A call for Beauty

Before you embark on a journey, you need something first: inspiration. You need a driving force of desire. You need to have dreamed the dream of where you're going, before you can imagine getting there. Every tree began as a blueprint, un-manifested within the seed, and sprung forth into the fullness of its' existence. It began as an 'idea' and later grew into its' realness. Right? Well, is it not the same with any other dream you have? Isn't that always the way...you gather inspiration...it germenates...it grows...you nurture that idea....it grows some more...you till its soil...you bring it into the light...and eventually you've created something spectacular.

Well, today I decided to gather all of my senses and spend the day in inspiration...See I'm at the very beginning stages of revamping my life, it seems. Like a spring cleaning for my soul, a renovation of choices, a new beginning and a strict diet of discipline all wrapped into one. And I felt called this morning to go create more Beauty in my life. More beauty in the nooks and crannies of my ideas, my choices, my lifestyle and my belongings. I feel compelled with a force that I haven't felt in a long time, and it makes me smile. Today, I woke up happier than I have felt in months, knowing that I'm about to rejuvenate my whole Life.
So I have decided to do a little experiment with myself. I am going to spend the next two weeks spending at least one hour each day chasing the beauty in the world in an effort to feel inspired, and use that inspiration to energize the changes I'm making in my Life. Now I think I've unintentionally done this before, we all have. When I put on cd on in the morning, that's really what I'm doing. When I go outside to soak up the sunshine and sip my morning coffee, that's what I'm doing.
But this quest is intentional. I want to grow the changes I'm making in the most sincere, beautiful way...Here are the rules: Spend at least one hour, EACH DAY. EVERYDAY for the next two weeks inspiring myself. I will look at, taste, listen to, smell and feel at least one thing that makes me feel alive, that offers inspiration and brings Beauty into my day. And then, as I don't want to be a selfish hoarder of this yumminess, I will have to find a way to inspire someone else before the day is over. I'm hoping to discipline myself into doing this indefinitely if all goes well.
Ready...Set....GO!!

DAY ONE
1) Listen to something that inspires you.



Singing this song in the car this morning....doesn't get much better.

2) Observe something that inspires you.

The blues were so amazing this morning!...Nature always recharges my battery and makes me remember the simple things...and I feel so at home and serene.

Plus, looking at the little buds reminded me that spring is coming! And that before it blossoms, every little flower was a pretty little bud first. (wow. The cheese factor of this blog just shot way up)

3) Feel something that inspires you.

Okay, okay. As cheesy as it sounds, the sunlight really does inspire me for some reason. I love the way it feels on my face!

4) Smell something that inspires you.
I love the smell of old books! So I went to the Rhino Books, the King of Never-Ending-Story-like- book stores.

5) Taste something that inspires you.
Uhm. The fresh ground peanut butter at Whole Foods...and fresh strawberries. Breakfast was the bomb.

6) Then I have to inspire someone else to pay it forward. This is the tricky one...There are still several hours left in the day to get this done  :)

I'm excited to see what unfolds.....Oh and if you wanna come join me on this adventure, that would be rad! Who knows what kind of trend we'll start  :)

