Dear Pneuma,

What a gorgeous and glorious morning! The grass in the back has been let grow too long, but this morning, it is netted with dew. The sun makes it glint and glamour like fairy dust, and I wonder how many people, wending their way to work this morning, had the time to notice. I wonder if they felt the sun warm on the hair of their arms. I wonder if they smelled the after-rain sweat of green things on the air.

Today is a day to take things slow, or, like the Travis Tritt song, to "take it easy, take it easy." There is no need to rush anywhere, or hurry to get something done. Today is a day to savor, like peach mead, not so much on the tongue, but in the nose, and on the Beloved's lip.

I hope you find it so as well, Pneuma. I hope today is an easy day, full of fairy dews and daydreams.

Love Always,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Why is happiness so hard to write about? When I am blue, the words just ache to be written. When I am pink, they stack up behind my fingertips like adrenalin junkies in a roller coaster line. Today is a pink day.

The rain falling from the sky is a crisp, cleansing rain. The neighborhood is noisy with people going places and doing things. The dirt is black and smells like richness; there is a yellow daylily blooming in my back yard. Adventure beckons-a short step out of the house and down the street, a step fraught with potential and hope.

I believe this is how life is meant to be lived. Nothing radical has changed from the last time I wrote. I still don't feel as springy and strong as I did at seventeen, but today, I want to challenge the world. Today, I am unafraid and interested in what's going on outside. Today, I have room for other people.

My chest flutters and my mouth smiles. I like the color of my clothes and I can harldy wait until the hour my Beloved comes home. Today, I feel good about the little energy I spend, rather than feeling bad about the large energy I can no longer access.

Today, my monster is in its cage. I am its tamer and I stand outside.

It seems that this is a truth of faithfulness-life can only get better. As I wrestle day-to-day with the temptation to believe in the ascendancy of death and pain, I am being called to believe that life wins out. Life wins out because people care. Life wins out because pain is proof of feeling. Life wins out because lilies bloom in autumn and life wins out because tomorrow we can laugh at what grives us today.

So, I will leave this post, Pneuma, wishing you a life unafraid and hopeful, knowing that the radical is nothing more than the every day.

Love Always,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I have been physically hurting today. I have been physically hurting a lot, lately. I just don't wake up and feel good much anymore. My mom would say I am getting old, but I know some of it is my monster. I am both angry and scared of my monster's attacks on my body. I am angry that I was chosen for this. I am afraid to acknowledge how much I may lose and how many parts of my body may not survive the fight.

Sometimes, I am strong. I get pissed and I fight it. On those days, its teeth don't graze me. On those days, its claws can dig all they want, and I don't care. Unfortunately, sometimes, I am weak, and I bow to its weight on me. I sit, instead of running. I sleep and take it slow. I hold so tight to controlling every aspect of my environment, hoping my monster cannot see me, that I am trapped, and sometimes, when I know that hasn't worked, I lay down and just let it gnaw at me. When that happens, I find it hard to get back up again.

Avoiding pain is so much simpler than engaging it. I find myself angry that I do not have that choice anymore. My monster means dying. Avoiding pain, whether it be physical, intellectual, spiritual, or emotional means dying slow. The only way to mean "alive" is to move; is to do, see, feel, touch and try everything I possibly can. That means hurting a lot. That means getting up when I want to sleep, going out when I want to stay in, saying yes when I want to say no, dancing when my head spins, my legs burn and the very heart of me is beating in a panic that at any moment my monster may choose to strike me down.

I think that perhaps the hardest part in maintaining the balance is that every moment is a choice. When I weep and whine, it is my choice. When I swirl and spin, it is my choice. When I give a day over to pain or fear, that is my choice. When I give a day over to joyfulness and love, that is my choice. That makes for a terrible amount of freedom, and an awesome responsibility. So many times, I make the wrong choice. Maybe someday, some day before I die, I'll actually be able to live up to the challenge.

