Your essence determines who you are, and it uses the personality’s mind, feeling nature and physical body through which to express itself. To answer the question ‘Who are you?’ is the most difficult challenge because your essence, or soul, is infinite. Therefore every answer you give enables you to reveal some insight into who you are. Each day ask yourself this question and reveal an answer. What is your answer today? Soul Signs
This the quote that spoke to me this morning while I search for who I am and why I am having difficultly finding space and time to write my pages/blog. For my old personality or old habits seem to have reinvaded my body, asserting its behavior on my everyday self. Who are you? Is a powerful moving question, one that I have journeyed within for, as well as journeyed without for as well. Essence being infinite, the search is never-ending, always discovery, uncovering, hidden aspects of my self, my soul, of who I am and who I am not.
Laurie ask during our Mid-week check in about what happens to me when my Mother is here :
When your mother is in your same geographic location, you see less confident, and not as sure-footed. It’s as if you question the value of your artistic creation. It’s as if you question your personal quality and contribution. This maybe true and I have struggled and worked on this for sometime now.
I wonder why you change when she’s around. It’s almost as if you discount your value (put yourself in the “discount bin”) when she’s there. And then once she’s gone, you bounce back and you hold your head high again. For some reason I seem to get in her head, I hear all the words she said to me as a child and teenager. Her way was to express, that she saw more in me and wished I lived up to that. Yet I did not know what that is? So living up to, became, not really showing up, because I did not know what living up to was. I have done much work on this area, yet it still grabs me, still causes old habits to express themselves and new now moments to wait until the storm is over to check if it is safe.
Mom’s behavior is not a conscious thing, she believes she is offering encouragement and in a way she is. It is my reaction to her presence that seems to pull me away from myself. The myself that is soul/essences ever infinite.
So that being said Mom left two days ago. and I have been unveiling myself in the past few hours to get out from under the spell. I began to straighten out my room, throw things away, freshen the air so to speak, to make room for the change. I did email the coffee shop in Westmont who has monthly featured artist work displayed on their walls. I have even before mom left, been out everyday taking photographs. Hunting and gathering for Fungi and Mushrooms that seem to pop up out of nowhere once we have some wet, humid weather. So those discoveries have been fun to find and photograph. Offers a bit of a challenge, and new excitement! I have the Salem County Peace Festival 4 H fair coming up in few weeks and we can display and sell art there. This morning I got a message from http://www.Redbubble.com that I sold a shot in the form of card, Yellow Heels !!! To an unknown buyer!
I have been out in the yard, cutting grass and tending the garden a little bit at a time. We have Eggplants and green tomatoes, a few red plum tomatoes, peppers plants are not doing well, and struggling to grow. I am not sure we will get any thing from them. Since I don’t know a whole lot about what I am doing I just spend some time in the space to weed, to smell the scent of the plants and herb. There has been a Lemon Balm plant that I pass in the wood everyday that I am going to bring a piece back to plant. I think I should really, concentrate on a herb garden, I feel more drawn to that experience. The experience of fragrance and uses of herbs have fascinated me for sometime as well as Oil essences for energy and healing.
I was interrupted by a photo shoot of eggplants and walk with the dogs so I think I am done with these pages for now, oh yeah and a phone call from Mom!
Growth Question: Who are you?
I am Love, Jeff
the reluctant bloger 
Hell I don’t know. I’ve mentioned this before in talks with you though, that for such a long time I’ve defined myself solely through other people (i.e., I’m “Scott’s wife,” “Emily/Kady/Shannon’s mom,” “Mike & Dottie Kaye’s girl”–as they still call me back home; never daughter…too many syllables I guess; always “girl”). I’ll never measure up against my mom’s expectations for me; I don’t think it’s possible, except in the area of the mate I chose. I used to joke & say that if I hadn’t married Scott Amos, my mother wouldn’t like me at all. *LOL* And even though her favorite thing in the world to say to me is the reminder that the world doesn’t revolve around me (DUHHHH), I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten to a place where I can say “Aaaah. She loves me” without qualifying it with “and I know she means well.” Doesn’t matter if she means well or not; she loves me and that’s what matters. It’s almost like we go into our parents’ presence(s) and immediately become 10 years old again, in trouble for whatever childhood meanness we got into, no matter how old we are or what the circumstance. I got grounded once because Tim and Ben were playing crusades–think…Burger King crowns, kitchen curtains tied around their necks as capes, and tree limbs as swords–and beat each other bloody. No broken bones, just a lot of scratches, cuts, and scrapes. But I didn’t run and tell mom, so I got in trouble for not looking out for them, like it was MY fault that they didn’t have better sense than to beat each other with sticks??? *lol* Guess that’s why she thinks she has to remind me that the world doesn’t revolve around me.