Coming out of the dark

Wow. A lot can happen in 3 months. I haven't posted anything since October 11, 2011. And hot damn! It's baffling sometimes to see so many changes happening in your mind set. Sometimes I can't believe how subtly Life works, how intricately woven our lives are. How people are placed in our way for reasons that we cannot begin to fathom. How you can think that something was meant to happen for one reason and come to find out, it happened for a completely different one! It's amazing, isn't it? To think you KNOW why things happen, and then you're proven totally wrong. God has a marvelous sense of humor.
***
That's the thing about lessons. You don't know what they are until you've learned them. Being in the middle of a lesson can be so discombobulating (fuck, I love that word). I've just come out the other end of so many lessons. Like I got stirred up, shaken, mixed, blended and spit out.
I think the reason why we feel this way when we're learning something is because we're coming out of denial. Some would say that all the information you need is within you. That all the wisdom, the awareness, the intuition--it's ALREADY there inside you. Waiting for you. Waiting patiently for you to discover it. And what's standing between YOU and IT is thick layers of accumulated crap. Layers of issues, or trauma, or abuse or confusion or suffering. The Buddhists believe that the Noble Truth is waiting for you to uncover it, and your mind gets in the way. Christians believe that Salvation is there waiting for you, and your sin is in the way. But call it what you will. What's really just there between you and the Truth is some pretty hefty denial.
See that 'shaken, stirred up' feeling, I believe is the sensation that we experience when we are coming out of denial, and waking up to some aspect of the Truth. Like a re-entry. I think it's the same as a space shuttle coming back to Earth. Re-entry is a wild ride, right? There's crazy heat and violent shaking and turbulence and I'm sure that shit is scary when it happens. Well, when you wake up to some new reality, or to some Truth that you've been avoiding, isn't it kind of a similar experience?? Think about it.....
Some of you might understand this because you know what it's like to get sober. Some of you might understand this because you know what's it's like to finally break away from that unhealthy relationship you stayed in WAY past the expiration date (I hate it when I do that). Some of you might understand this because you know what it's like to detox from something, or because you know what it's like to revamp your lifestyle. Shit isn't easy is it?
Here's the thing though. That turbulence is a sign that you're actually doing something right. If you were still just coasting along, unaware, ignorant or oblivious, it's probably indicative that you are still numbed out. Change is uncomfortable. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you something. That turbulence is also a beacon, by the way. Pain and discomfort are both the most amazing beacons that God gave us. Wanna know why? Because if you've got them, there's probably something going on in your life that you need to look at. Something going on in your life that you haven't REALLY dealt with. Something going on under the surface that you're hiding from. So instead of running from it, or avoiding it, you can listen to it. You can see the pain for the big fat sign that it is- saying "Hello! Pay attention. This needs healing!"
We're such funny little things. Trying to avoid pain. Trying to avoid discomfort. I laugh at myself all the time cuz the very things that I do to try to AVOID my pain actually cause me more pain. Hell, I spent a good chunk of 2011 stuck in the mire because I didn't want to accept the unfortunate reality of a relationship I was in. I always forget that trying to avoid the Truth will actually cause you more pain than surrendering to the Truth to begin with. But we still run. We still avoid it. We still try to hide from it or cover it up or find a quick fix to avert our attention. Sometimes I wonder what God must think of us, running around hiding from ourselves all the time. And then I wonder why we have this mechanism to begin with. Why is it that we are able to shut people out, shut our emotions out, keep our feelings at bay, push our souls so far down that we barely recognize ourselves. Why is it that we are able to pick and choose what we want to see and hear? Why don't we just experience Life with full blown awareness?
Then I remember that full blown awareness might actually blow out little minds...Like being fully aware that we are on a rock, hurlding through space, and will eventually die off or destroy ourselves. That everything you do will be contained within the memory of this planet and when this planet dies, everything you've ever done, everything you've ever said, will be forgotten forever. It kind of makes you wonder "Well, fuck. What's the point?" Doesn't it.
So maybe God did us a favor by giving us the ability to go into denial. Maybe he gave us that gift so that we can alleviate the loneliness of KNOWing and actually enjoy our lives. Like He know the Truth was just too much to take, so he gave us the ability to shut it out. It's ironic, though, isn't it...the very thing that we have to make survival a little more bearable is the same thing that keeps us in the dark about our lives. Almost like the mechanism that we use to keep us from suffering, is capable of causing us more suffering.
Interesting...Anyone else see the beautiful irony here?    :)

Do I have to 'title' this?

Once again, I have no idea why I'm writing today. It just felt like it needed to happen. So I'm here, tapping away at the keys....driven by that mysterious illusive force that comes and goes as it pleases. 

Life is hard. I don't say that in an 'oh, poor me' way. I don't say that as a martyr or a victim. I don't even say that to sound dramatic. It's funny, I remember reading a Buddhist book a few years ago and the opening line read "Life is suffering." And I distinctly remember my reaction: "F-U-C-K THAT. Life isn't supposed to be full of suffering. Life is joyful and blissful and full wonder. I refuse to believe this horse shit. Suffering is for the weak minded and for those who can't take responsibility for their own choices. I don't suffer. I'm beyond it."

Now, today, I can see that this old point of view was riddled with self-righteousness and probably some denial if I'm being honest. But the more Life I live, the more I see. The more I go through, the more real I am with myself and other people, the more I have actually come to agree with the statement that used to make my skin crawl. 

Life is fucking difficult sometimes. People die. Tragedy strikes suddenly. One of my best friends died suddenly last week from a simple bicycle accident. There were no cars. There were no dogs running out in the road. His chain popped and he flew off, hit his head and died 12 hours later. People change. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes they self-destruct. Parents fail to show up for you, even in moments when you desperately wish they could. Friends leave. Hope waxes and wanes. I have a fulltime job and I'm still one unexpected expense away from homelessness. I go through life most days trying to maintain a sense of wonder and optimism despite the constant hum of hopelessness that buzzes in the background of my mind. Sometimes I stay in situations longer than I should. Sometimes I am selfish. I am not high and mighty like I once believed I was. I am not better than or immune to pain like I once believed I could be. Some days I wonder what's the point. Somedays I shuffle along as if I'm under water, life seems blurry and heavy and I would rather crawl under a rock than try to smile. 

