energy that has sort of flown around and buried me in ways.  Or, the decision as of late to take affirmative steps towards living the way I feel, not just speaking about it anymore.  It could be attributed to a gaunt Brit who approached me in the Tate two weeks ago to remind me that I could start my life over, at any point and that as difficult as it’s been, it can still be beautiful again.  It could be attributed to many ironic idiosyncrasies that have been following me around and buzzing about since I made the decision last spring to find a life worth living again.

Regardless, it’s created a lightness of being in me.  That moment and the moments thereafter. This little ridiculous sparkle of hope.  Belief again in beautiful bits.  And that the things I write about…my past; is just that.  Over.  Done.  Pieces of the story, but not the entire book.  They are just chapters and I can rewrite my ending to be anything that I need it to be.  I was bound for quite some time in moments that had long since passed and no longer suited who I have been becoming.  It’s such an amazing and cathartic fucking relief when you can just let it go.  All of it.  Appreciate it, them and time for what it gave you, how it made you, but then leave it there…where it should stay so that you can turn around to see something else.  When you open yourself up to the Universe, when you allow for guidance, it will come and it will bring you exactly what you need, when you need it.  It’s about having a little Faith.

And that’s it really.  I felt compelled to share because we all need to hear about good bits now and then.  And perhaps a reminder that if you open yourself up to see what’s around you, beside you and in front of you, and not what’s behind you – there is hope, and butterflies and quiet peace waiting.  

Thanks for listening. 

Vincent Square Chapter 5: Locked

“Hi,” I bellowed with overly perky cheer extending a shaking hand, “Willow”.  He steadied his gaze with mine.  Locked.  He had a mild look of amusement in his piercing painfully beautiful blue eyes.  “You’re American too!  Brilliant!  I’m Josiah.”  I feigned my best smile.  My stomach was pounding in nervous recognition having just grazed hands with my past.  I looked to his left and acknowledge his friend with round spectacles, long blonde hair and a quiet and calming demeanor.  “Hi ya! I’m Noah.” I liked him instantly.  He was much less intimidating and was content to let Josiah command the attention.  I looked down and noticed I was still clinging on to Josiah’s hand.  His amusement continued.  I quickly released it and motioned to the bartender for a pint and placed a cigarette to my lips, without hesitation, he had a lighter to the tip continuing to keep steady with my gaze.  I was completely exhausted already.

They played a few acoustic sets which gave me time to center myself and try to understand what was happening.  Since they were the focus of the pub I could stare unabashedly.  Josiah had a strong voice.  Earthy.  He was dominant on the stage however not in skill, just in presence.  Noah had a much more angelic, softer voice that was a steady compliment.  They fit together well in their reversely striped shirts.  Quite simply put, they were symbolic.  Darkness and light.  

In between sets they would sit with Dave and me and ask us hundreds of questions about America - a land in which they were completely fascinated by.  “No, the streets aren’t paved with gold…” and “No, money doesn’t really grow on trees...” I would respond. Most of their questions were humorous iterations of urban legends that they didn’t actually believe but needed solid confirmation on just in case.  All the while during these breaks and their performance, the gaze remained steady.  I couldn’t figure out what he was looking at, or for.  If this was how he broke women into submission - if it was supposed to render me completely helpless, it was working.  

They had grown up together in Derry – Northern Ireland.  Josiah came to London to find his fame in music, and Noah had come to London for University.  They were incredibly intelligent.  Both from large, loving families I found myself immediately immersed in wanting to know everything about their history.  They spoke openly about their affection and adoration of their parents and siblings.  I could see them get lost in being somewhere else and missing comforts that we all missed but for whatever they missed, they found comfort in one another and perhaps I would now find my comfort in them.  

When they were done playing the pub was closing.  My heart instantly ached at the thought of leaving until they let me know that we could close up the curtains to the pub and stay drinking with Jim – the pub manager who had taken a shining to me.  I made no effort to hide my excitement.  With everyone else gone, including Dave who we had to carry out and into a cab, the energy shifted.  Pleasantries gone, an air coveted the room of familiar energy.  Something of a time before and souls who had long since known one another.  

The conversation shifted to greater depth - to the things of youth that you try to discover.  To what moved our souls, what we would be, what broke us, what inspired us, to family, to history, to the now.  We lit cigarette after cigarette, drank pint after pint.  We raised our voices with passion and artistry.  With every word between us, every gaze and knowing nod everything of my before disappeared.  

When Jim finally waved us out of the pub, we were all stumbling and arm in arm we found our way to Josiah’s apartment in Vincent Square and continued our discovery.  We sat on the floor of his one room apartment and talked until the sun came up.  Hours and hours of catching up, telling stories and asking each other question after question.  For however lost I had felt for so many years of my life, in that moment, in that room, I had found home again.  A home that I traveled across an ocean to find.  I had found a soul mate, perhaps even two. 
  

When the tubes opened again the boys walked me to Victoria Station.  I was in love.  Josiah would wreck me, I knew that already.  Perhaps he had before as well but I could do nothing more than love him again.  Noah had captured my soul and we would be family from here on in.  I had silently decided this. Together Josiah would wreck each of us and together we would save one another from him.  Our beautiful wrecking ball.

“What a fucking brilliant night, eh?” Josiah exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around each of us.  “Epic” I responded.  “Epic,” Noah repeated.  “Well then, let’s get some sleep and do it again soon.” I turned to look at Josiah clinging to “soon”.  Was he going to call?  He had asked for my number.  I tried to steady myself.  Breathe Willow….Breathe. Maybe this one of those nights and this is all that there is and maybe that is ok.  Breathe.  Reading my mind, Josiah leaned over and whispered, “I’ll ring you later.”  Every molecule in my body tingled.  I hugged both of them and ran quickly down the stairs hoping that they couldn’t see the tears streaming down my cheek.  “We’ll see you after, eh…” I heard Noah yell down the stairs after me.  I flung my arm up in a backward wave and disappeared into the tunnel.

By the time I had reached 35 Sutherland I had dissected every minute of the past 12 hours of my life.  Every line on his face, every sound from his lips.  Every look and every song.  I thought of the broken glass at my feet and the words I had muttered.  I felt drunk and full and overwhelmed – more so, terrified that I would never again feel the way that I had felt in that moment.  I thought about the two of them, how different they were but how connected they seemed to be.  I thought about the often empathetic smile Noah would knowingly shoot my way, as if he knew something I didn’t.  

I tip toed in the house and peaked into Tegan’s room.  He was asleep with books scattered all around him.  I wanted to wake him up and tell him everything but there would be time later and I felt too stifled with emotion to speak so I floated to my tiny room on the third floor.  Peeling off my clothes I melted into an unconscious sleep.  A sleep I hadn’t slept in years.   Hours later in a day that had turned into night I was wakened by Tegan nudging my shoulder. 

“Hey, sleeping beauty…you have a phone call.”