Saturday night, I went out into my front yard and cast a circle, settled in to burn a candle each for my cousin and her husband who are trying to have a baby. Had my earbuds in, listening to songs that I’d picked specifically for that purpose. Without even thinking, I passed my hand back and forth over the tops of the candle flames, not close enough to burn myself but close enough to feel the heat, and then stopped and just let it hover over them. It was a typically suffocatingly humid Saturday night on the Gulf Coast, nothing stirring, not even the slightest breeze, and I made the bath I took completely pointless by sitting outside in it. I shifted my hand to the right, and the candle flames “bent” to the right. I pulled my hand away and they stayed bent at an almost perfect 90-degree angle. I played with them for a bit, not sure I believed what I was seeing but was still excited for a minute, until the voice that speaks to me in moment like these said “This is the absolute least you can do.” I told Scott about the candles; not sure he took me seriously or humored me, but it really doesn’t matter if he did or not. *lol*
Maybe it doesn’t answer “who” I am, but I am waking up.
Love, peace, & serendipity. 😉
Jeff – These are fantastic photographs. I can’t make up my mind as to which one’s my favorite.
Growth Question: Who are you?
I am Divine Love expressed as an individual.
I will answer the growth question first, Jeff. I am an eternal presence (easy). I am here to fully become my true presence. I recognize the issues that I need to work through and resolve when I find myself doing things I don’t want to do, being in places I don’t want to be, and not being where I want to be. I am God, the Universal Consciousness, Spirit, Oneness, the Divine Forever, all manifested singularly in this one human body. This is my chance to evolve, grow, become, connect, and let go of everything that is holding me back. And I better stop writing this now, because this is YOUR blog, NOT mine!
I read your post with some interest, especially your response to your mother’s presence. The psychotherapist in me wants to say it is unfinished business. There is a child in you who still needs something from her that she is never going to give and that child comes present in her presence still seeking that healing. If that is so, then you and only you have the power to give that child what he needs. You can connect with that child regardless of whether or not she is present and find out what he needs, then give it to him from your love. The next time she is around, see if that child comes forward again. It may take a couple of times because you may have more than one child stuck. Well, that’s enough of my advice.
The presence in me admires the way you are facing into doing what you want, being who you are, and willingly struggling when struggle is appropriate. You continue to walk your path in relentless pursuit of your own truth. What else is there to live for?
Good morning, Jeff. I actually kind of did Artist Way morning pages today…well at least a page of writing down what I want and don’t want. Now that Kiah is gone it feels like the energy is consolidating to settle down and look at things more clearly. Thought about you while writing.
Interesting discussion about your mom. I picked up a book the other day by Geneen Roth called “Women, Food and God”. I am not so much interested in the food aspect of the book, but the analogies between obsession/compulsions and spirituality/God. She talks about the Voice in our head. The Voice is usually someone like our mother or father who has settled into our head from an early age.
When we ask the question “Who am I?” she believes that what we’re aiming to discover is that we are not The Voice. So that when we hear the voice in our head telling us we’re bad, we’re stupid, we’re (fill in the blank) we can know definitively that it is just a pattern. We do not have to listen to it, do not have to act out, do not have to pay attention to it. It’s simply doing its job–speaking to us from childhood, telling us what we needed to know (then) to survive.
So! Who am I today? Today I am the joy which the Voice (OK, I would call them Voices) try to cover up. I am pure creative energy moving in the world, returning to stillness, moving in the world…
Thank you! This blog was a gift to those of us who read it, I’m sure.
Mushrooms!!! These are delightful pictures, Jeff! And I love the color of eggplants!
“Who am I? is the only question worth asking and the only one never answered.”
~ Deepak Chopra
I agree with you, “the search is never-ending, always discovery, uncovering.” There is never a final answer, or even a “correct” answer, a stopping point, where we can say “I am me now.” I think many adults find it hard to be true to themselves around their parents… it’s as if falling back into the familiar role of uncertain child is the path of least resistance. Some parents make it easy for their children to be authentically who they are, and some make it impossible, and some are inconsistent, sometimes encouraging and other times not supportive to various degrees. Some mean well, but are clueless about the effect they are having on their adult children.
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
~ Kurt Vonnegut
Especially careful around our parents if they are toxic parents… Never easy, but worth the struggle in the long run.
Congratulations on the sale to an unknown customer!
Growth Question: Who are you? Jeff, I think you answer it at the end of each blog post. You are Love. As for myself, today I’m pretending to be a writer finding her voice…
I love reading your writing and seeing your great images help me stay grounded.
Hugs and Love
Lou