Keeping you in my thoughts,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I've been rereading one of my favorite wisdom authors: Sonia Choquette. Her writings really speak to me. She seems to be able to sum up my own situations so clearly. Today, I was reminded that I can look at my life as something I created. Its messes and its works of art are both results of my action, my "focus" and my "intention." (Choquette, Sonia. Your Heart's Desire. Three Rivers Press. New York, 1997. pp. 1-35)

I took stock, and my life is something wonderful. I have a significant relationship with my Beloved. I have faithful, reliable, fun and funny friends. I have a large and living family. I have community. I have shelter, food, and freedom from financial fear. I am free of financial debt, material burden, and I am even in a position to help others that do not have all the material abundance I experience. My health is pretty good and I am in a position to travel freely.

Wow! What a wonderful turnaround from five years ago, when all I had built toward, sacrified to and believed in was shown to be a lie. In those days, I lived life from fear. I tried not to touch others. I believed that if I never asked for anything, nothing would ever be asked from me. I figured I was safe, as I never chose to break the rules.

I was poor, emotionally cold, intelligent, and empty. I was in debt, failing to pay rent, and slave to a motorized vehicle that broke down at its own whim. I woke one day, and was asked to carry a terrible burden. That is when I discovered the wisdom of Sonia Choquette.

That is when I started to "bless my mess." (Choquette, Sonia. Your Heart's Desire. Three Rivers Press. New York, 1997. pp. 2)That is when I decided to need other people. That is when I decided to break rules and damn consequences. What I was carrying was heavy enough that I realized I could carry even more. That was when I decided that hope takes more courage than despair, and that I live to be here in this world.

I won't "leave this world alive." What's more, I won't leave without being scarred, marred, disfigured, beaten, battered, bruised and otherwise marked by it. Though I've lapsed a time or two, this change of "attention" and "intention" has been a great blessing. I wouldn't put down my heavy burden for the world. My heavy burden gave me the world.

Pneuma, I am blessed. My life is a beautiful dream.

Deo Gratias,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Autumn is falling here. Light is golden. The air is crisp, cool, yet bursting with vital energy. Autumn is an apple. I walked in Autumn today. I smiled at people and wished them a good morning. It is a good morning here.

Walking was a purpose. Walking was exercise for myself and my black, four-footed companion. Walking was fresh air and strangers passing. Walking was people's personalities written in their yards. Walking was people's affluence or poverty laid like a chess board along the city's streets. Walking was a street ending in a cemetery larger than any of the houses I passed. Walking was wrestling with contradictions

One Diction says, "Nothing in the world is free. We all have to pay our way."

One Diction says, "Love is free. We cannot pay for it."

I know both Dictions to speak truly. The world requires of us, but no earnings can be applied to Love. Of the two, Love is the newer idea. I know what it is to pay my own way. I know what it is to pay off all my debts. I know that I can do without the things I cannot purchase righteously, but . . .Love?

Pneuma, this is hard for me. Gifts freely given mean that someone else has paid my way. Gifts given "just because" mean that I received something for nothing. Love is source of all gifts. I don't know what that means. Gratitude seems too small a return, but I have no way of earning something of equal value.

So, I walked and wrestled with guilt, or maybe unexpressible gratitude, for the freely given gift of freedom from work-freedom from always paying my own way; freedom from debt; freedom from the need to do without. I wrestled with the contradictions, and decided that, for today, I can be of two minds. Part of me will continue to believe that, someday, I will be asked to pay for all of the gifts I have received. The other part of me will wastefully, recklessly, dangerously believe that gifts given, products of Love, will never have a cost.

Love Always,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Today is about fashion. I was preparing for a gig this morning, and I could sense the right fashion choices. This is strange for me. Usually, I am dressing to "feel" good-looking, or I am dressing to my Beloved's preferences. When I am clothing myself with these intentions, I often end up comfortably or inappropriately dressed. I rarely end up in clothes that make a "fashion statement."

This is, I think, the reason that we should not dress to please others, or dress to create a self-image. With these motivations, I often end up looking like a Madonna groupie, which may have been cool once, but . . .

