abundance · generosity · joy · receiving

Shht! The Universe Might Hear You!

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I won’t admit this, cuz you’ll think it’s stupid.
So, to be all covert about my embarrassing secret, I’ll
speak in opposites.
The books I have by my bedside table are not currently: Money Drunk, Money Sober; The Secret; Do Less, Achieve More.
See, here’s the problem with admitting to you that I’m
currently reading three books which affirm that there is goodness, abundance,
even – no!! – wealth in this world
available to me, and truly, to you: The problem is… I believe it.
Guffaw! Gak! Me?? Me
believing that if I only keep on moving forward with a heart of gratitude,
generosity, and mindfulness that I might get somewhere fabulous in this world? Me
believing, that – eek! – I might
already be somewhere fabulous in
this world? No, can’t be. Too “woo-woo,” too wishful, too fanciful. No, can’t
be. Don’t you know what’s going on in this world? Haven’t you opened the
NYTimes website and seen Israel, Iran, and the fatal storms throughout
the U.S.? Don’t you know what’s going on??
Why, yes. Yes I do. I keep informed. I read. – I mean, I
read the news. BBC News too.
And yet.
Well…I still am having a pretty good time at the moment.
Sure, there’s “stuff,” but well, I just revamped my home with a few new things & rearrangements,
and it looks welcoming, comfortable, inviting, safe. I have some new clothing
which makes me feel feminine and pretty and stylish. I even have fancy new handsoap that smells like a spa which I used to covet at my acupuncturist’s years ago. – Me?!?
Me? The girl who would submit to eating popcorn for dinner,
because she can’t get to the grocery store? Who will eat plain pasta with a can
of tuna because she can’t afford anything else? The girl who would … turn her
underwear inside out because she needs to do the wash and doesn’t have anything
else. (this is a terrifying admission – and,
note, I have not done this in a long
time!)
All of these actions are the products of a belief in scarcity. That
I can’t have. That I can’t afford. That I’m not worth the effort of going to
the store. These are products of the belief that you accept what you’ve got
because “times are hard,” and “everyone’s struggling.” These habits of behavior
reinforce that life is a rat race, that
you need to be exhausted to make a living, that you need to make due with what
comes to you.
Surprise. I’m not believing this anymore. At all.
I haven’t used a credit card or made a purchase I can’t
afford in 7 months. But… and here’s the incredible part… !! I have flowers I
recently purchased on my desk. I have free-trade coffee brewed in my coffee pot. I
have photos in my picture frames, and my art work nestled around my apartment.
… I even have a new scarf.
Squick though I may at telling you all this about my
tectonic plate world-view shift, action shift, I can’t really keep all this
awesomeness to myself and still be honest in this blog.
I believe in a Power which pulls men back from the gates of
insanity and death. Why in the world would I not believe in one which could
restore me to sanity around wealth, and enable me to receive this manifestation of
love so that I might share it generously with others? 
change · laughter · life · self-care

Red Light, Green Light, One Two Three

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Remember that game? It was a schoolyard game when I was a
kid, and I recalled the above phrase as I was folding my new hand and dish
towels onto their rack in my kitchen yesterday afternoon.
I took down my red towels, and put up my new green ones. Spring,
country, moss-colored luxury. Red light = Stop. Green light = Go. It felt
rather metaphorical.
I’d bought the red ones several years ago for my last
apartment, to go with the black, white, and red theme I wanted to have. And I carried
them with me to this apartment. But, yesterday as I stood in the abundant
radiance of Bed Bath & Beyond… I was attracted to the green. Apparently,
with my few other purchases yesterday, I am moving from that former color scheme
to a new one in my kitchen: mossy green, blond wood, and white. I like it.
It feels like spring. It also feels like change.
To me, the red now feels stark, instead of sexy or modern as
it used to. The green feels soft, and cozy, and just a bit cheeky, like it’s
about to tell you the punch line to a roll-your-eyes joke.
Last year around this time, I was invited to read some
poetry of mine at a friend’s art show opening. At the time, I was in the thick
of the awfulness of break-up land, and would rather slice my eyeballs with a
razor than produce art. For me, art is a product of health and at least some
healthy passion – be that anger, joy, or even contentment. As it was, I was
quite depressed and lethargic, and “producing” anything felt like a Herculean
effort. But I agreed.
During that time, as I was aware that I was not in any mood
to create, that I was still in the contracted, inverted phase of winter, I
noticed the copse of tall trees that I see out my kitchen window. Every day I
see them as I write my morning pages, tall over the building next door, at
least a hundred feet tall, and observe them going through the seasons of the
year.
One of those March mornings, I noticed the trees were
beginning to bud. I gasped. I’m not ready!
I’m not ready for production, expansion, greenery. I want stark, barren,
lifeless.
But, bud the trees did, and read poetry I did.
This week, I got an email from a woman at school inviting me to again participate in their annual open mic at the end of the month. And this year as I watch the trees begin to bud again, bolstered by their augur of Spring, I identify with their quiet expansion, and I
answer, yes.
I can’t wait to see what I’ll write. 🙂

