The Castle Walls

I have started to write a couple times over the last six weeks and not much would come. I wrote a long and ponderous post about dying, but I didn't post it because I sounded like a pompous ass. Since moving out of my father's house I have been involved in arranging furniture and hanging pictures; activities that I love to do. I stand back and look at my little house and my hearts feels glad. It really is cute!

Being away from my father and brother has created turmoil. Not turmoil in that I am running over there and caring for my father, but turmoil because I'm not running over there and caring for him. I am very conflicted about the whole thing. I have not seen either of them at all since I left. Good thing/bad thing. I feel very guilty for walking away. I feel terrible that my father is alone. Yes, my brother is there, but my father might as well be alone. My brother does nothing. The woman that we hired to be a companion/driver says that she tells my father all the time to ask Karl for help, but he says Karl refuses. Which adds to my sense of guilt. I am torn and I don't really know how to approach the whole situation.

However, being away from my father and my brother has filled me with peace. I am my own person. My brother's passive aggressive behavior doesn't touch me anymore. I am away from his drinking, his smoking, his sick sexual fantasies which disgusted me. All of it and it fills me with comfort. I come home to my cute little house and it's clean. It's peaceful. And it's quiet.

All of this leads me to my castle walls. My defenses that I've constructed. I see perfectly how I am bound by my psychology. How my defenses hold me back and keep me from participating fully in life. How I am not my reactions; I am not ego and yet, my defenses define who I am in this body. How does one move pass these castle walls?

When I teach meditation I talk about our castle walls and how meditation slowly over the course of years will break down the castle walls and allows the light of God/Universe/Divine in. And it does do that, but I see very clearly how I am still confined by my walls. They are much more transparent, but they are still there. I guess this is the derivation of the saying, "hitting a wall," it is my own wall I keep running into. Crash! I am always confronted by myself and they same issues over and over. Do we ever leave them totally behind?

I echo Ronald Reagan (Oh, my God, I echo Ronald Reagan!) "Tear down that wall!"

Dear God, I am here. I am willing. Help me to move passed what holds me. Help me to move passed what binds. Be with me, Dear One. Help me to know who I am really am, so that I may know you more fully. Help me to stand naked, clothed only in my being, like a tree in winter, devoid of that behind which I hide. Amen.