zena musings

"When I arrived in Carlotta, I thought of the words Marlowe had said to me over fifteen years ago: Dead men don't wear plaid. Huh. Dead men don't wear plaid. I still don't know what it means."

It was like this, but different.

Sometimes at another age, in another time, you fall in love through a single picture and countless words, across continents and oceans, through languages and logic. Sometimes you sense the magic long before you meet. You conjure past lives and fated futures. More often than not one of you is batshit delusional. But sometimes there is the one chance, the one place—you’re both right.

And when at last you meet, the reality is more intense and exciting than your wildest dreams. Nothing ever since comes close. And you discover it's true—love never dies.

Oh, it hibernates. And you’re well aware of the sleeping bear in the cave. You become as familiar with the shapes, shadows and sounds of his slumber as your own breath. The constant lull of his slow, methodical heartbeat pulsing your blood. You recall the memory of his medicine at a moment’s notice.

Maybe you carry the cave with you down the aisle. Plant flowers at its door. Maybe you forget to water them. Maybe vines overtake the mountainside, entwining your heart with overgrown tangles of thick deadwood and strangled greenery, encircling your wrists like handcuffs, stuffing your mouth with leaves. Maybe you forget what freedom feels like. Maybe you don’t.

Then one day, out of the blue, you hear soft grunts and rumbles. What’s happening? Shhh... Don’t interrupt. Just experience the miracle of how in one single big bang of an instant the bear opens his eyes. How the impossible happens: a shift in perception that you did not invite, engineer or plan. How time collapses, vines disappear, leaves dissolve. No past, no future, no in between. Only—

This.

Right.

Now.

That night you dream like you’ve dreamed once before, of a love so urgent and a connection so strong that upon awakening you’re shaky and weeping. You squeeze your eyes shut. “Take me back,” you whisper-plead, as if it’s possible to will yourself anywhere but awake. As if you’d even want to deprive yourself of this first fleeting taste of sweet water after a drought lasting one-third of your life. You’re too old and—let’s face it—too tired to be greedy.

You know what enough is.

What you feel is the vulnerability of hope. The cool welcoming air of an empty moonlit cave, walls decorated with hieroglyphs—love letters written by the bear. You plant flowers at the door. You water them. You bring a candle inside the cave. You smile. You wait. Your feet have never known where the path leads, but the undeniable siren song of your journey grooves on the unknown.

You know there’s no other way but to let go, explore and love more deeply.

Maybe the bear goes with you. Maybe not.

Maybe that's not the point of this story.

21 things that spontaneously flew out of my heart + fingers this morning

1. It’s easier than you think.
2. Whoever you are, whatever your desire, wherever your path — OWN it. Unapologetically.
3. Be real. Be YOU. Playing it cool is dull. (Thank you, Danielle LaPorte, for nailing it.) Enthusiasm is hot. Awkward spontaneity smashes the flimsy weak veneer of hip every fucking time.
4. If right now you’re mimicking someone you admire, keep going. Stay curious. Keep writing, keep moving, keep taking pictures, keep reading, keep exploring and for God’s sake keep obsessively listening to your deepest innermost guts. You will stumble upon your unique way of stringing together words, composing images or moving through life.
5. Within you are undiscovered talents, strengths and treasures you don’t even know exist. They may be different from what you expected. Don’t shrink away. Claim them. Trust them. Follow their breadcrumbs.
6. Keep moving forward. But please please please know it’s OK to rest whenever you need to for as long as you need to. Rest is necessary. Just pay attention to your intuition because timeouts can masquerade as secret ways to coddle your fears.
7. Share your journeys and discoveries with us, honestly and openly. We want to hear your stories. We need the wisdom of your learnings. We long to witness and support the unvarnished truth of you.
8. At times you may feel different than. That’s OK. Different doesn’t mean separate from. You belong and you always will.
9. Change is not an option. Change is the essence of Life. You can’t hide from change so don’t even try. Embrace your lifelong evolution and the personal evolution of every single person you know. 
10. Make letting go a daily spiritual practice. 
11. Those stories you tell yourself in your head? You’re making them up. Stop falling for fiction. Don’t make assumptions. Be willing to change your perception.
12. Practice, practice, practice. There is no mastery. Do your best and eventually your best will get better. Screw perfection. Adopt the attitude that sucking actually ROCKS! Toddlers don’t berate themselves when their legs buckle and they fall on their rumps. They get up and try again.
13. Life is short and unpredictable. ENJOY. Choose wisely. Be good to yourself.
14. Love with unfettered abandon whoever and whatever lights you up! No need to justify, rationalize or explain.
15. That said, being on the other end of someone's obsession feels creepy and gross. If someone you’re attracted to doesn’t share the attraction, let them go. Stat.
16.  Prayer works. Prayer works best when we let go of what we think the outcome should be.
17. Your comfort zone can turn into a Venus Flytrap. Being uncomfortable is often an incredibly good sign. 
18. Remember you’re not in charge. You’re not the Head Coach. You’re simply one important yet temporary player on a really, really big team. Everyone contributes in her or his own specialized way. No one is expected to play the game alone and you won’t carry the ball 100% of the time. Sometimes we’re on the court, sometimes we’re on the bench. We all contribute no matter what. We’re always part of the team. 
19. God has bigger plans for you than you could ever possibly dream of. Get out of your own way. Leave the Big Game Plan to God (S/He holds it anyway). Leave room in your hours and days and weeks and months and years for Life to guide you, dazzle you and use you in magical + unexpected ways.
20. You know less than you think you do. You love less than you’re capable of. Isn’t this marvelous? Keep your beautiful heart + mind open!
21. Love always wins.