growth · healing · meditation · sexuality

I’ll tell you when you’re older.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

You know how frustrating that answer was to us as children.
I feel like that’s the answer I’m getting now. In mild-to-moderate panic about
the end of school in May, what I’ll be doing then, what I want to do, and where I want to do it, I’ve been knocking
on the Universe’s door, being like, HEY! Throw me a bone here, eh??
Trouble is, the damned Universe has been throwing me a bone.
I just don’t like the taste.
I’ve written here before that it’s been indicated to me via
multiple meditations that I need to do this work on untangling past sexual
trauma before I can move forward, before I can get any further information.
This, makes me mad. Frustrated. Besides the fact that when
that information was once again given to
me in a meditation about 2 weeks ago, I kicked that information in the shins. I
had a right ole’ tantrum about it. WHY?? (She asks again…) Why do I have to do this shit – this uncomfortable, vulnerable,
honest, and sad shit. I. don’t. want. to. feel. this. I don’t want to feel sad. I don’t want to acknowledge that I am. I don’t want to do this. 
I phoned a friend of mine who knows me well and who had done
EMDR for a whole year before, and I expressed my frustration. I also told her
that this trauma/funky relationship with my sexuality and femininity is kicking
me back… She said that I could take all the acting classes I
wanted, all the music lessons, and painting classes, but that THIS was the real
work. That this, doing this work within myself and with the help of Team Molly, is how I will move forward, and enable any of the rest of that stuff to enter my life, and inhabit it in the way that I really need, and in fact, want, to.
I pout. I say that being sad is for pussies, and I
should be over this shit, or rather that so many other people are walking
around psychicly limping, how come I
have to actually do the work? No fair. 😡
And, yet. I know she’s right. Later in that
conversation I told her, I do have a choice. This is a choice that I’m making to work through this. Not to “get
over it.” To discount it, or to continue to walk as a wounded antelope. My
sexuality began wearing a heavy cloak of shame, guilt, fear, and pain almost 20
years ago. I don’t really even know what it looks like anymore. And so, that’s
what I’m doing.
I have a vision I sometimes use of a table at which all my
disparate parts of self sit. There’s me at the head, and the smart girl, the
baker, the Vixen (who is not the same as my sexuality), there’s the goofball, the artist, and sadness who is a recent invite to the table – now that I don’t believe
she’ll infect everyone with her sadness. There’s gentility. All of these parts
of me and more sit at the table, and I’ve been gathering them from the far
corners for a few years, and there are too those who were never banished from
the table or had to hide or escape.
Then, there’s sexuality. Mired in her leaden cloak, like the
kind you wear in the dental office when taking x-rays. I didn’t actually know
until recently that all those emotions she’s wearing are not a legitimate part
of her. That shame and sexuality are in fact mutually exclusive, and that …
they can part ways.
She’s somewhere outside of the house where the table is at
the moment. Somewhere in the woods perhaps, in this sodden cloak, which she is
now, I am now recognizing is removable.
I look forward to meeting her. I imagine that she has a lot
to teach me and show me. I told another person recently that I believe that
eventually she’ll sit on my right side up at the head of the table – she’s that
important and that potent. That does not
mean that there’ll be rampant sex – that’s much of what saddled her in guilt
and shame to begin with – but that the power that comes from owning my body as
well as my voice. The power that comes from owning my boundaries and my needs – and really really speaking up for them. The power that will come with
the kindness and mutuality and trust. The power that comes from sexuality’s
creative bent.
The chakra that is associated with creation is located in
the area of the reproductive organs. This area produces life in the literal
sense, and life in the metaphoric sense. This is a way in which I have been cut off from my own ability to create,
to own voice, to know what the fuck I’m supposed to do with my life, now, after
May, hereafter. Of course I can’t know yet. All the information is still tucked
away in this miasma of trauma and grief.
So, as I was once again
informed this morning in my meditation upon asking, “BUT WAIT!! WHAT AM I
SUPPOSED TO DO??? WHAT DO I NEED TO DO NEXT TO MOVE FORWARD??”, I need to do
exactly what I’m doing: feel sad, have tantrums, cry in my bathrobe, watch Pixar’s entire catalogue, listen to friends, admit what’s really going on, and to let myself become fully and usefully whole. 
home · laughter · letting go · love