Yesterday, I was having one of those days. When the feeling of morose mediocrity seemed to be swallowing me whole. I spent the morning recovering from a nightmare-induced migraine followed by what I can only describe as an hour of cleansing tears. There was no 'poor pitiful me' involved. It was more a dazed sense of hazy withdrawl from life. I felt like I was wandering through a thick sea of mud, depressed and resigned to my apathy. And do you know what pulled me out of it? It wasn't the phone call to my sponsor, it wasn't the analytical efforts that my mind was making to drag me back into peace, it wasn't the long talk I had with a mentor that rocked me back into the flow. No. It was the light. Literally. I was gazing out of the window at work around sunset and I caught a glimpse of the setting sun hitting the tops of the trees off in the distance. A fiery golden blanket lighting up the green canaopy. And I stood there, noticing how beautiful it all was. Nothing fancy. Nothing mind blowing. Just Mother Nature painting a simple picture across the landscape. And that made me feel alive. In that simple moment, watching the colors change, watching the leaves burn gold, watching the trees standing tall and proud, I remembered. "Oh there's Life. There She is. Isn't She lovely." And I watched myself as my burden lightened. As my cheeks warmed up. As my eyes opened and a smile washed across my face. 

So yes. Life is suffering. But there are always hidden beauties waiting around the corner to be discovered. No it's not grand or majestic moments that captivate me. It's simple, humble moments. Like Life's own little built in 'reset' button. Behind the matrix of our day-to-day lives, Life force/God/Beauty/Spirit is always buzzing. Always creating something so simply lovely that you can't help but notice it's charm. Sure the mourning will continue. The hopeless hum will still plague me. The difficult decisions are still waiting to be made. I'll still struggle. The wrestling match between me and God might carry on. The tears will still come when I drop into sorrow. But there will always be that light, glistening off the tree tops. There will always be a smiling baby who lights up a room. There will always be the yin to the yang. There will always be the rose bushes beckoning my attention. There will always be the smell of freshly cut grass and there will always be the happiness I feel when my boyfriend rolls over in the middle of the night to say "I love you."

Life IS hard. Anyone who says it's easy is probably trying to sell you something. But it's the moments of simple serenity that make it a little lighter. The moments of sweetness that bring the joy and the ease. There is a balance. ANd for today, I'll keep my eyes open to the invitations to remember that balance will come as long as I am open to see it. 

A Beautiful Mind

Have you ever thought about how amazing the human mind is? I mean REALLY thought about it. Think about how baffling it is that we can even have a memory. That we can time travel back through the sea of moments that define our lives. That I can still remember the way the breeze felt on my face that day in the fall, sitting on a pile of lumber in front of the house I grew up in. That I can still remember the way my favorite pink jacket felt against my arms, the texture of the polyblend still palpable to me 30 years later. I was riding in my boyfriend's old pick up truck the other day, and the sweet musty smell shooting from the vents rocketed me right back to all those times I would sit beside my Granddaddy Tucker, nestled in the passenger seat of his truck, bundled up in my boots and my winter coat, feeling confidently peaceful knowing that I was his grandchild.

How amazing is it to have the ability to download any particular combination of sensations like that? Or to question yourself? To be able to watch yourself move through your day, noticing the subtle nuances of feelings and memories that come up? How amazing to be able to have an experience in the present moment that somehow makes sense out of a moment that happened decades ago, or to see the pain in someone's eyes today that floods you with compassion for another someone who broke your heart 15 years ago. Does anyone else think about how down right unbelievable this is?

