Tag: Simone Lipscomb
Soft Edges

Soft Edges

By |

Curves, circles, spirals. Ambling here and there, led by a turkey track, an elk rub, an otter track. No longer a slave to goals and distances.

How many turkeys? That’s not important.

How far did we walk? Who cares?

Did you see the vine hug the tree or the beaver gnaw?

The elk rub was fresh, the little hemlock victim to raging hormones of the bull.

As I drop into inner stillness I find more curves, less straight lines. Soft edges rather than razors where one slip and I am mortally wounded.

Time is non-existent in the place of soft edges Why do tears flow when I feel this truth?
And Finally, Peace Came

And Finally, Peace Came

By |

I was working downstairs, finishing up painting started before Christmas. I took a break and went upstairs to get water and a snack and saw beautiful, fluffy snowflakes drifting gently to the ground. Finally, it’s snowing.

I grabbed my snow pants, jacket and snow boots and after quickly dressing asked Buddy if he wanted to go outside. What a silly question, right?

It was 27 degrees and snowing heavily. I couldn’t see the ridge of the Smoky Mountain National Park or any of the ridges in front of my home. We were in a complete whiteout. The only thing visible was the area around my home.

It was so quiet, especially given the strong winds that blew through after the floods two days ago. Everything stopped and was silent.

So I stopped and became silent. Not just for those few moments but from the past two years. Everything stood still inside me and I finally took a deep breath.

Two years ago I was in Ireland enjoying my most favorite place on the planet, besides the Smoky Mountains where I now live. But a lot of stuff…no, a lot of shit…has gone down between those precious days in Ireland and today on the mountain where I live, move and have my being.

Finding balance has been challenging as I feel somewhat stuck in a trauma loop. But the snow, the silence, the softness drew me inward like only the magic of winter can. Suddenly, and without warning, peace unfolded from deep within my core.

 

 
The Sky Said Yes

The Sky Said Yes

By |

The sky said yes this morning.

Before first light clouds gathered in the east. Predawn rays kissed their bellies with brilliant orange and slowly–oh, so slowly–light came and illuminated all those gathered in the cathedral of dawn.

The sky said yes to color, clouds….to awe.
The Lie of Security

The Lie of Security

By |

The three of us sat there, in the back of the bagel shop, in our own force field of power. It might not have looked that way as three middle-aged women shared ways we are leaving the old paradigm and forging forward into new territory, but the energy was palpable.

Each of us, in our own way, is releasing the fears that keep us stuck in the old beliefs of how money works, how our work in the world can be expressed and we are standing with a foot in each world trying to maintain balance.

Sound familiar? People are doing this all over the planet. We are leaving the idea that you must be chained to the status quo in order to survive. Sort of feels like the Matrix movie. Do you choose the red pill or the blue pill? Do you want to know the truth or continue to feed a system that is toxic just to have the illusion of security?

Definition of security: “Freedom from the occurrence or risk of injury, danger, or loss.” (Dictionary.com)

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” Helen Keller wrote that.

I would rather live life as a daring adventure than be stuck in fear that keeps me chained to the old paradigm. The red pill reveals the unpleasant knowledge and the truths of everyday life, the blue pill keeps us in ignorance. I know which one I will choose every single time. What about you?
Damn! The Monkeys.

Damn! The Monkeys.

By |

There is this favorite photograph I took many years ago on the island of Nevis. It is a green vervet monkey sitting in a tree screaming at all the other monkeys on the beach, stealing alcoholic drinks. I saw him as the treatment director, the wise elder. The caption I applied to it says: Damn! The monkeys. I reflected on that image yesterday and almost two decades later it is still revealing wisdom.

The obvious irony is the screaming monkey is also a monkey. But the hidden irony…for almost twenty years…is that the screaming monkey was giving up his life to attempt to change others…to help them, to keep them from addictions…yet he had an addiction–demanding they change.

How many of us do that? We sit in our place of ‘right’ and demand others change…dress better, eat better, clean your house, wash your car, spend your money wiser, raise your children better, find a job more suited to you, paint your house, don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t eat meat, don’t own guns, don’t curse…the list is endless, isn’t it? We seem to find a way to know what’s best for everyone else by our judgments. And thus, because we have some privileged connection to Wisdom that few others have, we stand on our platforms openly pitying those that don’t live up to our wishes for them. Ugh.

As I worked with the screaming monkey image I felt such sadness that he wasted his life, his precious days, hooked into something he couldn’t change. Then I saw me in him. And I wondered what it would feel like to just climb down the tree and walk away, move back to the jungle and stop resisting the flow of life.

So…Damn! The Monkeys….I am climbing down the tree and letting them figure it out. I want to live.