February 29th

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

My parents married on February 29th of 1976. This
day of the year comes only once every 4 years, and true to their oddball senses
of humor, they thought it would be funny to marry on the leap year day.
It’s been on my mind, as I know that Feb 29th
is coming around again this year in a few days, and … sort of cosmically, my
childhood home, their home while they were married, goes on the market this weekend.
You know, I’m sure my Dad didn’t plan it this way – he’s not
much of a cosmic guy – but, I see it as pretty “full circle” in some ways. A
sad one, but I’m happy for the people who will get to enjoy that home next. It,
for all that it harbored, is a great home.
Most suburban sprawl children grow up feeling like there’s got to be something better than this po-dunk town. Or,
at least, the teenagers think that – we did, I did. But as a kid, actually, it
was pretty great. A number of parks in walking or biking distance. Everyone
rode a bike, and it was around the time they began to institute the “must wear
a helmet” law, and so everyone had some graphic neon print on theirs – or at
least I did. Hey, it was the 80s.
There were supersoakers in the summer, and a fire in our
fireplace in the winter. For all its hardship, this was a wonderful place to
grow up.
Sure, we got antsy, and angsty the older we got. And we
spent many many an afternoon as
mallrats, being dropped off and picked up by our parents via a call from the
nearest payphone. We would posture and stand outside the mall. We would walk it’s
many corridors – we knew it back and forward, and could tell you the fastest
way to get to the food court. We rarely bought anything. If anything, we would
shoplift a bit. Or at least I did. I still owe some financial amends to a Junior’s department!
And then we’d be at someone’s home, their sunken living room with the
enormous box t.v. At a friend’s who had cable and this marvelous thing called
Nickelodeon and MTV.
Back at my home, there was the “secret passage way” to my best
friend’s house next door that my brother never figured out was just a path
through the pachysandra, and would beg to know the secret.
We’d, my best friend and I, block out the sunlight in my
parents room and play “blind man’s bluff” with my brother, which was an awful
game in which we covered him with a blanket, spun him around, and then he had
to find us in the semi-dark. The bed was out-of-bounds, and you couldn’t go on
it to escape him, but we did. And more than once, we spun him around so far
that his first step forward was into the nearest wall. …!
I spent hours in my
room, later as a stoned or drunk person, doing little projects around my room.
Creating a collage around the doorframe. Whittling down this enormous candle
with designs and indentations. There was the time when the sort of cream, sort
of yellow carpet began to swirl into different faces and shapes on one
particular evening.
When my friend and I would spill glue or paint onto the
carpet as little girls, we would use scissors to cut it out, so no one would
know.
The attic was always a scary place filled with junk and
treasures. Cascades of ribbons and wrapping paper – the only reason I ever went
up there — and would see in the periphery furniture, a bird cage, and that pink
insulation stuffing that I once got all over me and the little glass pieces
made me itch, and I had to sit in a bath of calamine lotion.
There were the number of times I puked in that house as a
sick young girl. The times I listened to my brother playing our grandfather’s
piano, and when I was doing homework and asked him to stop, he always had to play those last few notes.
There was my dad trying so hard to help me with my math
homework, but him always being a frustrated teacher, and me becoming a
frustrated student, and fireworks and yelling would ensue.
There was my mom and I using my spelling list in second
grade to create magical stories that used all the words, and I’d get little red ink
stars on all my spelling homework.
There was my first kiss. 🙂 When I was 11, and my mom’s best
friend came over from Switzerland with her family (though she too was from
Brooklyn), and she had a daughter who was 16 (tres glamourous to me at 11),
and a son who was 14. Erik. Tall, Blue Eyes, Blond Hair. Accent. And he told me
I was beautiful. When with my bottle glasses and frizzy hair, I’d
decided already I wasn’t. In the dim evening in my mom’s office, on the worn blue carpet,
after chatting giddily and eagerly, he kissed me.
177 Woodland Ave., River Edge, New Jersey, was my address from 3 – 24 years of age, with it being
my fallback location until this past fall. It was a dream house when they
bought it, and it will be a dreamhouse for its next
inhabitants, and their mall-lurking, supersoaker toting children.