And then to consider all of those moments when your mind is capable of playing tricks on you. In the same lifetime. Moving from a Wizard of Magical Processing to a Warlock of Mayhem. It can become a tormentor, ravaging you with illusive perception. Taunting you with doubt and confusion and forcing you into a battle with yourself. The same mind that recalled beautiful rainbows in the sky can make you feel so unsafe, spiraling into a paranoid abyss where nothing is sacred and everything is out to get you.
Does our mind really have a mind of it's own? Or is something else going on?
Could it be that your mind is almost like a living breathing organism...and that perhaps the shape it takes depends upon the food you give it...If you feed it well and nourish it, it produces lovely leaves of wisdom and fragrant flowers of insight. But if you poison it, undermine it or ruin it's soil it becomes withered, weak and worn down. Now you can't control what kind of poison crept in when you were little. I couldn't control the conditioning that I got from my mother or my father or my school teachers. I couldn't control the fact that my father became psychotic before he died. I couldn't control the mid-night trips to my grandmother's house, the unexplained uprooting that my mother had to do to keep me and my sister safe from his insanity. I couldn't control the abuse or the teasing or the bullying in school. Blah blah blah, I could go on and on. My point is that none of us could control what happened to us as children. None of us could control the insidious mind alterations that went on. None of us could control the way our sweet little minds were fashioned back then. If you were born with beautiful, intricately woven, royal gowns, and shit happens---then you end up with frays and loose ends, tattered sleeves, rips and tears. Sometimes the rags that are left are almost unrecognizable in comparison to the original form. Isn't your mind the same? At some point most of us become unrecognizable to ourselves. Some of us experience this early on, some of us later in life. But it's bound to happen. Some of us go down hard and fast, swirling at the speed of light into self-destruction. Some of us tip toe into oblivion. Some of us crumble in spurts, one step forward two steps back. Some of us creep along down the detour so slowly that we almost don't know we're veering off track. Now you might consider this a defect. But after all that I've been through, I have come to see that the temptation to get hooked into self-destruction is always ripe with the opportunity to save yourself. In fact, I believe that self-destruction is one of those most powerful energies out there, because it's teaming with desperation and rooted in the primal desire we have to transcend. Within each moment, there is a Potential. It's alive and pulsing with the breath of the universal desire to change.
The mind IS a beautiful thing. One of my most favorite parts about the human mind.....it has a built it homing device. A built in mechanism that, once activated, literally has the capacity to unwind years of bad wiring. Our minds have the capacity to spin wildly out of control, BUT they also have an innately lovely capacity to wake themselves back up. Isn't that incredible. An Inner Wake Up Call, so to speak. It's really frickin remarkable when you think about it. I mean really. Stop for a moment and think about how AMAZING that is. Your mind can capitulate your demise AND it can catalyze your salvation. That's nothing short of magic.
In the same way that your body KNOWS when it's under attack, and KNOWS the exact moment that it needs to start producing the antibodies, a part of you always knows when you've gone too far, when you need to reel yourself in and come back. And in the same vein, your body doesn't just say "Okay, bacteria be gone." The healing process is always more painful than the initial onset of infection. You can't actually FEEL the moment when your body is invaded. You only feel your body's reaction to the invasion. The swelling, the snot, the sneezing, the headache, the lymph node inflammation...that's all your body's way of healing and flushing the foreigners out. Right?
So naturally everything works the same way with your mind. You may not FEEL the mental cling-ons, the negative beliefs or insane legacy when it's created, but you sure as hell feel it when they're on their way OUT. And you probably have felt the long term affects of shitty thought patterns and negative thought cycles. The fatigue, the hopelessness, the depression, the weirdly dysfunctional behavior, the counter-intuitive isolation. Physical pain is the body's beacon, an internal alert system trying to get our attention. "Alert! Alert! Something's wrong. Please act accordingly." Mental pain, in my opinion, is the same thing. "Hello! Something's not right here. What you're doing is not okay!" Pain is a built in alarm system, designed to activate your internal police officers so that you can get help. Thank God for your pain. It works. It gets your attention. Your pain might be your salvation.
After all is said and done, there is a part of You that is always leading you, guiding and mothering you. There is always a Bigger You watching over, knowing exactly when to step in and say "Enough, now." Are you listening?
One of the most intriguing, mesmerizing, ineffable attributes of being Human: We still have Free Will. We can listen to that silent voice, inviting us back into wholeness. Or we can ignore it.
But we can never destroy it. We can never really drown it out, despite our best efforts at covering it up, avoiding it, badgering it, smashing it or suffocating it. It always there. And it's always waiting for you to listen. The amazing part is that ignoring this Calling will create more havoc, it will make the insanity louder, it will make your suffering more severe. Life will become unbearable unless you listen. I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty fucking fantastic. If that's not a demonstration of Divine Re-direction I don't know what is.

In nature, the remedy to a poisonous plant is usually located in the chemical make-up of a neighboring plant. Sometimes these plants will even be growing side-by-side. Inherent in Mother Nature's design lies the poison and the medicine. Well, we're not very different are we. The solution to your problems (the medicine) is always waiting close by, patiently awaiting the invitation to heal you....Life will ALWAYS show you the remedy. If you open your eyes you can see that Life will ALWAYS give you subtle hints. Life will always put someone or something in your life to save you. If you truly want to save yourself, you can't help but reflect that desire, and Life can't help but mirror your desire right back to you. It might take the form of another person, a relationship, a child, a colleague, a book or even a facebook post. When you decide to call yourself back into holiness, Life will answer in the most unusually beautiful ways.
You should try it sometime.   :)

