Of Rainbows and returning to the Core

In Mythic Yoga, I have become aware of my breath and my core of late. Listening deeply to the body, I am uncovering the root of some fears. That nausea I wake up with - no - not pregnancy! Just the stress of my ex having the house being foreclosed on and realizing that I may never get paid and that may lead me to bankruptcy. And the fact that my son needs CAT scans of both his feet, which cost, at a 50% discount for having crappy insurance, I kid you not. $2,500, plus the orthotics will be around $500 and my daughter has an auditory learning disability, and twice-a-week tutoring is $635 a month. Overwhelming? Yes, absolutely. Especially since I'm a single, widowed mother and I don't have another adult to rely on or confide in. But there is a magic key to all this - Yoga. My dear friend and League of Yogic Storyteller member, Kathy, told me, "You are living proof and continually demonstrating that this stuff works!"
Yes, I haven't freaked out too bad, run away, killed myself or anything. I'm just present. I've returned to a more intense yoga practice, drawing back into the core of my body, that third chakra area, building up strength and reliance on the Self. Warrior poses, even Warrior III. Half moon pose, half moon pose with a twist. side angle poses. I want to sweat, move, return to the creator and realize all fear is from the ego mind. Don't forget (and of course I do!) But you return to the core.
And then there is the breath. Always returning to the breath. It's truly relaxing. So Hum. I swear that mantra shuts off any fear and negativity and calms me instantly. The body truly is a container of safety when you open up to it and have a relationship with it. The miracle of doing yoga and contemplating one's story and issues and symbols is truly amazing, the premise of Mythic Yoga. I did boat pose, a wonderful third chakra pose, and the flash of insight came to me that "I am my own Lifeboat." Surely it's true that the Self and Source never leaves you. You are never truly alone. There's that Christian story of about how the footprints in the sand, and then there are none, "Because I carried you."
I very calmly and lovingly worked with my daughter on her homework last night. It's scary how far behind she is as she enters the fourth grade. My son is loving middle school and is self-sufficient there, and I gladly edit his writing and teach him that way. I loved making them breakfast, getting them ready and then walking my daughter with our little dog in the parade of the neighborhood each day to school. I wonder if truly, all trauma is a gift: It forces you to be intensely present. What else is there? No more comfy idleness that allows you to wander into the past or the future. With that, I take great comfort in writing this, working on my own Mythic Yoga, building my core, and finding a beautiful rainbow yesterday outside. As the most amazing thing happened, in that there was an email glitch and I wasn't receiving emails inquiring about my work! And there were lots of them! So despite some intense obstacles, I always prevail. Why? Because I have yoga, meditation, and the ability to tell my story.
AMEN

The Snake in the Path

A few days ago I was walking with my little dog, Sergeant Pepe. I walk in open space in the lovely foothills here in Boulder, and it’s definitely the closest thing I get to a church. Nature is God revealed in silent poetry of endless life quivering in creation.
However, my mind did get the best of me, endlessly negative about fears of this and that. I can shake myself of it a lot. But other times it’s like a grip of dreaded rot, that clings to my heart and body and mind like a sludge of tar.
On the way back from this beautiful place, Pepe got upset. Sure enough, he warned me of what lay in the path ahead of me. A snake! Huge, fat, coiled up and smack in the middle of the path! I was taken aback and backed up. Was it a rattlesnake? I was not sure. All I knew is that of all the wild creatures who have crossed my paths in life – bears, coyotes, wild turkeys – those little celestial visitors of nature that cause time to pause and celebrate – never had I encountered such a large snake! Of course I have encountered the garden kind and even collected their skin that I found stuck within the tentacles of a French strawberry patch, amazed at the gossamer skin left behind for a new life. But this was different!
I thought, what do I do? Call 911? A snake! Help! Barb wire fence was to one side, the other side of the path was tall grass and I thought, is its companion there too? I was confronted with the fact that I could only do what I could in the moment, and that was to just stand there. I was fiercely present. What was I to do? I breathed, waited and watched. Eventually, it slithered away slowly, and Pepe and I approached and I gathered the courage to watch this mythic creature slowly disappear in the tall grass nonchalant, as if it had no idea it was blocking my path at all. And there it was that this creature of the eternal cycle taught me a powerful lesson. Deal with only what is real and in front of your path! All my fears that can sometimes awaken me early in the morning to vomiting, is just a phantom, unreal, a busy mind that hasn’t been meditating enough! This powerful symbol of the cycles of life, tell me that the river is always flowing, slithering in fact, through life. It is this way and it is that way. It reminds me of the story of the Fabric of Life, Hindu. I will tell that story next for the You Tube. Maya. It can reveal, or it can obscure. The snake revealed something for me. The eternal, and that is where I need to rest and identify, rather than the tremulous mind.