acceptance · anger · faith

Anima

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment
Yesterday,
during meditation, I began to notice that I’m alive. Now, before you
scoff, it was more I sort of sensed whatever it was, that spark of life within
me, that is not in a fire hydrant or end table. That mystical, magical thing
that happens only for us, that rides on our blood cells and sends messages to
synapses and invents thought, hormones, and waste.

Anima, is
what this is. The life property of us living things.

It wasn’t
as if I sensed my soul in that sense of the meaning, but more, that simply I
was aware that –hot dog!- this is being “alive.” I found this interesting, this unique “blessing,” perhaps. To just notice that there is something in me, as in you,
that is not in everything.

Later
that day, I found out that a friend of mine overdosed on drugs, and died this
weekend.

At the
moment, it felt simply like shock, indignation, and anger. I am believer in a
Higher Power, and an order to the Universe, or something like that – although
my understanding and relationship to that power changes and evolves, like most
relationships. However, this this felt abnormally cruel.

He was my
age, 30ish. Tall, blue eyes, light hair. Handsome. I had a crush on him.

Granted
it was a from-a-distance crush, because I knew the struggle he was having with
staying sober for the year plus that I’ve known him.

When I
got sober, I was told to buy something black – the men told to buy a suit – as
we were going to be attending a lot of funerals. (That’s not “recovery”’s
position on the matter; it’s just the half joke/half not of some people in it.)

When I
was a few months sober, someone I’d been peripherally running around with being
wild and crazy and ISN’T LIFE GREAT WHEN YOU’RE NOT PUKING AND BLACKING OUT
ANYMORE?!, well, I found out that he’d walked off a cliff one night on purpose.

A girl I
know died last year, and a lot of folks I know were affected by her death.

But, for
me, this one has come the closest to home. I sat in the same room with this kid
almost weekly for over a year. I heard his dry humor, and his despair, his
attempts, his hope, and his … anima. I heard his life. We all did. And now,
he’s dead.

My
emotions of shock were sent in a sentence up to G-d: What The Fuck.

Sure, I
do believe in the order of things, and that “things happen for a reason,” but
I’ll tell you, believe that though I do and may, this happened to be a great
way to shake that conviction. But moreso, I feel indignant and righteously
angry and my
firm belief in a kind Universe. I know it sounds antithetical, but really, I
have no other choice.

I, like
many people I know, have no other choice than but to believe in some cosmic
goodness – to me it is a goodness. And, sure, I can choose not to believe. I
can choose to say that this world is fucked, and aimless, and sometimes you win
and sometimes you lose, and there’s no reason or order or lesson or anything.
Cold, inanimate life.

But. I
don’t believe that. And, really, it’s not because I must, it’s because I
do. I simply do.

And, so
then, how to “reconcile” at all the tragedy of the loss of a … how can you
describe a person in a word?