The Art of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is such a strange, illusory thing. Really, when you think about it, it's the most intangible experience out there. For me it is anyway. I mean look at Love. When I think "Okay, what does Love look like?" or "What can I do that's loving?" Several acts automatically spring to mind. Love means being honest, and compassionate and taking action in a way that's in someone else's best interest. Love is selfless and sometimes ruthless and heart opening. Or Kindness. I know what it means to be kind and I understand what an act of Kindness looks like. It's  holding the door for a stranger, or buying a cup of coffee for the person behind you in the line at Starbucks, for no reason. (One of my favorite things to do...) Compassion makes perfect sense to me, it comes when I see the pain in someone else's eyes and something in my heart opens up to them.
And then there's Forgiveness. It never happens when I want it to, I can't force it into existence or will it into happening. I can't just snap my fingers and say "Forgive!" But I can make myself be Patient, even when I don't want to be. I can make myself be Kind, even when I don't want to be. I can make myself be Honest, even if every bone in my body wants to lie. But Forgiveness....think about it for a minute...
What I've come to realize is that Forgiveness comes when I have experienced a series of events that allows me to see life through the other person's eyes. When one thing happens, that causes something else to happen, which puts me in a position to experience something else, which magically places me right in the middle of one of those 'ah-ha' moments....the kind where a light goes on  and suddenly you see things in a totally different light. I can never plan that moment. I never know when it's coming. In fact, it must be spontaneous. If I tried to force it, it simply wouldn't happen. It's the epitomy of irony: if I try to orchestrate it, it won't happen.
So how does it happen then? Well, I have no idea how it happens, but I can tell you what I do to open myself up for it's possibility. This is what I came up with years ago when I started to notice that Forgiveness is the result of an alignment of experiences for me. (Well, it's actually just nature's way of changing my point of view about someone or something, and it just happens to feel like an alignment to me.) I use the word alignment because that's what it looks like in retrospect. Ever find yourself having had some profound realization and then your Mind's Eye starts to trace things back? And you feel so overwhelmed, befuddled and grateful at the same time because you can't help but think "Wow. I had to experience ALL of that to get here. If I would have missed any of it, I wouldn't have wound up where I am right here, in this very moment." Life is just so quagmirically amazing to me. (I think I just invented a new, and might I add awesome, word.)
And one of the coolest things that happens to me in the land of Forgiveness...when I find myself having a conversation with someone else that someone has just had with me.
You all may remember the abysmal emotional rut that I was in about six months ago, how bitter and recoiled and frustrated and cynically anguished I was. Good grief I was miserable. But the delicious kind of miserable, I must add. The kind of misery that spawns an enormous breakthrough. The kind of misery that's alive and full of rich, meaty wisdom. At the edge of the breakthrough, almost like standing at the edge of a proverbial cliff, I reached out to an old friend of mine. And do you know that the exact words that she delivered to me three months ago were the words that came out of me last night. Someone in my life might be standing at the same precipise that I found myself dangling from. And I could appreciate the anguish the frustration, the grouch, the anger-wrought pain in such a lovely way because I remembered mine so well. "You're either about to have a breakdown or a breakthrough. The breakdown will eventually lead to a breakthrough as well, actually. So strike that statement. You're headed for a breakthrough no matter what you do. All this kicking and screaming that you're doing is good. The more frustrated you get, the better the surrender will be. This is all a blessing."
Last night I could see the same tension and fuck-it-all in this person's eyes. I could see the same torment, the same lack of faith in humanity, the same if-God-was-standing-in-front-of-me-I-would-kick-him-in-the-nuts attitude swirling all over their words and thoughts. I could see myself. And therefore had SO much compassion and love pouring out of me, to see another person suffering through the same lesson you just learned is one of the most amazing experiences you will ever have. Every time it happens I'm amazed and grateful.
So my point here, if it's even necessary to make a point, is that when this alignment happened bewteen me and my friend last night, an unexpected waze of forgiveness washed over me. Like my compassion for my friend helped me reach another level of acceptance for myself. We're all trudging through the same life lessons, the same fears haunt us, the same growth awaits us, the same enlightenment beckons us. So it's really all the same work that we're all doing together. But isn't it magical when you find yourself looking into someone else's eyes and seeing your life in there? Seeing your struggle, your breakthough-about-to-happen written all over their face. It's difficult to describe that sense of connection, but it's there. And it's amazing. I firmly believe that when you're ready to start seeing all of this wild inter-connectedness, God will present it to you. And when you have truly faced your demons. Faced your demons so many times that you actually come to a point where you love and embrace them, where you don't push them away but welcome them because you know they're about to lead you towards an ever deepening sense of yourself. When you ACCEPT the good and the bad as blessings, that's when God shows himself to you again and again through other people's suffering. When you face yourself, you are truly able to look into the face of another and see your lessons staring back at you. I had so much love for my friends frustration, I could barely contain it. That might sound weird to some of you, and it might sound very familiar to others. But that's exactly what it felt like to me. I wanted to hug and squeeze all of their pain, because I was already grateful for it. I didn't shower them with fear or worry or judgment. Yes, those all came up. Of course they come up when someone's telling you they don't care about anything anymore. My fear came up, but my gratitude and compassion were stronger. I'm kind of just now realizing what an incredible moment that was last night as I'm typing these words right now. (So pardon my ecstasy.) I sat there, in the little epiphany egg we were creating, and unconsciously and intentionally (yes, both at the same time. It's totally possible) showered this person with all my love. Who knows what kind of effect that had. I might never know what that felt like to them. But it doesn't matter. It's the most honest kind of reflection that stares back at you in those moments. I SAW them, and they SAW me. What and who we see isn't even important. It's the fact that you open yourself up to truly see another person that's important, I think. What they see in you isn't really any of your business, it's the fact that you were brave enough to be transparent in front of someone else. Just as what I saw in my friend's experience isn't REALLY any of my business either, it's the fact that I know that I was fully and completley present as a reflection for them that matters. Aren't we all just mirrors for each other anyway?
:)

