I Am Going, Too

©2012 Danise Codekas

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. -- Helen Keller

So much sunshine today along the Puget Sound. Thought a headache was coming on however it proved to be all the delving into plastic buckets in the mudroom, rucking around to see if there was anything I really needed to keep before the appraisers arrive to review for the estate sale.

Yow, I hired a group of professional estate sales pros to sell 20 years’ accumulation of those things accentuating 2 decades of my life. Some moments wanting to hold on and keep, and the next that previously desired, forgotten, in the exploration of the next box, bucket or pile of papers.

In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you love? How deeply did you learn to let go?
- Buddha

Deciding to cleanse my life of things unused, outdated, held onto simply for the say so, began forming last time I went to Kauai. My friend’s home both energizing and peaceful atop the Wailua River, has everything a body can require, yet devoid of the accumulation many of us require to touch, see, or require for our sense of worth to be vilified before others and our own 21st century mega-accumulation prone minds.

True, someday I made need something that is leaving the house in someone else’s hands, however, I remind myself of the other times in my life, I sold everything, packed up a car, or jumped on a plane, and arrived in a strange, new environment, without friends,and began again.

Yes, some fear, excitement, worries and exhaustion revolve my days now, as I prepare for the next part of my life to enfold. I also know that to continue, in the same manner now, would be grossly unfair to my soul, and headed to a future moments in which I would ask, “What if I had cleared myself of all baggage, packed the car, and started on a new part of my life’s journey in 2012?”.

 

My dreams for the past 2 months have been about ‘drive South’. Where, I ask. California? ABQ/ Santa Fe? LA? Hawaii? I need a place to live. Work. Friends. Fresh air. Joy. Music.

No clear answer is heard, and so I have no guarantee of an easy road, a soft place to land, or even a romantic end to my life. If you have an idea, a writing/editing/traveling job for me, a connection you are pulled to explore with me, let me know.

Danise@gmail.com is how to connect, send some wisdom and encouragement, or SKYPE Codekas, Fbook-danise codekas. Fun, huh?

Oh, you wait until you start feeling the urge to change. Happens for us all differently, yet the exhilaration of knowing something is right about the changes I am making, combined with the moments of flying by the wind, with faith, you shall feel, my friend. Your soul loudly declares you learned your lesson, in this geographic location, and the new place in cosmic reality awaits.

Unless, someone has a offer to travel to foreign places to assist them in their great adventure, I shall be in a Subaru Impreza wagon, green, with music playing and probably windows down.

Be well. Happy Earth Day.

And yes, everything could change tomorrow, and I decide to stay, for I will miss my family. I could collapse in a heap of indecision, once the last piece of my history walks away in the hands of a stranger. I don’t know. That is what an act of faith, guided by heart and sol requires.

Admitting I do not know however positive in order to be where the most growth and joy awaits, I must make these changes now, and release things and objects from my past. There has been good things received here. I was blessed here and blessed I carry on. This transition evolves and I grow in trust and a little bit more fear, outside the edges, than usual. So be it. It is 2012. I should have knows, huh?

Letting go doesn’t mean that you don’t care about someone anymore. It’s just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.-- Deborah Reber

However, clearing the past, the unused, the unneeded, will conclude in a lighter load, for my journey in this life.

I am excited and hopeful based on the wonderful people and animals which have touched my life in the past 20 years. I think I have become more humane, and compassionate because of you all.

If I have pissed you off at some point, or been less that sincere or been bad, very very, I apologize. I can only do as well as I know, and learn from that in order to do better the next time a similar challenge arises.

That is what life is about isn’t? We don’t come in perfect; we are pointed toward perfection and joy and with helping hands along the way come to know the value of life, love and human touch.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.- E.M. Forster

Old Poetry Found in a File

Danise Codekas © 2012
A friend found some of my poetry the other day and lectured me about why I had never bothered publishing it. Unlike some children, my first writings were not prose, but poetry. Long days and nights spent in childhood pursuits leached into my consciousness in rhyme, rather than nightmares.

Perhaps I never mentioned them but the first books I read, alone, when I could read alone, were not fairy tales but epic poetry, odes and mythology. The first 2 books received when I was around 8, were the Iliad and The Odyssey.

Coffee table-sized, artfully colored in rich, powerful colors, the pictures were true to Greek tragic art. Reds,blues, black, emotive, powerful, images of Scylla, the Sirens, the death of Piraeus, the bloodshed inside the walls of Troy, as the wooden horse revealed the hidden Greek warriors inside, who stormed into the midst of a jubilant, sleeping city and burned it to the ground.

My other favorite book was the Aeneid, by Virgil, consisting of 12 books, 10,000 lines of dactylic hexameter, and is the tale of Aeneas, a Trojan warrior who heads off to Italy, after the fall of Troy, and hangs out with the Romans.

You see how I, as a child, would want to write poetry for her first composition.  Reading poetry quickly satisfies my soul and quickly reveals the energy of a situation, human or soul.  So here is a poem written around Easter 2002. ‘Tis the season, non?



Ode To A Cat; Ode About My Mistress, ©2002, Danise Codekas

He sits to my right
Watching my hands and eyes
Waiting for me to look his way.
He licks up his paw and rests it
On the desk again.
Waiting for me to stop typing and
Return to my bed.
He knows the hours have been long today.
He also knows it is time to go nite nite.

A cat has an internal clock built like we do.
It is based on sunlight and moonlight
Like it used to be for me in Crete.
Just the moon to light my nights and
The Sun to follow my mind, through the day.

This animal is tired.
Now with eyes closed he listens to the keyboard
As it clicks and stops.
His ears go up at the silence and he opens one eye slowly.

Is she done?
Will we go into the other place and lie our heads
Upon the pillows?
Will she lie down quietly so I can lie next to her,
And sleep,
And dream about Cat Heaven and things so wondrous,
Because my mind is not filled with angst or anger or fears.

I am just a companion cat who lives for many years,
With this woman of kindness and beauty.
Whom I know so well.
Better than anyone else in the World.

I know her moods and the sounds of her voices.
I know her eyes and the smile that tells me
She is content, with Me.
I am a happy cat,
An old cat.
A cat that awaits My Mistress.

She stops.
She moves.
And the Brightness goes away
As we walk into the other room,
With the Softness to lie on.