I cannot
reconcile the loss and my worldview. And often my worldview is replete with
paradox, and for now, today, I will hold them both. I will be furious and
mystified at the shortened life of my friend. And, I will continue to scrape
the residue of that which covers my own anima – because I do also believe that
whenever the light is turned on in one person, the whole world is lightened
because of it.

And
though I still don’t feel that this is now some cosmic balance of we now all
get to improve ourselves and not take life for granted and all that bullshit, …
well, what else can we do?

Dear Aaron, I’m sorry I didn’t offer to lend you the two dollars you needed when you were on line behind me at the grocery store last week. I wish I had. 
health · recovery · synchronicity

Dr Palm Reader

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I am currently trying to convince my body that decaf coffee
is just as wonderful as regular coffee.
For anyone who knows me, or shares this wonderful love
affair with the warm caffeinated beverage, you know this a difficult task. In
fact, liquid tranquility was once how I put it – despite it’s technical
opposite affect on our bodies.
Why, then, you may ask? Is this a further foray into
asceticism or self-denial or militant straight-edgyness?
It’s because of my feet.
Well, it’s more because of my pelvis. Well, it’s more
because of my jaw. Oh wait, it’s a global
problem with my body.
True to the magnificent nature of coincidence in this
Universe, I walked into a conversation between two girl friends of mine
about two weeks ago. I forget what brought it about, but one of the women
mentioned her chiropractor. When I added in that I’ve been clenching my jaw at
night pretty severely, she handed me his card. Apparently, he’s not the pop and
crack kind, and is very holistic to all the body’s needs – which is good,
because I have never seen a chiropractor because I thought it was a racket: to
pop and crack, come back in a month, pop and crack, ad nauseum.
So, I googled, I yelped, I read all the info on the website – including his own “journey” to this angle of the profession – and then I called. Turns out, Yes, jaw problems are something that they deal
with, and I could come in in a few days.
The yelp reviews are like the gospel praise for Jesus
himself. You’d think this guy performed miracles or something.
… and, he does.
I went for my initial interview last Tuesday, and he spent an
hour telling me to stand up, sit down, raise one arm, now open your mouth raise the
other, lift this leg, turn your head and lift it again, … and then he asked a
strange question. Was your childhood stressful? HA! Yes, yes it was, Dr. Palm
Reader. and on with his gentle poking and prodding.
See, the problem is that because I clench my jaw at night,
my dentist told me about 6 months ago that I was getting micro-fractures in my
molars, and if I didn’t take care of this my teeth would fall apart in my head. That it was likely caused by stress, and that I would have to wear a
night guard… forever. So, luckily, I have a retainer thing from the
interminable period of my adult braces, and I’ve been wearing it
semi-regularly, and then more regularly, waking up in the night or morning
feeling like opening my jaw is like open the jaws of life – it’s so stiff and
tight and ouch.
So, Dr Palm Reader… actually, I’ve really come to call him
Dr. Eyeballs. … because he has the most incredible blue eyes. I’m a sucker for
them blue eyes.  – So, he says
okay, I’ll see you in two days for the “download” appointment, the one were
basically he tells me what’s wrong with me, and what we’re going to do about
it. … “and,” he says as I’m walking out, “which organs aren’t functioning properly.” Oh hell, you say
this as I’m leaving!? Which organs of
mine aren’t functioning properly? Chew, or clench, on that one!
In any case, I do come back. And on Thursday, he tells me all kinds
of stuff. Firstly, he says my adrenal gland is shot. The childhood question was
because often if there is a lot of stress in childhood, the adrenal gland is
over-active and overly called upon then, and so, in later life, it crashes.
Have I been extremely fatigued lately? Why, yes, Dr. Palm Reader, I’ve been
going to bed at 8:30 or 9pm when I can, but I thought it was just “winter,” or,
you know, what my body needs… 10 or so hours of sleep a night.
Nope. My adrenal gland is shot. Okay. What else you got?
Well, flat feet – get this – are a symptom of early stress. Perhaps it’s not “genetic,” although my mom has them too
(“Did she have a stressful childhood?,” Yes, Doc, yes she did.).
The bottom line was this, all kinds of things are out of
whack, ligaments are falling apart in my pelvis, over stressed and twisted. My
hip pain another dr. said was tendonitis and I’d just have to NOT USE IT … uh,
yeah, no, it’s these loose ligaments. The jaw? Well, (cue “the knee bone’s
connected to the thigh bone”), pretty much, it all ascends from my pelvic
problem, into my diaphragm, and into my neck, and then, into my jaw. All the
muscles are doing work they shouldn’t be doing, and are overstressed from doing
them.
… Now that you have gotten my medical history, what on earth
does this have to do with anything? Well, firstly, after he did a few pressure
pointy things, and one crack, guess what? I didn’t clench my jaw for two
nights. I never thought that would happen. Or would have guessed the relief I
felt without it. But, this is a long-term issue, and so, over the course of the
next 6 weeks, I’ll be seeing him 3 times a week, to train my body into its proper form and function. Which
also means that YAY!! I won’t have to see him forever, I won’t have to wear a night guard forever, and all different kinds of
systems in my body are going to be starting up again… and mostly, I won’t be so
fucking tired all the time.
Down side? I feel like an 80 year old woman at the moment.
I’ve been told that for the duration of the treatment, I can’t bend in x y and
z ways, …. and although he hasn’t said it… the pamphlet he gave me on what’s
“wrong” with me (which btw, has an illustration of a completely fucocked
spinal cord…), well, it states that caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and sugar
aggravate the system and inhibit healing.
Well, Balls. Caffeine and sugar are the only ones I still
use/abuse, but hell. Really?
So, this is not my swan song to coffee. I’ve had one cup of
regular and one of decaf this morning, … and I guess that tub of “no sugar
added” ice cream is gonna have to go…
But, indeed, it’s true. This is some sort of miracle. And
if there were ever a time in my life when I had the time, health insurance,
availability, and Universe conspiring for me to bring my physical, emotional, and
spiritual health into, … alignment, it’s now. 