Black holes..and the Art of Reinvention

You know when you sit down and have a conversation with someone, totally out of the blue, and during the conversation you can't help but think "Damn. This is amazing. I feel like can breathe again. It's such a relief to know that I'm not the only one who feels this way. Yay!" Well that's exactly the kind of conversation I had with one of my most favorite people in the world on Friday night. I've been having such a tough time lately, wondering why I am the way I am, wondering why things are the way they are, finding myself mad at God pretty much everyday. Wondering when I would finally be able to stop, relax, breathe and find myself out of the existential woods I've been wandering through.
Well I'm coming out of the woods. And right on time it seems. Walking out of Winter's murky hibernation just in time for Spring's colorful explosion. I haven't completely 'switched over,' I'll admit there's still some part of that wants to sleep a little longer, who's not quite ready for the bright light and red bud blossoms. Just like the month of March and it's notorious indecision, I'm a little shaky. But I can feel things changing. Finally.
I can't even begin to describe how ridiculously synchronistic these last couple of weeks have been. It's like one serendipitous opportunity after the other. All hokeyness aside: things have been lining up quite magically lately. Not in a Boom! POw! kind of way. But in a much more quiet, simple, fluid kind of way. It's not been a fast and furious river of guidance. It's been, hahaha, more like a sweet little brook carrying me in the right direction.
So, back to this amazing conversation----
I poured my guts out to my friend Jp over the weekend. We sat there, in the smokey corner of the Goldrush, and wandered through a conversation about Life, Death, Love, Art, Heartbreak and the Big Black hole of Loneliness. God I love those talks. I am not the only one who feels the way I do. I am not the only person who knows what the "Big, evil, blackhole" feels like. Do you know what a relief it was to sit across from someone and describe the emotional abyss that I fall into and have them know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Good grief.
Now if you must know. The "Big Black Hole of Abysmal Darkness" (yes the descriptive is growing) that I'm talking about opens up a few times a month and swallows me whole. Like light slipping past the event horizon, there's not much I can do once I start sliding in its direction. I usually end up in a ball,  curled up in some random corner of my apartment, weeping. No not one of those dramatic, sobbing kind of weeps. An honest, to the core, kind of mourning. I feel totally alone, I feel totally disconnected, like I'm floating in a sea of black light. It feels like dying. It feels like I'm grieving all the illusion around me. I don't fight it anymore, I just surrender and let it take me into whatever secret corner of strange wisdom it wants to show me.
And Jp knew exactly what I was talking about. He knows what the black hole is like too.
"If we're the astrological babies, then maybe we have the closest relationship to Death. We understand how fleeting it all is." Man I love that kid.
See what we have decided was that this might be an Aries thing. I don't know anyone else who understands it quite like we do. Now I don't buy into all the mumbo-jumbo that astrology tends to peddle, but I do believe in my own personal experiences. And I believe in the experiences of other people. And the semblance of our points of view is uncanny. We are the little babies, the ruthless pioneers, the outlandishly creative and inventive people. Its tragic to see an Aries 1) without an audience or 2) without passion in her life.Like toddlers, we thrive on affecting our environment. On touching and seeing and feeling and grabbing and pushing and pulling everything around us, always molding and creating and perceiving in the fleshiest of ways. I adore perception in the flash. I love building things, either in my own mind or right out in the open. I love taking an idea and making it a reality. Taking a desire and watching it come to life. That's everything to me. I am a cacophony, and I always will be.
Now, the catch 22 of being this creative, of being this spontaneity-driven, is the looming trap of stagnation. Hold me back, (or hold myself back) and I feel like I'm dying. See, my demise: boredom. It's always the boredom, or uselessness that hurls me into the black hole. It's always the idle time that flings me into depression. If I'm not accessing a creative outlet or affecting my world in some way, talking about my ideas or fashioning new ways to express myself, I will start to shrivel. Hence the blog, the burlesque dancing, the costume making, the  singing, the photography, the adventures, the exploration, the energy work, the spiritual conquests, the poetry, the travel....
