Fran’s been here visiting with me, off and on for the past few weeks. If you’ve read Long Time No See, you know about Fran from Sedona. If this blog post is your first intro to her, I will tell you Fran is, among other things, a powerful synchronicity magnet.
Translation: When she does that Fran thing of focusing deeply in tune with present-moment awareness, the “divine coincidence” starts to flow all around, as an outward sign of gentle communion with All That Is.
So we were walking on my favorite beach here in Ventura, the other day. There’s something about this place. I’ve had so many spiritual experiences on this beach, I’ve lost count; I even wrote about it in LTNS. And when Fran and I walk this beach together, the synchronicities pile up. New awarenesses unfold. Big stuff happens.
We went there with no agenda in mind. A short walk for some fresh air. It turned into our longest beachwalk ever – and what emerged from it is a new workshop series that Fran and I will be conducting together, here in Ventura. Here at this beach.
The inspiration flowed, and we started to realize we were feeling called to share too much information to fit into a one-day workshop. It should probably be a full weekend. And it really ought to take place within walking distance of this beach so all participants could get here easily, which meant the workshop would have to happen in a nearby hotel ballroom.
I watched my mind as it began making tired old assumptions and inventing stale, familiar stories of lack: People will pay for a one-day workshop, but will they come for two days? And won’t a hotel meeting room be too expensive? After all, only big famous spiritual speakers book hotels as venues. The rest of us make do with funky backroom spaces attached to bookstores or yoga studios.
(It’s not even like I think hotel ballrooms are nice – they have no natural light, pinkish-tan chairs and those Vegas chandeliers from the 1980s. But even so, in some part of my belief system, they’ve been too good, too legitimate, for me and my work.)
And so Fran and I had a very deep discussion about trusting and allowing abundance; about letting go of old mental stories; about doing what feels authentically right, doing what you feel genuinely called to do. And how when you step up courageously and joyfully to do whatever it is you’re meant to be doing, the inevitable response from the universal One Self is always recognition and support.
And I heard it. I felt it. And all those old stories fell away. We were absolutely confident, but more than that, we felt a deep knowing that this information we’re called to share is so truly hungered for by so many. And it’s time to start putting it out there.
So we’ll book the hotel it’s meant to be in, whatever the costs involved. And whoever is drawn to be at this workshop will show up. It was clear to both of us that we should feel absolutely free to create this workshop series exactly the way we feel inspired to do it, and then trust it will come to pass.
Just then we both looked down and saw something lying in the sand. Something round and flat and sort of strange. What could it be? A thin crosscut piece of wood? A plastic disk? Fran nudged it with her toe. Finally she bent and turned it over. It was a sand dollar.
Let me repeat that with a little more emphasis: It was a sand dollar. And I almost didn’t recognize it. Almost left it lying there, face down in the sand.
This, ladies and gents, is a prime example of the language of synchronicity. Is a sand dollar on a beach unusual? No. But this is the first one I’ve ever seen in my 9 years here. This sand dollar’s appearance wasn’t accidental. And it wasn’t saying, ‘Hey, you two can make a buck (a dollar) by putting on workshops together in the sand.’
This sand dollar was a gentle affirmation saying, ‘Yes! Go for it. Be fearless about living your truest self, about doing what authentically brings you joy. And don’t worry about the rest.’
So we listened to that little sand dollar’s message. We stopped at the hotel on our way home, all windblown and sandy, to ask if they have meeting rooms. Why yes, we have meeting rooms. Let us show you our very nicest one.
Our jaws dropped as we stepped into a beautiful sunny room, its glass walls overlooking a sea of sailboats bobbing in the marina. A pair of French doors led to its own private outdoor patio complete with a beautiful rock fireplace.
I looked around and thought: Honey, I’m home.
• • •
Did I mention? We got the room for a price not very much higher than the cost of a fluorescent-lit backroom of a bookstore.
So there you go. It’s a brave new world, and I’m happy to call it mine. Our first workshop will be held in mid-August, by the way. For more info about it, go to http://www.carrietriffet.com/events.php .
The Truth Within the Truth
Recently I returned from the October 2011 retreat workshop taught in Pecos, New Mexico by Nouk Sanchez and Stacy Sully. I assumed this New Mexico workshop would be valuable, powerful, moving. I never dreamed it would change my life forever.