anger · courage · honesty · integrity · life · school

Adaptation.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

In the movie Adaptation,
Charlie Kaufman struggles to adapt a book for the screen. His struggle at
adapting the book becomes a part of the screenplay, and in essence, he writes
himself into his own movie. At this, he says, “Oh no.”
I have decided what my thesis will be – it will be my blog.
At this, I say, “Oh no.”
Unfortunately, due to all the everything else I’ve been
working on, my thesis draft due date came and went. Not that I didn’t know it
was due, but more that I had no idea what on earth it would be.
It wouldn’t be poetry – as that’s not at all what’s coming
out in my writing right now. It wouldn’t be the watercolor language and visual
art – there’s not enough time, and I’d want to develop it and experiment with
it more. And so, like Charlie, so consumed with the struggle of artistic
production that the drama of that struggle became his body of work, so it is
with mine.
Or, at least until my thesis advisor rips me another one on
Monday.
This, is part of the problem of the honesty and visibility
of this type of artistic forum – you may recognize yourself in these pages.
But, so be it.
To catch you up on nearly a month absence from this daily
blog, … well, i’m not entirely sure how to do that. But, I will say that I did
miss this. I know that my ego loves it, but I know too that I love it – and,
some of my friends love it too. I like this style. It works on the level a
friend suggested I write: “You should write the way you speak.” I don’t know
how to do that in “poetry,” but I know how to do that here.
The requirements for the thesis are as follows:
The thesis should be a minimum of
48 pages of creative work. In general, most theses average between 60-100
pages. The thesis should consist of the best work you have written while at
school. You are encouraged to write a thesis that is risky, investigative, and
confident.
I’m pretty sure that the work I do here is investigative,
confident in its honesty to my wavering confidence, and risky perhaps in the unabashed woo-woo spirituality of it. And, likely, risky in that
I let you know much of how I process the world, with all my foibles, fears,
shenanigans, and humor. – That feels
pretty risky (and thrilling) to me.
So, after a series of tense emails between my thesis advisor
and myself, in which I was accused of “not taking this seriously enough,” I
will be meeting with her on Monday following my submission of the first 3
months of this blog.
The irony, and the motherfucking craw sticker of her
accusation, the thing that wounded me the most, was her assumption that I
wasn’t doing any work.
On poetry, no, she’s right. On every other goddamned thing,
for fuck’s sake, YES. I have been working my ASS off to address, face, and work
through every goddamned thing that is holding me back.
EMDR with my therapist: check. Working one on one to get my
financial life in order: check. Clearing out the boxes from New Jersey that
contain the diaries of a madwoman and a sad child: check. Seeing a holistic
chiropractor to address physical manifestations:
check.
The truth is, I have been doing A LOT. And when her email
came through, as raw and vulnerable as I’ve felt with all these processes going
on, I was thrown WAY overboard. Suddenly, what someone else thought of me meant
more. Suddenly, I felt that all of my current work was worth bunk. That my
experience was being invalidated.
And that, for me,
dear reader, is my very worst trigger. To feel that my experience is not valid,
that what is happening for me is not important, or indeed is not happening at
all, is a VERY old, and VERY strong catalyst into despair.
Did she know any of this? No. Did I let her know that I was
unsure about my thesis? No. Does she have any idea whatsoever of any of the
other work that I’m currently doing? No.
So, is it reasonable, therefore to assume that from her
point of view, I wasn’t doing much? … Yes. Stupid perspective, Yes. 
It still hurt. And I’m still showing up anyway. I’m going to
hand in the work I have. The work that I’ve written here since November charts
a course, not of my daily lunch, but of my daily struggles, successes, progress,
hope, and failure. Of my relationships, my loneliness, my gratitude, and my
attempts.
This blog is the best
work I’ve done while at school, because, ultimately, it has the very most of me.
Thank you for reading, and welcome back. 🙂
abundance · fear · finances · letting go · love

