five

I cleaned to get clear and then I was clear enough to know I couldn’t clean around IT any more — I had to go into It and clean It up.

This It was what I hadn’t even been able to get to, hadn’t even been able to touch and change, and until I had cleaned enough of a clearing, couldn’t even get a visual. I love a visual, but I'm a visual learner. I mean I always felt It, and our feelings are our truth, though I couldn’t know what It was or where It lived. Too big. Blurry in a surrounding fog. What is It that I'm searching for? Chasing or chasing me? Sensing the path continuing to unfurl up and out. I was cold then. I didn't listen. With heart focus, I’m getting hot then hotter. My ears are burning. I'm growing, you can tell me. Let's end this seven year cycle, please.

I know It is here now. And here I am. This is It. I am here looking at It and It’s so in my face I have to taste It. Can't help but get a metallic mouthful. Smells sharp and looks nasty. I know but I want to know more, reaching out. Yeah, icy hot to the touch and taste. Stinging my eyes. It's like I want to — I've spent a lifetime circling this thing — but It's going to be a lot of work — I can already tell you that much. Can I rest till next month, or five more minutes (one sec say the boys) or do I need to strike while the iron is hot? ! Pervasively Icy Hot ! I am absolutely inside of It and It’s not at all comfortable. But I’ve done enough work to know that I can handle It. The big fear doesn’t live inside me any more. He peeps in my windows, but big fear moved out, so there’s room to mess around here. Play, work, whatever.

It's actually always been here now and now I know It. The same lesson served on a loop until you accept the invitation to go inside the nexus; the axel of a wheel; there's a tiny baby door handle spinning around. Looks like a bolt, but I swear to you It's a handle. Like slowing the whirl of a ceiling fan by tracking one blade with your one squinted eye. Now grab and take hold for a ride.

Have you also learned to say you don't know when you do know? That's the hiccup between knowing and going. Stops you. It's annoying and slows your roll.

That’s the spiritual path. The keep going-ness. You think you’re doing It and then you have to laugh because you’re not even close, nowhere close, and you already told everybody how deep into It you are — which way they need to go now. Told them what was up, but hey, at least you're closer than you were before? You got on the ride. Keep riding — don't you have to? Continually working to surrender into curiosity, letting the ride ride you. Another tunnel to another door to enter. Try to get a handle on It, kid. Another room to live within if you crave that structure. Kid or Kali? Aren't we tired of burning shit down?

I'm pretty sure that this is why we are here: to let the ride ride us. Not to be comfortable at any cost, though comfort is as subjective as anything else, and certainly is nice enough. Everything In Moderation is my family's motto, which is actually funny if you know them. A universe of spectrums and languages of duality. How many words are still missing or have been forgotten because they're packed up and hidden away? 

When I love, 
When I clean, I make such a mess because I want to get to the bottom — or the bottom I can get to. I want to find the tiny baby door handle. Twist It and pull It. I disagree. This isn't the distraction. I disagree that we are the roles we are electively forced into per our karma. These roles give the game dimensions. There's truly no "proper". That's your role talking. There is love and there is maintenance. There is gentle modeling of living the dream living through you, staying nimble. Or hiccuping into a hardened nasty, sharp, metallic shell extra hot in the sun poking through the holes in our sky.

Work requires muscle. Build the muscle of doing what you know you need to do — step by step by step. Work as a practice necessary for crafting comfort. No shortage of work available and too many magic pills. I believe we are here to grow. Comfort is excellent, but growth burns as It stretches. Stretch then leisure. Stretch to find the pleasure.

Growing up, always asking questions. Why does this happen? And how come you always act like that? Nothing new patterns perpetuating the cleaning around when I've already seen the gleam of the next tiny baby door handle. If we're talking seven year cycles to the date, I've got just shy of three weeks to work this one out.