First off, I should tell you I only went as an observer. (Nouk and I will be teaching a 9-day retreat workshop in Germany in April of 2012, so it seemed like a good idea for me to attend this New Mexico version to start planning how to blend our teaching methods.)
Nobody else on Earth is teaching exactly this information in exactly this way. Sure, this would technically be considered an ACIM (A Course in Miracles, that is) workshop. The curriculum definitely stems from ACIM, and at first glance may all seem very familiar if you’ve been studying the Course for awhile. (Incidentally, you don’t have to be any sort of ACIM expert to attend one of these workshops—but it will damn sure help to have at least a passing familiarity with it.)
But this ACIM-based information is being taught in a way that’s radically new. In the past year (after her partner Tomas Vieira’s passing), Nouk underwent a ton of personal transformation. Some real ‘dark night of the soul’ stuff, as you can imagine, in the aftermath of those events. And in answer to her fervent prayers, she began receiving direct transmissions from Spirit showing her how to much more deeply understand—and teach—the true message and meaning of the Course.
Combined with this astonishing new clarity of interpretation, is Nouk’s own personal experience—which came during that aforementioned ‘dark night’—of releasing all ego attachment in order to surrender total trust to Spirit.
(No, if you’re wondering, she doesn’t yet abide in this awakened, ego-free state permanently. It comes and goes.)
Anyway, the result of all this is phenomenal: Nouk is offering the deep, direct scoop on how to rapidly awaken from the dream, and it’s delivered straight from the Source. This info is absolutely accurately true to the Course, yet at the same time a radical reinterpretation that cuts straight through to the non-dual heart of the teaching.
As I listened to her teach this workshop, it felt as if a powerful, yet gentle surgeon’s scalpel was deftly slicing away all the areas of confusion; of fuzzy thinking; of mistaken ego interpretation that have commonly plagued our collective understanding of the Course until now.
And she teaches all this not merely as mental theory, but from direct experience and inner knowing. She has personally experienced each one of the releases, each of the healings, and all the miracles she’s teaching about.
And, and, as she delivers this information to us, Nouk is constantly listening to her inner Teacher. She pauses to receive added explanations or clearer wording so that any confusion among listeners can be reduced or eliminated. It’s a living process, in other words, a Partnership of teachings being delivered in ‘real time,’ flowing according to the needs and capacity of the listeners who are present.
So that’s a small description of Nouk’s contribution. What’s Stacy’s role, you ask? Why is this new person who isn’t Tomas up there sharing the stage? This is a brief recap, in Nouk’s own words, of how Stacy came to be a part of this teaching process:
“Tomas and I met Stacy Sully in early 2009. Tomas chose to leave physical form in December of 2010. During his final 10 months, Stacy (a powerfully intuitive energy healer) devoted herself to taking Tomas through a very deep and joyful process of releasing fear and undoing the remnants of ego. The outcome for Tomas was a monumental dropping away of fear, and a delivery into Joy and immense trust.
Stacy and I continue to be very close because we share the same goal. Our priority is the peace of God; now we wish to help others undo the one cause of suffering without delay.”
Stacy’s role in these workshops, while much more subtle than Nouk’s, is absolutely vital as well. Stacy’s verbal contributions are filled with quiet wisdom and are always valuable; but what’s absolutely unique and totally essential to the process, is the energy work she does silently, internally, to support the listeners throughout the workshop.
She lovingly ‘holds the space,’ as they say, working on an energetic level with the group as a whole, as well as individuals who need it. (Yes, she can see and read that invisible stuff going on in each of us. It’s ok; you can trust her.) Without speaking or engaging the conscious mind of anybody in the room, she gently helps participants to open their hearts and authentically absorb the very challenging info that Nouk is presenting.
There is a great flow transpiring between Nouk, Stacy and Spirit, in other words. Stacy silently assists each listener to release any blocks, resistance or fear that come up during the workshop. She also helps ground everybody present, so the information doesn’t get stuck in the mind as intellectual theory, but instead becomes integrated into the heart. Through establishing this ‘grounding channel,’ Stacy supports a deeply anchored experience of present awareness in each person’s heart—a direct embodied understanding.
