In Memory #harryanderson #charlesrobinson #lukeperry #valerieharper #cat...

11/3 Gratitude

 Thank You by Led Zepelin

1.) Oregon, specifically Ashland, it's safe, still friendly, believes in people, beautifully serene

2.) My Beverly Hills, 90120 blanket.  It reflects to me a job well done, a constant reminder that I can accomplish and reach my intentions and will do so again.  I still have more battles to overcome, but still its a confidence booster.  It also reflects another way that I am increasingly showing self-confidence and belief in my worthiness for love in every aspect, regardless if love and respect is given by others or not.

3.) My physical health is stable, which is something to say in the view of Covid19 and other exreme physical ailments and health afflicts I know others are struggling with at present.

4.) Luke Perry and basically all my spirit guides, souls who had significance throughout my life and the messages received from each of them on Sunday's "Dia De Los Muertes" ceremony.

5.) Tansy's sweet, soft, luxurious fur, even between baths.  Her unique smell that is so earthy and wonderful to breathe in, her little nose that is always dirty, her piercing intense eyes that are so full of personality, emotion, mischief.  She is very original and intelligent.

6.) Cuddling Tansy on my chest, in my bathrobe and warm blanket, sparkling lights of the city far below, in the crisp dark night enfolding, a warm healthy cup of tea.

7.) Resting after two busy and successful days, with sleepy Tansy.

8.) Knowing the difference between success and fame, true victory is never external, but begins within. 

9.) The stability of assured love, it makes all the difference in the often emotional upheaval in the journey of life.

10.) The people I met today (yesterday) and the opportunities for financial gain and prosperity they will bring, as well as other ways of abundance.

11.) How my perspective has shifted in believing I can, I am worthy of success, prosperity, wealth, abundance, just by shifting the words I speak and what I tell myself about myself and my situation.

Got gratitude? Share below.  I will reply.

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What I learned from #BH90210, then & now

"Maybe going back is just what we need to move forward."--Tori Spelling

I look at the above photo and I am instantly transported back in my mind to a simpler time, when I could look out at the world and dream of how I wanted my life to be, before it had really begun.  I was a young, impressionable, very naive teenager living in the backwoods of the Northern California wine country.  Despite my parents' efforts to expose me to the wider world through travel, trips to the city to visit museums and see professional theater, I still had a very inexperienced view of the world about me.  A lot of it came from my taking in the current television shows and pop culture available to me at the time.  Back then, we didn't have cable or a wide access to as many stations as there are today, we only had about 5 channels to view, unless you count the grainy barely able to come in channel 11, which sometimes played the same shows as channel 7 congruently, then we had six channels.  But I digress...

Also, the Internet had yet to truly take off, so as I said above our scant access to TV, magazines, radio, the daily paper were our guide to navigate how to live in the culture of the day. 

All this to say, that we all have the tendency to look back with fondness at our past experiences.  After the hardships and wounds from the bitter slings of arrow have healed to become forgotten, we only have in our mind the happier times, the old jokes come back and make us laugh until tears spring to our eyes.  We want to reach out, re-connect with the old faces that peopled those times.

This year I have had the fortunate experience of revisiting with different facets of my past selves and for a variety of reasons been able to heal myself at those different ages, learn from them, release their wound, and travel forward with a new lightness of being.  Through different circumstances that I was brought into this year, I have visited with my 27 year old self, my 23 year old self, and my 15 year old self.  At each level, they have expressed a degree of hardship as I truly relive those painful times of doubt, insecurity, nonacceptance of who I am by being surrounded by those that do not allow me to truly be myself. 

However, the most heartbreaking was sitting with my 15 year old self after the passing of Luke Perry last March.  Luke Perry, for those who are unaware, played Dylan McKay on the nineties smash hit TV show, Beverly Hills, 90210.  Like many a fan girl of the era, I loved, adored, and crushed on him, plastering my walls with his face, vacillating between making him my object of worship or turning my attention to that of Jason Priestly.  (Ultimately, the pendulum always swung back to Luke, as I am and always have been a sucker for the bad boy.)

His loss was a major blow that felt as if a piece of my childhood had died, gone forever.  A bit of that naive outlook at life forever vanquished due to the reality of life's fragility and ultimate end.  Even though we know death is inevitable, when faced with the reality of it through the loss of someone dear, however the level of attachment, it still stings like a bitch!

So, I sat with my 15 year old self, watching the tears stream down her face, her body wracked with sobs.  She was not as easy to resolve as the 23 year old self who merely wanted to hang out with a boy she used to date of which the church had forbade or the 27 year old self who was comfortable to sit in the cafe by herself, healing the wounds of neglect from that time period.  My 15 year old was still very much a child, with no real understanding of the duties of life, unlike the twenty something selves who had experiences being a grown up. 

I've written in a previous blog from last March about my experience bringing healing to my 15 year old self, so I won't go any further with that story line.  What I do want to focus on is the desire we all have to look back with fondness and the lessons we can glean from doing just that. 

When expressing my excitement about the reboot of #BH90210 over the last few months, I have experienced some judgment from others based on the cast 'going back' and even my own fascination with the past.  But, if we were all to be truly honest with ourselves, we all look back with rose-colored glasses and all experience the same judgment from others.  This judgment is not necessarily a bad thing as a true friend can remind us of the negativity of that time period that our happy hindsight blinds us to forget. 

So, its as Tori Spelling said in the first episode of the reboot, "Maybe going back is just what we need to move forward."  In going back, we can examine every aspect of our past and find the healing to begin again. 