The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer

This TED talk by Amanda Palmer has kicked open a door I've been eyeballing with curiosity. It's a dialog I intend to wholeheartedly be part of. Because the old ways, and many of the current ways, do not resonate with my heart. This does.

“I trust you this much. Should I? Show me.”

Subverting Fear

Smack dab in my busiest time of year. If I were a CPA, today would be April 12th. The work phone is ringing. Orders need packing + shipping. Candles need pouring. Repairmen need calling. Dobies need walking. My upstairs is a hot mess. There are a hundred practical things I should be doing and writing isn't one of them. Nor is sitting in my pajamas at noon, checking FB, reading spiritual stuff or listening to Marianne Williamson. But this is precisely what my soul needs today.

Breathing room. Nourishment. Reassurance.

It is becoming less and less possible to override my spiritual needs.

For large and small business owners there's a frenzied, competitive greed at the holidays that I'm certainly not immune to. The unspoken yet tangible pressure to jump onto the spinning carousel of consumer spending and grab for all the golden rings your hands can hold. BUY MY STUFF! Wallets are open, dollars are begging to be spent and from a business point of view I should be capitalizing the living shit out of this season. I have done so in the past. I have earned a fair amount of money and I have suffered the consequences: year-end mental breakdowns, illnesses, not enjoying my own holidays.

This year I can't. I can't and I won't. This year I'm saying fuck that noise. For me, sometimes living life + owning a business is like being in a packed auditorium with nearly every person in attendance clamoring for attention. It's loud, it's overwhelming, it hurts my soul and I need (frequently) to escape.

I've struggled sending newsletters for two years. Do I need the money? Absolutely. This year has yielded my lowest earnings since I started zena moon in 2000. I don't blame the economy; it's all me -- I love my candles and my company but I'm simply tapped out and ready to move on. I truly cannot wait to hand over the reins to a new owner who will lavish her with the time, love and attention she deserves.

Meanwhile I get to practice accepting that I can't function at the higher levels I used to.

Accepting that I desperately need a break from marketing. Wanting to learn new ways to share my work in the world, which may include hiring someone else to do it for me.

Trusting that I can still earn a healthy living. Not knowing exactly how but knowing I've got skills and am worth it. Being open. Asking for + receiving help from smart, generous souls.

Believing Liz Lamoreux's reminder that "it really is okay to move at your own pace."

Reading this by Anne Lamott, which nails my experience lately:

I pray all the time, but without a deep sense of union or connection. It's like taking a survey by phone. I do it, but I mostly just want to be done. Still, you know what? I think it's okay. Some patches of time are going to be rich in communion with God, Goodness, Good Orderly Direction, even the Gift of Desperation. Other times? Not so much. As always, though, it is the right time to be exquisitely, crazily friendly to myself.

I'm going to keep doing my sort-of-faking-it prayers; my phoning it in prayers. We take the action, and the insight will follow. The insight will be how crazy and isolated I feel when my electrical cord is not plugged into the vast supply of gorgeous, hilarious, heartbreakingly profound and sweet divine supply. This lackluster phase will pass. Then, the joyously plugged in phase will, too.

Knowing (or at least suspecting pretty strongly) that my Higher Power doesn't want me to spend any more of my precious life striving/worrying/pressuring/judging/berating myself to the point of actually looking forward to death because at least then all of the striving/worrying/pressuring/judging/berating will be over and done with.

Saying that I trust my Higher Power even when I'm not sure I do.

Telling the truth, again and again and again. Laying it all on the table, every single day, with at least one other human being. Because God works in my life through other human beings and like Anne Lamott also wrote:

...which was about letting God into your worst drawers and closets, and how healing could not happen if you let God into a living room that had just been cleaned for the occasion. If you wanted healing, you had to show God the mess.

Being honest.

Being open.

Being willing.