(While in ‘Truth with a capital T’ our energy and our bodies are illusory, the human experience is that bodies and energy are where we hold our unconscious ego blocks rigidly in place, here in the dream world. Stacy’s gift is to help soften those blocks so they can be released if we’re ready. The fewer ego blocks we embrace, the more we can authentically know ourselves as the one True Self that is beyond all dreams of bodies and energy. Stacy’s work is used exclusively to help us accomplish this.)
Stacy’s work relies entirely on the willingness and readiness of the person involved. (Nothing would ever happen without your authentic permission, in other words.) Combined with Nouk’s uncompromising, paradigm-busting material and exercises, Stacy can help workshop attendees experience openings and healings right and left, if they’re genuinely ready.
For me, core stuff that has resisted healing my whole life has begun to fall away in huge chunks after hanging with Nouk and Stacy these few days. But even more than that, it’s like my whole orientation has been subtly turned to True North: It’s as if all my life, every cell in my being has unknowingly contained iron filings within it; and this workshop permanently magnetized all the iron filings, causing me to feel gently but firmly pulled toward a homecoming with God.
The best part is, Nouk and Stacy are just getting started in this paradigm shift. This workshop was only the beginning. There’s lots and lots more info to share—only so much could be squeezed into 2.5 working days.
Going forward (starting with the German workshop in April of 2012), we’ll be joining forces to present these workshops. Nouk and Stacy will be doing their Divinely inspired thing, and I will be providing the nitty-gritty ‘boots on the ground’ examples of how this stuff gets integrated into everyday life. The three of us working together will be an awesome joining, I can feel it.
* * *
So. Are these workshops right for you? To quote Anaïs Nin, “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Translation: Are you ready and willing to face and accept your deepest unconscious ego crap, (whatever it may be) and allow it to be gently released? If so, then yes! This workshop series is definitely for you.
If you’re willing to face and accept just some of your unconscious stuff, these workshops may still be for you, although, understandably, you’ll probably get a bit less out of them. Still, great honking chunks of old personal baggage may fall away for you, too, as a result.
But between you and me, if you’re still happy to remain ‘tight in the bud,’ as Anaïs would say…then you’re probably better off staying home. At least for now. Participating in one of these workshops is an agreement to get on the bullet train of forgiveness. It could cause a fair amount of motion sickness if you’re not quite ready for it.
Having said all that…only you will know if you’re ready for this or not. Well, only you and Spirit. My advice? Ask for Guidance, see what feels right. If the answer is yes, then do whatever it takes to get yourself to one of these workshops ASAP. Seriously.
* * *
Future workshop info: Along with the April 2012 Retreat in Germany, Nouk, Stacy and I will facilitate additional retreats at the beautiful Pecos Monastery in New Mexico. The first retreat is open to those who have previously attended a Power of Power – Know Thyself Retreat and will be held in the early summer of 2012. The second retreat is a Level One, 4-Day Power of Power – Know Thyself Retreat in the later Summer of 2012 in New Mexico. If you are interested in attending, please let us know in advance, as our guidance is to keep the groups small, around 20 participants only. Dates, prices and details will be released soon. Please email Sparo Vigil to let us know your interest: sparo.arika@yahoo.com.
For more about Nouk, Stacy, workshops and whatnot, go to http://www.undoing-the-ego.org
To listen to this article, please use this audio player –
I pledge allegiance to…what, exactly?
Awhile back I wrote about pledging allegiance to Love. About making the choice to side with spiritual truth (even though spiritual truth still mostly feels like abstract theory). And against this 3-D world of illusion (even though the workings of the 3-D world still seem so real).
Well. I suppose the decision to choose is a start. But it isn’t much more than that.
Oh, it felt big at the time. But the decision itself only opened a door. And that doorway gave me my first clear view of the road ahead: It’s a hell of a vista.
• • •
Mind you, it’s been a long journey of discovery just getting this far. I would use this analogy to describe it:
It’s like it took me 20 years to realize I had feet and hands. Another year or so figuring out how they worked. Then I was given a pair of one-pound weights, so I spent a few years more teaching myself how to exercise with them.
Much self-congratulation accompanied all this progress. Who was more serious than I, about waking up to the truth of all reality? Who was moving more purposefully down their chosen path toward the constant awareness of Love’s presence?