But the tricky part is that I will get bored with each and everyone of these things at some point and I'll have to keep going, keep inspiring myself, and find something new and novel to channel all that passion. And let's face it, to stay sane. A stagnating Aries is a beast you never want to meet. SO I have to change things up constantly. I have to find ways to make my life novel and new and exciting.
(No I do not have a problem with commitment, for those of you who have been psychoanalyzing me.)
I am not commitment-phobic as I once believed I might be. When I commit, I do it fully and completely and with everything that I have. The problem is not in committing to things, the problem is the inevitably I will grow tired of even the most exciting endeavor and wind up bored and tired and stagnant if I don't constantly reinvent or inspire myself. The idea of doing ONE thing forever, or walking down ONE path makes me feel like bending iron, or throwing something breakable. But the idea of living spherically, in many directions at once, makes me want to smile so big my cheeks hurt. The idea of pouring myself completely into one idea or project, then just as fervently pouring myself into something else is freedom to me.
I've had so many people ask me lately "But don't you want to master something? Don't you want to pick one path? Isn't it a relief to find your calling and know that you don't have to keep looking for something else that you're good at?"
My response: Fuck no.
When someone asks me these questions, I feel nausiated. (Seriously. Even now, writing about it, my face is all scrunched up and my stomach has cramped up.)
For me, choosing ONE thing and spending decades "mastering" it feels like a death sentence. I'd rather be shot. See, I've found many callings. I've found many things I'm good at, that I love and enjoy. But that's never satisfying to me. Quite honestly, even picking three or four things feels like the electric chair. But the Art of Reinvention. The idea of dreaming up new dreams, new off-the-cuff ways for me to express myself. That's what gets me. One purpose? One calling? No. For me it will be a swirling, dancing vortex of change all my life.
(Oddly enough it doesn't apply to relationships. The idea of committing to one person for a long period of time makes me feel comforted and peaceful. Almost as if I'll be relieved to find that kind of a playmate  :) See even my ideas of consistency are inconsistent. Ha!)
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All that being said. I think everyone must have their own particular place on the wheel. If I'm an Idea Maker, a Curious, Creative little Pioneer, then there must be some of you out there who thrive on carrying ideas into fruition. There must be some of you out there who love the idea of settling into one career, who take great comfort in knowing and realizing one dream. There must be some of you out there who are in love with the idea of revision, of editing and tweaking ideas so that they translate into application. Some of you might really enjoy supporting, being behind the scenes as silent nurturers....Right? So here's my idea of utopia: why not LET the idea makers be the idea makers. And let the Appliers apply. Let the Editors edit. Do you know how utterly miserable it is for me to pretend that I'm okay with supporting someone else's ideas at work? Or to pretend I'm still motivated once I've figured everything out? Ugh. Once I know HOW to do something, once I've figured out the game, I'm done. And it doesn't take me long. I started a new job a month ago and I've already figured out the ins and outs of the system. I'm already bored. Imagine that. Wouldn't it be grand if I could just go around sprouting ideas for people, hang out for a little while to see the response, and move on. Or metaphorically build something, smooth it, sand it, decorate it, revel in it, and then move on and create something else. Oh my god. That would be amazing. (Yes yes yes, I realize that these blogs of mine are as much of a brainstorm as they are an outlet...)
***
So perhaps I am coming out of the limbo that I've been inhabiting for the past year or so. Perhaps I am on the cusp of something new and exciting and fresh and whimsically divine. It sure does feel like it. The other night I decided to start a mural on my living room wall--didn't see that one coming. But the wall was just waiting for it, asking it for it, staring at me blankly as if it wanted to get all dolled up. So maybe I'll have to add 'painter' to my list. Who knows. But something's there, waiting for me to unleash it. Can't wait to see what happens next...

Am I missing something?