Fashion rarely follows my preferences, but fashion is not something for me or for my Beloved's pleasure. Fashion has something to do with how we are relating to the world we are living in. When I am full of insecurity, I need clothing to define me. When I am full of selfishness, I need clothing to state me. When I am aware of myself and the world I live in, clothing becomes a statement of being in the world.

Clothing says, "I am with you," by conforming; "I am against you," by not comforming. It can say, "I hate consumerism," by being used. It can say, "I love my blessedness" by being new. Clothing can state our slaveries and our autonomies. It can proclaim solidarities with causes and companies. It can shout exuberant joy, and easy familiarity. Our clothing choices mean something.

Today, I was neither needing to boost my confidence or attain my Beloved's regard. Today, I needed to wear clothing that said, "Here I am. I am fresh. I am excited. I am in charge of myself and my being in the world." Somehow, I know that I did, because what I chose to wear was neither my personal preference, nor some safe conglomeration of attire that says nothing at all. What I chose to wear knows it looks like something it has been seeing and doesn't care if it makes me look pretty, sexy, safe or foolish. It knows that it makes me look right.

Today, in my clothes, I am neither selfish nor insecure. Today, in my clothes, I look good. I feel good. I am going to knock their socks off.

Love you,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I had a grandmother whose bathroom was done up in purple and green. Her sink and bathtub were lavender; her carpet was purple, and the tile around the walls was swirly green marble. Looking at my new stationary, I cannot help but make a comparison. Nevertheless, I am not too proud to make due with what I have, so purple and green it shall be for a while longer.

I find myself feeling less anxious today. Maybe a little less coffee and a little more breakfast helps. My Beloved helps as well. Somehow, everything that is going so poorly in morning light, is going so well in the dark closeness of our bed. We can hold hands and speak. My words suddenly have meaning. My fears suddenly have comfort. My hopes suddenly have warmth and nurture.

How did I live before I found my Beloved? How did I close out the ragged ends of days? How did I confront the despair, and stay still in the loneliness? I think I didn't. I think I ran, angry and empty, from place to place, and from job to job. I think I breathed panic into my marrow until, even now, I cannot properly define myself without the adrenaline surge of riding the edge of destruction. Who am I, if the world goes on functioning without me? Why am I, if my past community doesn't feel my loss? What is my purpose-of-ness, if the sun will set regardless of whether I worked a day beneath it, or spent the day hiding from its light?

I have been the center of my Universe. I have known the error of that perception. My Beloved has caused me to live outside that perception. I still find it difficult. It seems it is hard to leave the canyons we have carved-to change the direction in which we have flowed, and carve new canyons across country we do not know.

Thanks for listening, Pneuma
As always, know you are loved,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

How long does it take to let a life go? How long does it take to get over being who you were? I've done it once before, but leaving the old me was such a relief. It was a run for freedom. This time, I feel as though I ran into a cage. I'm barred by being here and not there. I am barred by the fact that everyone I reach for is someone I left behind. I'm locked into "I was." I am ashamed of the "I am."

The "I am" has no action behind it. The "I am" is a "once was." I hate being a "once was," a "has been." Yet, I miss who I was. I feel no energy pushing me to be someone new. My energy wants to wrap itself around the burning core of me. It wants to deflect and protect. There are voices telling me to reach out. There are voices egging me on to reconnect, but I'm sad. I miss my friends. I miss being a valued part of the community I lived in. I miss the life I created of my own self.

Pneuma, how do I stop being so selfish? How do I let the past go and focus on the present? How do I uncoil from my center and accept that this new life has possibilities and potentials that the old life never had? How do I create a new life with my Beloved? How do I move on?

Cobalt Dreams

Dear pneuma,
I am in the process of creating new stationary. I am sorry if this correspondence looks weird for a while. How has life been treating you? I have had some exciting adventures over the last few days which have kept me from writing. Who wants to sit in a room when one can drink the late summer gold of sunlight and play with friends until sun sets and it is time to rest?

I promise I will get back to you tomorrow. For now,

Take care of you and yours,
Cobalt Dreams.