I exercised faithfully, except when I was too busy. Or too tired. Or too distracted. Or not in the mood. When I wasn’t training, I spent my time watching daytime soaps and eating deep-fried Twinkies. And yet I genuinely wondered why the Olympic Committee never came calling…
All this newfound fitness has allowed me to climb steadily and ever higher, pausing every few steps to admire the valley below and to celebrate having made it this far. Now I’ve finally reached the top of the hill … and it turns out this is just the bunny slope.
I look up for the first time, and notice the commitment to truth that is yet to be honored. You remember…the commitment I made to choose Love instead of the world’s dark fantasies. Yep, it’s still there waiting patiently for me.
It turns out this commitment is a friggin’ mountain, and it goes straight up. My puny muscles are laughably unfit for the task.
• • •
It’s an uncomfortable place to be, this small spot at the top of the bunny slope. The truth is, I hate aerobic exercise, and I’m still damned fond of those Twinkies. Learning to mountain climb doesn’t sound like much fun to a flabby couch potato like me.
And yet.
Heading back down the hill – giving up the quest for awakening, and going back to treating the 3-D world as if it’s real – that would be unthinkable. Not an option.
I’m awake enough to smell what the 3-D world is made of, and it stinks.
No, I could never go back. But on the other hand, I can’t stand still in this spot on this hill forever. Hell, I don’t even want to stand here one more day.
So I guess that leaves me only one choice, and I’d better start seriously gathering my strength.
Because that mountain isn’t going to climb itself.
THE SELLING OF SPIRITUALITY, INC.
In ‘real life’ (i.e. my paying job) I sometimes help my clients with marketing and branding of their products. That means I find ways to promise customers deep emotional satisfaction as a result of buying my client’s products. It’s a powerful sales strategy.
I would never lie to promote a product. But let’s just say I know how to position the truth in the best possible light.
I like what I do for a living, by the way. And I have no problem with implying that a certain brand of dogfood will bring you closer to nature as you form ever deeper bonds of love with your pet.
Who knows. It might.
It’s very good dogfood, actually.
But I find I really don’t want to apply these sales skills to my own spiritual “products.” I’m completely turned off when I see others do it. I understand why they do it. These techniques work. And no judgment on those guys for promoting their books and workshops as best they can.
But it leaves me in a sort of quandary. Especially with workshops. To sponsor a workshop is a leap of faith for an event organizer. There are upfront costs involved. They put money on the line to bring a workshop presenter to town. And they could lose their shirts if not enough people sign up.
As a workshop presenter, I feel a sense of obligation – I want them to make their money back. And that means I need to do my part in helping persuade folks to plunk down hard-earned cash to come spend a day with me. What better way than by promising a deep emotional payoff when they buy my quality product?
In this workshop, you’ll…
• GET – permanent inner peace
• LEARN – the secrets of the universe
• BECOME – lighter than air
• BLAH – blah blah blah blah
The truth is this:
I – or any workshop presenter – can lay out all the TOOLS for attaining peace of mind or a happy relationship or a closer connection with God. Or whatever the goal happens to be. The tools themselves are magnificent. But we can’t actually make anybody pick up the screwdriver and USE it, you know what I’m saying?
What a person gets out of a book or workshop is something I have no control over. It depends entirely on who they are and where they’re at, at the time.
So it feels inauthentic to me to make promises I know I can’t keep. And yet if I don’t “sell” my workshops by assuring the buyer of the miraculous emotional benefits they’ll get…will they still want to come?
My first workshop in Louisiana is coming up in May. I wrote a kind of weird, not-very-compelling flyer for them to use to advertise it. And now I’ve just agreed to co-present a 5-day retreat workshop in Hawaii with Gary Renard in June.
Eek.
Other than gorgeous scenery and a tan, I wonder what I can comfortably “sell” about that one?
I guess the only answer is to hand it all over to Spirit and trust that a new paradigm is being born: One in which honesty trumps emotional manipulation, and the “customer” is trusted to make decisions for themselves.
Much love to you, as we inch our way into honest interaction together.
xoxo
Carrie
The road less traveled
I’ve been planning the cover for the next book, The Enlightenment Project. After viewing dozens of shots of empty roads in lonesome landscapes, I chose an image of the Southwest. An empty highway heading toward some red rock formations.
