The Cosmic Motor

NO SOPA

2012-01-18T08:18:00.001-08:00

2012-01-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

Tao Te Ching - 1
(translation by Stephen Mitchell)

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My favorite part of this is the two lines "Free from desire, you realize the mystery. / Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations." I've read it translated many different ways, but it all seems to add up to the idea that detaching yourself from the material is the way to be spiritual, and attaching yourself to the material is the way to understand the world. While this sounds contradictory, it really doesn't seem that way to me. To me it speaks of 'all things in moderation'. Understand the material, care for your material possessions, respect the material possessions of others, but don't overdo on the material. Learn to see the spirit, learn to look inside and communicate with your inner spiritual being but don't spend every second of your life so bound up in the ethereal that you lose your footing on the Earth. You will gain spiritual knowledge if you aren't so attached to the material that you can't focus on the inner self when you need to, and you will be able to prosper in the world if you are sufficiently aware of what's going on around you to function in communion with the world as it is.

The things you take for granted

2011-06-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

You don't realize how much you'll miss a bag of chips.

I spent some time in my home town with my siblings, helping tend to my mother. This was written during the time I was visiting her.

My mother had a heart attack in 2007 and her kids dropped everything and ran home to West Table to tend her and watch the house. I'm the youngest, and the only encumbered by a child - and three year olds are a ton of work. It's a vivid contrast to my siblings who have sons in their 20's, and a reminder of how free I was when they had young ones.

My sister had been ill, and wasn't able to help care for him at all, my nephew was only here a few days, and my brother stayed at a motel. I had some babysitting help a couple nights from the kid down the road, and was able to put my son in a local preschool (it helps to have friends in high places) during the days, but a great deal of the time I was been on my own at my Mother's house, just the Bundle and me.

After Mother's angiogram came back clean, and the pacemaker is pacing appropriately, some of the intensity was off. Not that I wasn't still busier than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, but at least I didn't need to be at the hospital constantly, and was not in danger of the nursing staff calling me in to help calm her at 2:00 a.m. I was on the hook for a lot of things, though, that normally I'd be sharing with my beloved Co Worker.

One of those things that I took for granted for many years is running out to a convenience store. Hey, it's five minutes, right? Jump in the car, drive a block or two, grab a candy bar or soda, a bag of chips or a bag of ice and hustle back home. Ah, not so when you are the sole caretaker of a Bundle. Say it's early in the evening and he's awake. Not a problem, right? Okay, he has to have shoes... they're never easy to find because he's carried them into his room and thrown them in the toybox. Shoes are on, great. Now you have to find your shoes, your purse, your wallet... keys... balance it all while you hold his hand or carry him as you walk out to the car. Get the doors open, get him up into his car seat, buckled in.

Now you're on your way. Get to the store, get him unbuckled, out, into the store and ride herd on him while you pick up your stuff. Pry the 30 things he wants but can't have out of his hands, comfort his sobbing, then get stuff paid for and back out to the car. Get the doors open, stuff inside, a child buckled back into a car seat. Home, unbuckled, carried in and undressed again. Now, try this when he's asleep. If you're desperate enough for soda or chips then you'll wake him up and dress him and go through that whole routine, you'll have ten times as much work on your hands. Chances are, you aren't desperate enough for that.

So there I sat, many of the nights I was there. Ten p.m., no milk, hungry and nothing exciting in the cabinets. Alone, no options for people to call to come over and help out. Don't get me wrong - having a Bundle is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I was never angry about it, or resentful - but those nights became some of the many crystal moments where I had to recognize my life had changed drastically.

Originally posted at TIBU on 9/13/2007, presented here with edits and additions.

Gratefulness

2011-04-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

Being grateful is healing. Noting what you are grateful for, being aware of the things and people in your life that provide you with physical and spiritual sustenance is a centering exercise and should be something we all try to do daily. I've been known to post random "gratefulnesses" as status updates in various social media, but I've decided to try to be much more faithful about it in this blog, because it seems like a good place for it. Expect some photos here, too, I want to share the visible as well as words.

Today why don't you tell someone, journal, or post somewhere a few things that you are grateful for? Right now I"m grateful for antibiotics (we all have strep), for a husband who's getting takeout, for a little boy getting to go back to school tomorrow, and for my own spirit which will rise out of the sick eventually.

Here's a photo I took earlier after I left the doctor. It made me smile, something that I am indeed grateful for this week!

A Song of Ascents (a repost from a previous blog - 2006)

2011-03-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

Psalm 131 (NRSV)

0: A Song of Ascents. Of David.
1: O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
2: But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother's breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul.
3: O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

This is what I need to learn - to calm and quiet my soul... that pesky, evil, dark little child that lives in my soul. How do you shut the child up? My own child I held and swung quietly from side to side until he calmed - it was easy and comfortable. There's no one to do that for me, I'm an adult, I can't ask anyone to hold me until I calm down, I can't ask anyone to fix what's wrong with me. I have to find it in myself, but where is it? Where is the strength to do it? What needs doing? How can I find what it is that will calm my soul in the storms that rage inside me?