Two-Way Street

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The phrase I hear in certain spiritual circles, You have to give it away in order to keep it,
has always bothered me. So, lately, knowing I’m coming up against this as a
block, I’ve been altering it to, I have to share it in order to keep it, just to make myself feel better about it.
I made a few realizations recently about my reluctance to
share. Notably, in each case when I’ve been “down on my luck” financially, and
have gone into what I call “lock-down mode,” I’ve been forced to surrender, and
let go of my pride, or my ideas, and let other people know what’s going on, and let them help me.
It occurs to me that lock-down mode is a closed circuit. It
says, anything that I get, I must hold on to fiercely, because I don’t know if
I will ever get more (this goes for love, and finances, and jobs, and
creativity, and more, I’m sure).
Lock-down mode is also a closed circuit because it is like
battening down the hatches of a ship, bracing for a storm. Don’t move, or you’ll be swept overboard.
In these circumstances when I’ve locked-down, it’s been like
increasing the speed of a flushing toilet, I realize. It’s gotten worse,
not better, faster.
Abundance, community, love, creativity, require an open channel, an open circuit, one which allows energy in, and allows energy out.
I reported on here a little while ago about a meditation
where I noticed that although still reluctant to do so, I allowed energy to
pass through me into those behind me, instead of, as I’d done in a previous
version of this meditation, simply fill others from my own bucket, denying and
absolutely refusing to take in from those sending to me.
Either ends of this constriction is a closed circuit,
depleting, and ultimately self-defeating.
Whether I choose to lock-down, and absorb, reach for, demand
everything I can, and horde it; or, whether I choose to close off the inflow,
and simply – and resolutely – give to you from my own bucket. This, is not a
channel.
When someone had mentioned to me recently that I have to
close these holes in order to be able to hold abundance, that there are places
where I’m letting it seep from me, and will never in fact be able to hold it,
this is a place of that fissure. Seems ironic that in order to have abundance I must begin to stop holding it, but, such is the paradox of spiritual
axioms.
To quote what I’ve heard, There is enough time, there is
enough love, there is enough money. Therefore, if there is enough, then I don’t need to hold on to it.
And, I need to address the other side too, the part of the
inflow. Like in Tuesday night’s class when I’d recognized how little I’d been
letting other people “give” to me.
In the moments when I’ve been broke, looking at the price of
Ramen noodles in the discount grocery store, I’ve let go. I’ve stopped folding
the end of the hose, and let it open, fear or not. And, miraculously, I’ve been
taken care of … abundantly 😉
So, there are two sides of this constriction that I would
like to address. The part that says, I can give to you, but you can’t give to
me. And the part that says, once I’ve got anything at all, I’m holding onto it
for dear life.
The “dear life,” it seems, occurs only, only when I do let go of strangling it. 
creativity · joy · letting go · poetry · recovery · school