I could’ve picked any background shot but this is the one that spoke to me, the one that seemed to best hint of the “road” to enlightenment.
Today I got an email from Fran (of InnerVision 12 fame), she was poking around on my website to see what was new, and commented that she loves the computerized image of Monument Valley.
At first I had no idea what she was referring to. And then I just started to laugh.
A few years ago, she and I took off together and did a 5-day InnerVision journey throughout the 4 corners of the Southwest. Lots of mind-boggling spiritual experiences in lots of locations like Spider Rock, Mexican Hat and Valley of the Gods.
But the one place I HATED was Monument Valley. I expected to love it, of course. Who doesn’t love Monument Valley? But it creeped me out, and I thought it was hideously ugly.
To me, it looked strip-mined. A ruined wasteland.
In Fran’s words, “Monument Valley is a powerful energetic reminder of truth. It represents ‘in your face, here I am, no apologies’ presence… It holds a message of ‘stand raw and naked, hidden by nothing.’ Just as the monuments themselves do.”
Well no wonder I hated it.
Fran commented at the time that my extreme negative reaction to the energy of Monument Valley clearly represented something in myself that I’d have to face sooner or later.
I said yeah, whatever, and we headed for the next powerful site. I never looked back.
Pretty funny, then, that I singled out this photo to describe my own journey.
Even funnier: Fran tells me there is no such bright, shiny highway. Somebody photoshopped it in.
And both of these things seem very appropriate. The discomfort I originally felt in Monument Valley was due to very deep fears I hadn’t yet faced in my own life. This book is all about uncovering and facing those fears.
And the fact that the road I picture doesn’t actually exist …
Well, that’s perfect. What could be a more accurate way to talk about enlightenment?
Be the change you wish to write about
My next book, The Enlightenment Project, is almost finished. I’ve been really happy with it so far. I didn’t feel like it was missing anything.
Except for one thing: I had this weird persistent feeling all along that the book was shorter than it was supposed to be. Not by a lot, just maybe 8 or 10 pages. But I couldn’t quite explain the feeling, so I shrugged it off and kept going.
Meanwhile, I’d recently teamed up with Jan Cook, booking agent extraordinaire, so that I can start traveling around teaching workshops. I know that’s what I’m meant to be doing; Spirit has made that abundantly clear on many, many occasions. But I’d been resisting it with every molecule of my being.
I know fear of public speaking afflicts like 93% of humanity. I don’t flatter myself that my problem is unique. I just know it runs really, really deep with me, and its tangled threads of self-loathing are a big part of the distorted fabric of my whole self-identity. Even after all these years, I still don’t like to be seen.
I’ve made tons of progress, of course. I’m fine with writing books or telling personal stories now.
But any form of public speaking (even a brief telephone interview) is enough to send me round the bend beforehand, in anticipation. Afterwards is no better – that brief trip into the spotlight is experienced as such a stark violation, I always need a long recovery period afterward of hiding in darkness.
I agreed to stop resisting all this public viewing months ago. I surrendered it all to Spirit. Yet my October speaking gig in Sedona was still enormously difficult, and interviews since then have gotten harder, not easier.
Now I’m scheduled to teach a one-day workshop in Louisiana in May. I know the information itself that I’ll be teaching (thanks to Spirit) is wonderful. But I hit the wall over the seemingly hopeless depth of my public speaking problem. This isn’t the focus I want to carry with me into that workshop. Self-obsessed shyness and fear and ancient tangled up pain and self-hatred are not what I want the underlying energy of that workshop to be about.
I mean, why get on a plane and fly someplace to teach, if I’m so gripped by mistaken self-perception that I can’t even see the other folks in the room as they really are?
So I made a small shift in my intention this morning. I decided to stop perceiving my problem as hopeless. I decided it’s immaterial how tangled or complex or deep it has always seemed. I don’t need to understand each of those tangled threads; I just need to be done hanging onto them. All mistaken perceptions melt away with equal ease, when truth is honestly desired instead. And now I honestly desire truth instead.
So my change of intention is: This problem is already over with. I’ve given Spirit full permission to help heal my misperceptions by whatever means necessary. No holds barred. The steps involved are of no consequence to me; only the outcome matters. And as a result I know with full confidence this painful self-hatred and fear are already things of the past.