Too many questions, too few answers.

This is the July 2006 calendar for the Episcopal Church’s lectionary. Each reference to the Scripture is direct linked to an online version of the NSRV, which is where I get my text.

Breathing - the bane of my existence.

2011-03-23T11:00:00.001-07:00

No lie, breathing is the hardest thing I do. You can probably guess that breath is a huge part of my thought process, given how much I mention it in this blog (and in real life, if you know me)... that comes really from about 24 years of being asthmatic. Pull up your chairs and I'll tell you a little story about that.

When I was 21 I went and did something that I had absolutely no business doing - I got married. I thought it was TWU WUV. No one else liked him, for good reason. He was way older than I was, overbearing, condescending, and convinced that he was smarter than anyone around him. He treated me like a child (and I acted like one, I take a lot of blame for that mess) and the marriage naturally imploded after five years. We went into counseling - I'll give him credit for that - although it killed his soul that the counselor suggested that I might not be to blame for every single thing. At one point he was ranting about something I didn't do, or couldn't do, and I remember he said "She should be able to do that! Everyone can do that! It's as natural as breathing!" At that point our counselor started to laugh. My ex was stunned. The counselor looked at him and said "Think about what you just said... as natural as breathing... she is asthmatic. Breathing is the -least- natural thing for her."

He completely discounted my asthma, repeatedly saying that it wasn't any big deal and refusing to believe my friends' who said that it was a dangerous condition and I could die from it. He taught me to discount it in a lot of ways, too, and I spent the next decade or so neglecting it, letting it rage out of control. Now that I finally have it under control, I spend a lot of time thinking about breath and breathing, its importance and signficance, as well as its connection to the rest of my life.

I also notice the problems I have with breathing that have nothing directly to do with asthma... in particular the fact that I hold my breath for long periods of time. I'm not sure why I do it, I just know that it can be a very serious issue when doing bodywork. Breathing during exercise is vital, to keep the energy flowing. As it is I move, realize I need to breathe, breathe, start moving again - it's a herky jerky thing with no rhythm. I want to learn to breathe naturally, in and out, and let it be a part of my movement, not an extra component.

So, when I tell people to breathe, I'm telling myself. I'm reminding -me- that I need to treat breath as what it is: the foundation of the body-mind. If you see me, ask me if I'm breathing. I'll probably thank you for reminding me.

Body and Soul

2011-03-21T14:19:00.001-07:00

I recently started (again) the long uphill trek to lose weight and get in shape. I'll be blogging about the nuts and bolts of it in another blog, but here is where I will go into more detail about the emotional aspects of what I'm doing, and some of the deeper more soul-level reasons and possibilities behind why I am where I am today.

Why am I fat? Wow. Lots of reasons. I think the most obvious ones are laziness (I got 'scared' of exercise due to some health problems), apathy, lack of motivation. I love food, I love the taste. I'm not really an emotional eater, but I eat because I want to - which is just about as bad, I think. Food is fuel, but that never got through to me. I think of food as pleasure and that's something I have to start to change.

What are your pleasures in life? I take pleasure in almost everything so it's hard to narrow a list down. My family, my friends, art, food, music. Those last three change in order from time to time. ;-)

Let's take today and think about what we find pleasure in that we should reassess, and possibly alter. Is there something that you take pleasure in that isn't so good for you? If so, why do you find it pleasurable? What needs is it meeting, and how could you meet those needs in a healthier way? Food for thought, so to speak.

Body and Soul, Art and Heart

2011-01-25T08:34:00.000-08:00

2011 is going to be a great year for me. My theme song is Whip It [Devo]. My goals involve getting my physical self into some semblance of shape (since 2010 was the year of getting my brain and emotions in gear), and trying to get on track with my business and art.

It's a good thing I look at my yearly goals as a work in progress, because I think, upon reflection and a tearful phonecall with a close friend, that another goal for 2011 needs to involve dealing with my heart. I've been so battered and scarred by love in the past that I'm holding people away. I think I feel them pushing me away, I push back - or maybe it's the other way around. Either way I end up off to the side watching other people feel like I used to feel, free and comfortable with love and emotion. I'm not free and comfortable, I'm lonely and cold. I don't have close friends besides my husband and one other and that's incredibly foreign to me. Usually I'm the one that has an incredible reservoir of dear friends, and right now I don't. I have lots of friends but very few that are close. I miss that. 2011 is about me finding out why that's the case, and fixing it.