Being grateful. Because I am, more than words could ever convey. Thank you for reading this. Thank you for your support and encouragement. Thank you for buying my candles. Thank you for being here.

Flashback 15 years: Marriage, divorce and healing

Fifteen years ago I was laying on a rose-strewn massage table. It's my wedding day. I never expected to get married. Never wanted to. But I'd fallen in the kind of love that feels permanent. For the first time I'd found someone I wanted to commit to.

Like us, our ceremony and vows were unconventional. Drums beat, sage burned. My gay boyfriends walked me down the makeshift aisle in our backyard. Our dogs carried our rings. A dear friend, an ordained Catholic nun, officiated. We promised to be together as long as it served each of our highest good. And for 10 years we were.

Our marriage ended five years ago. As separations go, it was amicable. He helped move me to Spokane. We vacationed together that summer and even spent Christmas together. Bittersweet. Even though I'm now grateful a hundred times over, letting go was an excruciating process. Everything about my life changed. My home, my community, how often I saw my dogs (we shared custody for years), my comfort zone. I was lost and fragile.

For months I couldn't even say the word divorce out loud. When the Marriage Dissolution papers arrived in the mail, I realized how insignificant -- like signatures on a marriage license -- paperwork is. That's neither where our relationship came together nor fell apart. I remember pulling them out for a friend who was spinning out over her own separation saying, "This little 1/2-inch stack of paper? That's all a divorce is. Your relationship still exists, just in a new form. Stop scaring yourself with words." Ha! Exactly what I needed to hear myself.

For a good long while I was angry, hurt and resentful, but that shit's toxic and I stayed committed to my spiritual path. No matter how I felt, I went through the motions of right action. Naturally I licked my wounds raw time and again but mostly I acted as if this was God's will for me. I practiced trust, sometimes well, sometimes crappily. Lots of f-bombs in my prayers those days. Slowly a new life unfolded. New friends. New community. New activities. New everything. Better everything.

My ex and I were estranged for a while. A tough yet absolutely necessary gift. Fire purifies. Today we're building a new friendship. Our lives are progressing exactly as they're meant to. I absolutely love the woman he now shares his life with, and their nutty Dobie.

Healing takes time and dedication. It takes willingness to be really uncomfortable (not my strong suit!) and do awkward stuff like gratitude lists, socializing and being in this moment on a continuous basis. Fortunately I'm surrounded by lots of wise women (and men) I'm willing to listen to and accept direction from. They've never steered me wrong.

Recently I was clearing out old paperwork and stumbled across my divorce papers. I don't need these, I thought. I inhaled with a new awareness and freedom. I don't need these. So I shredded them. Not with animosity or vengeance, simply with release.

The past is over.

Today I'm alive and free in ways I never dreamed possible. I absolutely LOVE my present and I'm excited beyond measure for the future.

But I went through hell to get here. The secret? I kept going.

Exciting changes + opportunities! zena moon is for sale...

A few weeks ago I announced on Facebook that I was preparing to begin the process of selling zena moon. GULP! Still a little hard to say, but day by day I'm becoming increasingly ready to wholeheartedly venture down a new path full-time—namely, my photography.

Never have I known such clarity and purpose or felt so much passion and excitement! As much as I've loved (still love) candlemaking, over the last couple years photography has caught fire in me like nothing I've come close to experiencing before. After 12 amazing years building and running zena moon, a new adventure is calling me body, mind and soul.

Since I’m at the beginning of the vetting + selling process, I’m looking for guidance and assistance. If you know anybody who’s successfully sold a business or know of any resources that might help, please send them my way. Already I've received quite a few interested inquiries and I need to learn what the next steps are.

That said, there's no urgency and I’m not in any rush. Making sure zena moon transfers into smart, capable, enthusiastic and dedicated hands is my number one goal.

So! If you or someone you know is interested in buying an established, successful 12 year-old candle company with thousands of customers and endorsements by Oprah, Martha Beck, Pamela Slim, Fabeku Fatunmise, Patti Digh, Jennifer Louden and countless other luminaries, contact me.

It truly is a once-in-a-lifetime business and spiritual opportunity for the right person!

I'm welcoming a mindful, careful process based on love and intuition. zena moon is my baby and I'm trusting in God's timing and direction.

To all our wonderful customers: you have no idea how much I love and appreciate you! I'm still in love with zena moon and nothing has changed here in the studio. You can still order our candles with wild abandon—in fact, please do!—and I promise that when the transition to new ownership does happen, disruption to the business will be as minimal as humanly possible. Also that the quality of our candles, if it does change, will only be for the better!

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
— Joseph Campbell

Blessings,

The new is always present with the old, however hidden

I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty bats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them...

– Annie Dillard

(Photo taken during this afternoon's walk.)