Its in that that I express the reasoning behind my excitement of #BH90210.  For many years, I expressed shame over my teenage obsession with Beverly Hills, 90210, to my own detriment.  I was not honoring my 15 year old self, not honoring all of who I was and ultimately who I am.  By doing so now, by proudly displaying a revised section of my closet with magazine cutouts of the cast, I am allowing a part of me, once hidden, to come forth.  And, this is not only reserved for the part of me that fixated on '90210, but all of me, warts and all, as they say. 

I accept all of it, with pride.  I accept the hard years of depression, outbursts of anger, and the happy years of celebration.  Its all made me who I am today and continually shapes how I define my path towards my destiny.  By looking back, I find the ability to not only heal, let go, but have complete pride in myself.

To quote Kelly Taylor from the original series of 90210, when faced with the choice of either Dylan or Brandon (as reflection of many a fan girl including me), she smiled with strength upon them and said,

I choose me!

Like Kelly Taylor, I do the same.  I choose me.  All of me, of all time, forever.  I choose me.

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Healing 15, 23

Increasingly in my life recently, I have felt as if the veil has been lifted, between the physical and spiritual realm.  Fresh insights and understandings heighten my life as I encounter the occurrences of daily life.  The most meaningful lesson of my life thus far this year has been the experience of finding healing and freedom within different ages of me.  

For instance, having a showcase of my original play, One Of Us, performed at a local play-reading brought back into my life a friend and former flame from the time of life the play is very loosely based upon.  This relationship started around age 23 and by restoring a friendship with this man, this red-head, I have been able to re-examine the part of myself that once fell for him and the reasons behind the relationship's demise, namely the church's intrusion in the matters of my heart.  As I struggled with these feelings, my 23 year old self asserted herself.  

"Please," she explained.  "Just let me explore this without worry, concern, or influence.  I never got that before, its very therapeutic."

So, as a good enlightened older self, I listened and let her have it, and thus the healing has begun, then as it is now.  

This last Monday, March 4th, my poor 15 year old self was dealt a heart-break of her own kind.  One of her teen heart-throbs, Luke Perry, died of a massive stroke on that day, finding this out after a morning walk where the Universe gifted me with a stock pile of heart shaped rocks.  Love in abundance, let me tell you.  

 As the shock waves erupted over me due to that loss, I was once again back into the reality of my teenage self.  I meditated upon the significance of this show in my early life and how, like most things in my past, I have been afraid to proclaim my love of and admiration for it.  As I sat through my pain, my 15 year old came to me, distraught, sobbing, at a loss for words, insisting that I buy her '90210' t-shirts as a memorabilia.  I tried to explain that the finances were not really available for this special treat, but at 15 she was still not clear on the concept of finances and the issues surrounding money.  She sat begging before me, unable to understand her emotions.

My 23 year old self was a little more understanding.  She was a recent graduate of college, was working a full-time job, had rent, and other financial issues to attend to, so thus all she requested was to hang out with the boy, maybe to grab a cup of coffee or a drink with him sometime.  Okay, that's it.  We can do that.

But, as I looked over at my 15 year old self, I took all of her in, recalling everything that was her world back then.  She had already suffered the heartbreak of two boyfriends leaving her, one of which who had bounced into a relationship with her so-called best friend, maybe an hour after giving her the big dump.  One of her other friends had disappeared off to Chico with her boyfriend and just vanished from her life.  (You  have to remember this was basically pre-Internet or cellphone, so there was no real instant communication, unless face to face.)  Her siblings had all gone off to college, leaving her at home alone with her parents.  She was trapped up on a hill above a very small rural vineyard-filled town.  She was very much alone and very much depressed, and if she hadn't already, she had made her first suicidal gesture.  She'd spend much of June, laying in her bed, unable to move until 12:00 pm, when she would begrudgingly pull herself from bed, until the Prozac kicked in and elevated her mood, a bit, just a bit.  Beverly Hills, 90210 was more than an escape, but just as much apart of her understanding of the world as her physical surroundings.   Added to this, death is a lot more intense than having an old flame return to your life, especially to a young naive 15 year old girl who had yet to experience the reality of mortality.  

So, yeah, I gave in and bought her those t-shirts and immediately the crease in her brow relaxed, the crying lessened, she sighed deeply.  It wasn't that that I had spoiled her rotten, instead I had allowed her to feel heard, which made her feel she mattered, which lessened the extent of her far-reaching pain.  So much of her life, and mine, I have spent personally de-valuing me and allowing myself to be devalued by others, to not share myself in fear of being rejected, losing out on love.  That same day, I made the public announcement of my love for Beverly Hills, 90210, another facet of acknowledging my younger self and releasing myself and her from living in any sense of shame.

Its just a TV show after all, from the 90's.  But, the act of proclamation runs deeper than that.  Its proclaiming with pride who I am, what I value, and receiving love from those who equally value me.  Its allowing myself the freedom to express myself and the reassurance of being heard, thus my value and self-confidence grows exponentially.

When death comes in, I always am gifted with a valuable lesson by the one passing onward.  I feel grateful that by his passing, Luke Perry helped me to acknowledge a deeper love and appreciation for myself, a willingness to be open, vulnerable, and truthful.  Basically, allowing me to come into myself more fully and be truly me.  I am eternally grateful to him for that as well as the entire cast of my beloved teen favorite TV show, Beverly Hills, 90210.  Rest In Power, Luke & much love to his cast-mates, many thanks, 15 year old Lia!

Death Is Nothing At All