The life of a gypsy

2011-01-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

(More or less)

I realize in my adulthood that I was simultaneously raised to be a settled, controlled, scheduled person and a gypsy. I think the best way to describe what my mother passed on to me is the ability to bloom where I'm planted. I hadn't realized until lately that after I left home for college I'd been forced to become far more of an uncontrolled, unscheduled, uncentered person than I should have been. It wasn't until I found my true home that I could look back and take a deep breath and realize how profoundly unhappy I'd become at the constant move, move, reorder, rearrange, move, move, move my life has been in the past twenty years.

I was born in 1966. My parents lived in a house way out in the country in a place I'll call West Table. They moved in town to a house we stayed in until we moved to Oklahoma City when I was three. There we lived in two different houses, one for a year or so, and the rest of the time in another house near my grade school. We left OKC when I was just about to turn 10. I remember the first house only because apparently other kids had lived there before me and buried a plethora of small plastic cars in the dirt. I found tons of them, and greatly appreciated those little archaeological expeditions.

That was 1976, and we moved home to the town of my birth, Good Old West Table. We moved into the best house I ever have or ever will live in, and the Mother lives there to this day. It is a gorgeous Victorian, built by some local Personage of Interest in the late 1800's. The house sits on an acre of ground that still is a showplace of a yard - small rock pool in the back has been home to generations of goldfish (sadly none of the original bloodlines remain), and now has a lovely rock fountain above it. Various nooks and crannies exist all over the yard, and it's shaded by trees and graced by flowers of so many varieties it would be hard to count. A huge fir tree shelters my bedroom window upstairs. There's very little that cannot be healed by a visit to my home. I lived there for 8 years until college, then technically through most of college. By the end of school I was married, but that's another residence on down the list. I've had to move back into the old house twice in adulthood, both for brief periods of time.

In 1984 I headed to college (the same state I was born in, but about four hours north) I lived mostly in the dorms, but one summer I shared an apartment with a couple friends, then a house for one year of school with my best friend - that's my favorite address of all time: Falling Leaf Lane. After another brief stint in the dorms I married, and we moved into an apartment on the outskirts of town, in a tacky little subdivision named after famous golfers. We lived on Demaret Drive. I lived there for almost four years, then it was divorce and a move to Memphis. There I lived in three different apartments. The first two were studios in an old building in Midtown, and the third was a spacious and gorgeous 3rd story walkup in the building next door. Those three years were a funny time in my life, and one that's hard to even think about on some levels, much less write about.

After having my fill of the south, we moved to New Jersey in 1996 for a few misguided and thoroughly odd months. After that it was back to my hometown and a few months of "living with Mom and Dad" before we found a house. The first house we found was perfect, and I regret moving from it. It sat on a fairly busy street in the center of my (admittedly rural) hometown, but was backed by a gigantic yard that went all the way back to a small runoff creek. Our yard sung with wildlife - I had a huge bowl of cat food left outside 24 hours a day, and it fed turtles, raccoons, fox (really), cats, possum and every other kind of wildlife you can imagine. Scary weird landlords forced us to move into another house down on the same street where we spent a year or so very happily... until the owners decided to sell after one died. We moved into the house on a street named after a tree, which promptly burned down a few months later. After that it was a very small house smack-dab in a neighborhood full of people who were fairly horrified by our odd hours and music. We went from there to the house out by the radio station, which was a joy since there were no neighbors... just wilderness, fields, deer and hawks. Big hawks. No bunnies or squirrels or mousies out there, you betcha.

From there in 2002 I came here, to the only truly stable home I've known in adulthood. With luck I'll raise my child here, and be a much more settled person than I've been allowed to be for many years.

If you were keeping score, that is 17 residences in 41 years. I didn't count the dorms, nor did I count the two times living with Mom and Dad - although I'd count them if I was counting actual physical moves from place to place. That, my friends, is too much moving for one woman. I hope I'm done - but if I'm not, by God next time I'm hiring movers!

Original TIBU publication date: 11/02/2007

Who am I?

2010-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

I have spent my entire adult life on the edge. On the edge of bad marriages, on the edge of health, on the edge of financial ruin, on the edge of homelessness. I was always so overwhelmed by the moment-to-moment needs of my life that I could never concentrate on myself in any substantive way. I put my surface emotions and needs ahead of my inner, spiritual needs, and the needs of others and financial stability ahead of everything else.

Some years ago I stumbled blindly into safety, security and clarity. It took a while for that to sink in. For the first part I fought like I always had, unable to realize I was finally out of the swamp. As time has passed I've relaxed and realized what my situation really is, that I'm not a moment away from doom like I had been for so many years.

Now I am faced with being able to work on me, to create for myself the things I've always wanted: stable mental health, stable physical health, a comfortable home. It's not too late to get started.