Say Yes.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Oh dear reader, as quickly as they flit in, they flit out.
Remember so recently my choreographing a ballet as a part of
my thesis? Well, perhaps not. Or, simply, perhaps not now.
My new thesis idea is a book of art with poems. Not novel, but
novel to me.
My dad’s voice is readily in my head, “You’re paying $100,000 for THIS?!?” Yes, Dad. Yes.
But, to address first things first, yesterday’s intro to EMDR
was much gentler than I’d anticipated, as my therapist had mentioned to me. And
we’re starting small, gathering positive resources, grounding in safe space,
assembling Team Molly, as it were. I cried only the teeniest bit, and did not
get struck by a streetcar. In fact, I cried only that bit when I was recalling
something really lovely actually. ~ I am grateful to have a woman as gentle as
she is to guide me through this. And she’s consistently reminded me that her
experience is not that patients have dramatic, radical shifts, but rather
subtle changes they may not even notice till later when they realize they’re holding
these things differently.
That said, the first thing I said to her yesterday when I arrived was that
I was terrified, but we did the groundwork anyway. Because, yes, it is time. (insert
Rafiki’s voice from Lion King here – “Eet ees
time.”)
To return to the thesis though. (First draft due Feb 15th… Insert Marisa Tomei’s stamping foot from My Cousin Vinny … lol, I could do this all day…)
On Wednesday night, I had a wonderful experience. Having
bought a copse of new, brilliant markers from Blick Art Supply store on Sunday,
I sat down and began to experiment with these new, saturated, luscious,
dripping, succulent colors. You can perhaps tell how much I enjoyed them.
I felt almost as if I were getting to finger the crevices of
the greatest gemstones of all time. Basking in their glow. Delighted at how
they caught the light, how they were able to instantaneously create something
out of nothing.
I experimented for a while. With the different points and
pressures and textures and shapes. I felt so calm and exhilarated. Like, this THIS is what it feels like to be engaged in what you
want to be doing. And moreover, it feels like finally breaching the surface of
the water after you’ve been under for too long. Relief in a way that makes you
want to cry.
After I’d done a few of these just luxuriating in the
experience of manipulating these colors and markers pages, I turned a page, and
began to write a part of a story. Portions of the words fell right off the
page, and the next line began somewhere a few words in, as if the others were being written
… invisibly, on the other side of the page, on a bigger page that got cut, or weren’t actually written at all and there aren’t any words to connect what
you’ve read.
With my markers, I wrote a few more of these partial
stories. Then I put them up on the wall in my kitchen. The drawing before I
began writing continues to arrest me when I look at it. Something about it
captures me. And it is under this one, that I’ve taped the first story piece,
both are in red.
Perhaps, this is the beginning of a book. Perhaps the image
and the story, or poem, relate.
And, perhaps as I thought about it this morning, perhaps
there are blank pages for you, reader, to write your own story. Or perhaps blank pages for you to draw above the stories. Perhaps it’s children’s book-like. Perhaps the content isn’t though. 
Maybe. Maybe
not. But I sure like the idea. The idea of collaboration, of interaction, of
experimentation, and creativity.
I’m currently reading a book by Thomas Moore called, A
Life At Work: The Joy of Discovering What You Were Meant to Do. And as I also look at some of the work I’d done
in response to What Color is Your Parachute, I am faced again with the notion that my work
demands to be integrative, collaborative, fun.
This new idea, whatever comes of it, is part of this
discovery process. It’s part of the milemarkers on my path to my path. (And, I
will tell you, Thomas Moore agrees with me about not needing to “CHOOSE ONE” life path.) ;P
I’m going to play with this new idea. A little more
implementable than the dance. We’ll see
what happens. I may stick with all the work I’ve got and “Make it work,” or
I’ll head here for now, and “Follow the fun.”