Spring Cleaning

It's in our nature, the need to sweep out winter's dust and polish the windows. Boxes filled with linens, pillows, clothes and towels are stacked downstairs ready to be donated. The bottom of my garbage bin holds yard debris. On top, expired foodstuff. And on top of that, things -- many things -- that qualify as emotional debris and expired sentimentalstuff, long past their Use By date.

All tossed with a deep sense of relief and a dash of defiance. Nowadays there are higher standards for what I keep.

Without much sentiment I'm culling photos from Flickr and Facebook. Deleting emails. Ditching CDs, old software installation discs, unused candleholders  and other unwanteds. Releasing what no longer serves and by that I mean, to a large degree, what (and who) hasn't felt good for some time. A simple barometer. There's something about this spring, this year . . . letting go and making room has never felt so good!

I don't know whether I'm moving forward and I certainly don't know what lies ahead, but I do know this: I'm facing forward. I'm looking in the right direction.

Some people are better left in the past

"For every person who might reject you if you live your
truth, there are ten others who will embrace you and welcome you home."
–Marianne Williamson

Believe it or not, I honestly can't remember if/when I've ever been personally and openly judged by a self-proclaimed conservative Christian. But I was last night, by a childhood friend no less — actually, we were best friends in grades 4-6 — who finally admitted she has a problem with my path to such an extent that she was unfriending me in Facebook. Yes, the ultimate rejection!

What brought this on was a frustrated, mean-spirited comment she left on this blog post, peppered with smiley faces, happy exclamation points and the suggestion that I stop overanalyzing life and become a Christian, meanwhile taking potshots at my spirituality. I deleted her comment, because I treat all my spaces as sacred space, and sent her a short note explaining what I did. That I read her words as unkind and unsupportive. I said I'm glad she found a path that works for her, and that I have too.

She wrote back. I didn't read her response word for word. Didn't have to. Scanning it, I caught more than enough:

I'm sorry if I hurt you.

You're constantly unhappy.

I don't think your path is working for you.

I'm a conservative Christian and I'm not comfortable with your path.

I'm unfriending you.

I'm not entirely sure what part(s) of my path cause her discomfort, but I can guess. Does it matter? Is it personal? Not for me to say. Honestly, I suspect other historical stuff is playing out here. The fact that I unfriended her in the 7th grade (for being too conservative!) and a couple other decades-old resentments she aired — peppered with smiles and laughter — when we reunited in person a couple years ago. Of course I recognized the stinging beneath the smiles, the old hurts never healed, and I apologized. I did what I could to make amends for the harm I caused her. It was sincerely nice seeing her that time, although also a little strange, her drinking and me not. An ironic twist. I suspected there wouldn't be a next time, and I was fine with that. Despite our differences, we stayed connected via Facebook and had many friendly, supportive exchanges over the years.

Here's the part where I say I know all Christians aren't like my old friend. Most of the Christians I know — Lutherans, Catholics, Protestants, whatever — most of the people I know — are amazingly loving, open, accepting and non-judgmental. Nuns and laypeople alike. I think that's why this smarts a little. It's not the who, it's the ewww. I'm not confronted with bigotry very often and it's jarring when I am. It's incomprehensible, archaic and unnecessary. It's ugly.

Do we really all have to look, believe, vote, feel, think, dress, worship and live the same, or similarly enough, for some to be comfortable?

Who knows, maybe she simply doesn't like who I am. I'm fine with that, too. Because I love who I am. Very much.

Bottom line: I'm not going to let someone's discomfort with who I am stymie, inhibit, edit or stop me from practicing the gifts God gave me. Namely, paying attention to my life. Writing about it. Photographing it. Living it. Cultivating a relationship with God, Spirit, the Creator, my private name for my Higher Power, or whatever name I choose to use. Learning to be the best Carla Blazek I can be, the one God intended me to be. Which, whether I like it or not, constantly involves letting go and moving on.

Lab Results

The good news: It's not cancer. Thank God. Even though the results support my, and the vet's, intuition, I'm still vastly relieved.

The strange news: It was something called mucinosis, a common affliction in Shar Peis, extremely rare in other breeds. True, Silas eats rice daily and has a black spot on his tongue, but even with his mysterious past I'm relatively certain he's not Chinese.

So, tomorrow we'll go back to the vet. He'll get checked and re-bandaged, and I'll get a chance to find out more. Could be a symptom of hypothyroidism, could be a one-time oddity. We shall see. I'm just extremely grateful it's nothing serious, because the strain and stress so soon after Lucy's passing would quickly wipe us both out.

I read a quote by Byron Katie this morning that hit home:

If you want real control, drop the illusion of control.
Let life live you. It does anyway.

Yes. Today I will show up, relax, and let life live me.