Now I look forward to public speaking with a faint sort of tingly joy. Does that mean the problem has resolved itself already? Oh hell no. The deep forgiveness work is still to be done. Only the intention has changed. Yet now I can imagine how wonderful it will be to teach, when I’m free to care about the wellbeing of the other people present, instead of spending 8 hours in violent self-torment.
And I realized that’s what’s been missing from the new book. First I need to undergo this wonderful transformation, freeing myself from my prison of fear and self-judgment once and for all, and then I need to write it down as a useful example for others.
It should make a pretty good story.
HDTV Forgiveness
Ever feel like daily spiritual discipline is a whole lotta work with no immediate payoff here in the 3-D world?
All this effort to retrain my mind to see the world correctly, you think, yet I’m still reacting to the crap around me in the same old ways. That’s how it feels sometimes, at least for me.
I know all this forgiveness work is hugely powerful in terms of healing my ego mind – I can feel it happening more and more all the time – but somehow divine love never seems to be my first reaction to anything.
Well, until yesterday. That’s when I got the opportunity to see just how far I’ve really come.
My husband, like many guys, is a tech geek. I, like many women, am not. He’s been lobbying for high definition TV for about a year now. Me, I harbor no desire to see the pancake makeup actors wear to cover their pores. Especially when it’s going to cost me an extra $20 a month for the privilege.
Truth be told, I’m not so in love with TV at all, anymore. It just isn’t any fun, watching cataclysmic ego stories of good and evil. But Kurt likes it, and he really wanted that HDTV. So I relented.
And then it turned out it came with hidden fees that made the total more like $32 extra per month. Kurt took it as a personal crusade, spending hours on the phone with the DirecTV people. But they wouldn’t budge.
So he removed the DirecTV satellite dish and switched to Dish Network instead. Dish Network (compared to DirecTV) comes with a user interface straight out of the Stone Age. It’s clunky, nonsensical and needlessly complex, making even the simplest functions a difficult mess. So much so that it puts me off watching TV altogether. That’s how much I hate using that remote on that interface.
In earlier times, I would’ve been really bummed out about that. But what the hey, I’ve been looking for a reason to watch less TV. Now I’ve found it.
Yesterday as I juggled my own hectic workday, in the background I could hear Kurt on the phone with DirecTV for what seemed like hours. He emerged afterward looking flushed and upset; I thought he might burst into tears.
“It’s really terrible,” he said, flinching a little, and I realized he had something he was afraid to tell me; he was bracing himself for my reaction. “I had to sign a brand new 24 month contract when we ordered the HDTV,” he said, “and DirecTV refuses to let us out of that contract. We owe them almost $500 in cancellation fees.”
The old me, the me I’ve been all my life, would not have taken that news calmly. I’d have let him have it with both barrels for dragging me down this HDTV road in the first place, leaving me with a new TV watching experience I absolutely hate, and $500 poorer to boot. I’d have made a major drama out of it, remaining secretly resentful for months afterward every time the TV was switched on.
But it wasn’t the old me. I listened peacefully to his unhappy tale, observed the fear and frustration on his face, and immediately thought: It’s just money. You are the perfect light of heaven, and I have no desire to punish you. Because you’re not guilty of anything.
It wasn’t a forgiveness exercise – that was my honest-to-God first reaction. I then broadened the forgiveness to include all of Dish Network (who would charge the same cancellation fees if we bailed on them) and all of DirecTV. They’re taking our money, but they’re really just calling for love. It’s all perfect, exactly as it is.
Astonishingly, the whole mess has never interrupted my peace for even a moment. And I’d pay a hell of a lot more than $500 for that kind of joyous serenity, any day.
So I guess the moral of the story is: Keep doing those forgiveness exercises, kids. Keep retraining your mind to see the truth of Oneness in everything, because you never know when it’ll actually start sinking in.
Five paragraphs that say it all
A dear friend recently shared this poem with me. If I could only write with such perfectly abbreviated clarity as this, my own book would’ve been approximately 351 pages shorter.
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
Chapter 1
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost … I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
Chapter 2
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter 3
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
Chapter 4
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
Chapter 5
I walk down another street.
~ Portia Nelson