Of course, life keeps finding it necessary to dish out difficulty for me. Lately I had finally let go the last drop of rage I had at my ex, Justin, regarding the lies and mess of the real estate shenanigans he got me into, as well as looting my widow’s fund from my late husband. I finally got over it and saw the part of him that I fell in love with – funny, liberal, artistic, hard working. But there was always some hidden dishonesty about him that betrayed my heart and trust. It was very painful. But I confronted my part – rage, oversensitivity to his children’s problems, RAGE at betrayal. I seem justified! Yet somehow I seem ashamed, but maybe I was just Kali protecting my young. Anyway, we had a nice heart-to-heart last night. It was very sad, and I had been grieving greatly the loss of my marriage and security – to see the house again. This house that I was promised if I put up the funds to finish it. The place where my children rode their bikes to the local school and my daughter trotted a little path each day to play with her best friend next door, Leroy. The two years of living in a half-finished house, nickle and dimeing my assets only to be pressured into selling it to pay off his debts, and which I refused, and finally, having lost all trust in him, divorced.

So this morning I got an urgent message. I must talk to you and come clear on some lies and what’s really happening, he said. He came over to my house and told me that the 31st street house was foreclosed on. The sale happened last Wednesday. I was in shock. Dumbfounded. He cried. I felt sorry for him. I had always urged him to declare bankruptcy rather than use me to pay off his debts, but he refused. Now it is revealed that he could have declared it, got rid of his debt, and kept the house. What loss. What eternal loss. The snake showed us, just like Buddhism’s first tenant, that all is continual sorrowful loss. Later it occurred to me that he was lying. What a coincidence that this came up the very next day. Was it guilt? Or something else that compelled him to confess. Once again I had the wool pulled over my eyes because I was gullible, loving, kind and giving. That once again I had given in to the con man shuffle of my ex husband. This sweet, funny, big nice guy in a bow tie, is also the source of great suffering and pain, betrayal and loss.

I spoke with my lawyer this evening. It’s true, you can’t trust him. I warned the court this spring, the judge EVERYBODY that this was the issue, if we could just talk to the bank itself and know what is going on, because what he says, can't be trusted! you need proof. For months I pleaded. The judge sided with Justin. Gave him another chance. And here we are.

I’m not angry. I actually feel very sad for Justin. He’s a nice guy. Dishonest and undependable, but a nice guy at heart. A little boy that got wounded by his mother and father at some point long ago, and that wounding is replayed out again and again and again in adulthood, our Mythic Yoga waiting to be played out and witnessed by the Gods as we surrender to our Amor Fati and play the role perfectly as all is as it should be. Such is life, the continual cycles and epic stories of love and betrayal, loss and redemption. I will play it out in my body tomorrow, and tonight i will look up to the stars and dream about it all.

Speer

I have this rental property on Speer. I got it in the divorce with Justin. It's an old house that has been converted into four units, including a cottage in the back. Justin insisted it was worth a lot, even though he married me just to use my good credit, take the equity out of it in the hey day of all these easy mortgages, and now I have a property with little equity, not a lot of cash to spend on it and a lot of work. It loses cash each month. And yesterday I found out, in trying to figure out all the mess and neglect, that the utility bills are higher because he had put each unit with its own separate account. I did not know that. So I will have to catch up on a lot of utilities. Just the cottage alone needs a lot of repair. Holes in the bricks sealed up where mice get in. Insulation, new paint, fixing cracked windows, fixing the door. To save money I am meeting him there at 8:30 a.m. to help with the insulation. I rented it to this young hair-stylist couple who is moving here from San Diego. I will be fixing up the property, slowly raising the rents, and hopefully be able to refinance it while rates are so low. Only problem is that Justin drained me of my cash, for you see, I was a wealthy widow when I met him. And I was a walking target, despite his poor credit and huge debts, he was a fast-talking, nice guy who convinced me to shell out massive cash despite numerous failures to complete promises on time. I failed myself, including to protect my kids. I had him invade my life and finances, and now divorced from him, I am building it all up again. Because all my cash is gone. I have these houses, including another rental property in Arvada. But I have faith in my business, faith in myself. That's something I never had before, because the upside of all of this mess is that it has made me a woman of incredible courage, incredible will and downright strength.

I don't know why, but I think God wants me to have rental properties. Despite all my good intentions of trying to protect my assets, trying to get a good lawyer, fiercely fighting to stand my position, this is what I ended up with. So I chalk it up to karma.
I was in court Wednesday for Justin in contempt of court for allowing the 31st Street house to go into pre-foreclosure. It was ugly, but necessary.
So all of my life, it has been about houses. Now I am fixing my own houses, cleaning my own houses, and cleaning myself from the inside out. I have made some great gains in therapy. Mainly to have boundaries, not to allow people to take, take, take. To clean out negativity, self-hatred and doubt, and really create my own world and claim my power. So I do believe that things will turn around, despite the difficulty of the last six years. Despite the difficulty of most of my life.
So that is what this memoir is about. THe houses I have lived in, lost, gained and cleaned rebuilt, and most of all, the house that is my body, my mind, my heart and how I became the Queen of Bohemia.