Okay. So. Everyone always talks about the inevitable bitter cynicism that often comes with age. The inevitable grouch that follows years of sour experiences. And, funny enough, I used to be one of those girls who baulked at it. Who tossed her hair and flung her hands in the face of all the grumpy sods who said "Just you wait. One day you'll get it. One day you'll understand why we're so bitter."
And ha-ha. Here I am. A self-admitted cynic. Well, a playful smiling cynic, but a cynic nonetheless. (Did I just admit to being an oxymoron?) But I can't help but wonder, from this place of semi-resignation, what comes after bitter and cynical? Honestly. I'd like to know if there's something else coming along.
It's a strange place to be in. Past the Rebellion of my teens, past the insatiable Idealism of my 20's, and now I'm sitting in the Realism of my 30's, which of course usually translates in Cynicism to be quite honest. But I can't help but wonder what comes next...Or maybe I'm missing something.
See for someone who's spent so much of her life always being the voice of Optimism, the voice of Idealism or the cheerful, smiling girl who always wants the best for everyone, it's a little strange that I find myself here- shrugging my shoulders at Life and simply seeing things as they are and not as they ought to be.
I suppose most people my age are either married, in a serious relationship or have kids, and perhaps that's where their renewed sense of vision might come from- a desire to love and nurture their loved ones, and provide a Life for them that exceeds the results of their own. Is that how it goes?
But seriously. I'm actually quite curious about this. Is this just a jumping off point? Or is this where the boat docks for good. I just came across a quote: "Idealism is what precedes experience, Cynicism is what follows."
And I have to say that I agree. At least, so far I agree. I mean, all cynicism is is a way of saying the truth, perhaps it's an unpleasant way of saying it, but it's still the truth. So why does it get such a bad rap? Wouldn't you rather hear the truth than some candy coated version of semi-truth?
Maybe the Greeks had it right to begin with when they said "Cynicism is an ethical doctrine which holds that the purpose of life is to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature." I can dig that.
So how did I get here.
Anybody else remember what it felt like to be standing at the culmination of your adolescence? Bright eyed and hopeful for your future. "You can do anything you set your mind to. You can be anything you want. The world is your oyster," I remember being told. There was so much promise and so much hope and so much dizzying optimism in my eyes. There was a momentum behind everything that I did and said because I felt like I was moving, searching, going forward full-steam ahead. Ready to march out into the world and find my Love, reach for the stars, make my dreams come true....And then I got into the world. Without the security blanket of innocence and naivite to shield me, the world didn't really measure up to the expectations I was spoon fed for all those years.
The truth is that Society kind of sucks. Being a grown up is annoying. The rules are shady. Well, let's face it, the rules are just plain WEIRD. Most 'grown ups' are either overly medicated, delusional, dishonest or some combination thereof. The hampster wheel that we all swore we'd never get on is actually a necessary evil unless you're independently wealthy. And once you've signed onto this 'world' it's pretty difficult to find a way to sign off and still feed yourself. So what's up? Were all the adults in my life lying to me? Were they all shoving optimism down my throat in hopes that I wouldn't make the same mistakes they did? Or did I innately breed my own sense of optimism? And is this just natural. Is Youth a natural nurturer of optimism and Age it's counterpart- wearing it down, slowly beating it to a pulp and through years of simmering rejection, hurt, disappointment and general dissatisfaction?
Or perhaps I'm missing something.
I haven't completely settled into cynicism, but I can feel myself slowly easing into the dock, wondering if it's easier to accept this point of view and grumble around for the next decade or so. But then there's still the little shimmer of hope left. The little spark of "no, not yet" that whispers in my ear every morning. It's quite entertaining actually. Hearing the battle in my head between the "Ugh. Another day. Oh the monotony. F" and the "Come on. Push through it. All of those Tibetan Monks can't be lying. What you're after is out there, just keep going, a little farther. Come on." And inevitably, I'll listen to the second voice. Begrudgingly of course.  :)
And yes, you might say, "Well suck it up. Just go find things that make you happy." And to that I will reply "Hello! Have we met? How many happy-producing things does one girl need to tip the balance." I have crazy moments of joy throughout my day, but they don't seem to wipe away the other thing- that heavy, looming "Ugh" voice is always there, tugging on me.
Now I understand why some souls would find reincarnation so appealing. It's a chance to start over and try again. An opportunity to say, "Well, maybe this time I'll get it."
And so here I am, crushing the wide eyed youngsters who're reading this blog. Sorry kids. I wish someone would have told me. And then there are all you 'older' folks out there, who I'm sure are rolling in your chairs laughing at me thinking "Hahaha. If she only knew what happens next. Silly little 30 year old. Just you wait."
Either way, I'm open to someone shattering my delusion. If that's the case. Shatter away. Tell me I'm missing something.  :)
Well, that's all for today. Welcome to my rant. I hope you had a pleasant stay.