2011 and beyond

2010-12-29T18:43:00.000-08:00

I started this blog to discuss ideas about spiritual growth, as well as sharing essays, poetry and thoughts. 2010 was a pivotal year for me, one in which I was able to discover some of my own deeper truths and solve several mysteries that had been lurking underneath my own synapses for most of my life. Things had been brewing for some time, but 2010 was a year for planted seeds to take root. 2011 is my year to put things into action, to actually let what has blossomed become fruit. I don't make "resolutions" at New Years, because I never keep them. What I do is create a list of goals and try to work toward them - here are my goals for 2011:

Health
   *Chiropractic care
     *Nutrition tracking
     *Exercise and fitness

Actualizing creativity
     *Business marketing online and offline
     *Experimenting with new techniques
     *Writing, specifically blogging

two short poems about Memphis, Tennessee

2010-10-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

written by me in 1993/1994

Memphis

Memphis dawn cautiously greys my room
with raindrops and noise, as you lie near
moaning at times from some dream intrusion.
I am shattered, yet oddly whole - reborn,
stripped open at last in the pallid light.
The rain rhythm murmurs "forget, forgive."
You sigh sleeping and day leeches the night.
I call to you in this steely dawn
and seduce you with rain and cold daybreak.
It is morning, and I am awake.

~~

Golden Grove*

Soft Memphis spread before me,
evening forest, redgold, lightleaf,
Ghosts of old loves and past autumns
Skim the night sky -
here I am, in frail darkness
mourning for myself, and the trees unleafing.

*With sincerest apologies to Father Hopkins and the unknown Margaret.

Justice has been tossed in a trunk and thrown out to sea.

2010-09-02T07:34:00.000-07:00

Free the West Memphis Three

I had the dubious fortune of living in Memphis, Tennessee for three years, beginning in October, 1993. That May, three beautiful boys were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, right over the state line. While I lived in Memphis three innocent young men were tried and convicted for these crimes, based on little or no evidence whatsoever.

This travesty of justice has left two young men (Jesse Misskelley and Jason Baldwin) in prison for life, and one young man (Damien Echols) on death row. They sit in prison after almost two decades, waiting for someone, somehow, somewhere to undo the mess made of the trials and free them.

Jason Baldwin's significant crime was wearing hard rock t-shirts. Jesse Misskelley erred by being borderline retarded and being forced to confess by the police. Damien wore black and flirted with Wicca, the Goth lifestyle, and listened to heavy metal and rock and roll. These things obviously made him a suspect for something, anything, and this crime was as good a match for his wild ways as the police in the area were able to find. There was no other evidence linking them to the crime - just Jesse's error-ridden confession (extracted after twelve hours in interrogation, only a fraction of which was recorded) and the testimony of a few flaky kids who were said to have overheard Damien confess.

The cast of characters includes a crazy drug-addled stepfather of one of the murdered boys, himself a pretty nice looking addition to the "person of interest list", although he never was investigated. There was the bloody, mumbling man in a restaurant bathroom the evening of the murders, who the police refused to investigate at the time, but looked into a few days later. There was the cocky Chief Investigator who refused to consider there might have been a different murderer. There was an initial FBI profile that said they were looking for a Vietnam veteran based on the patterns of wounds on the children. There was the newspaper reporter who decided that since it was close to a "pagan holiday" (May 1, the murders happened on May 5th or 6th) and a full moon, it must have been a Satanic Ritual Murder. There was the local woman in trouble with the law who tried to get her young son (a friend of the murdered boys) to testify that he'd seen the whole thing from the woods. The same woman later convinced Jesse Misskelley to go to the police to give a similar story. There were the countless people in Arkansas and the surrounding area who allowed Satanic Panic to fill their hearts and make them grab at the first possible suspect: a kid who wore black and his friends.

Most of the trials hinged on the testimony of Jesse Misskelley. Jesse, with an I.Q. of 72, was subjected to God knows what by the police during those twelve hours. We know that he took and passed a lie detector test, yet was told by the police that he'd failed. An expert on coerced confessions heard the fraction of Jesse's interrogation that was recorded, and testified that it was a "classic example" of police coercion*. Jesse gave wrong piece of information after wrong piece - virtually everything he said that was right was coerced and led by the police officers. There was no physical evidence linking any of the three young men to the crime: in fact, the police department destroyed most of the physical evidence by incredibly improper crime scene behavior. There were no credible eye witnesses. There was no motive. There was nothing beyond the Satanic Panic and the rush to justice of the people in West Memphis. Nothing, yet three young men have had their lives stolen, not unlike those three young boys who were murdered.

The three were recently denied new trials despite new DNA evidence, and now they are in the midst of trying to raise over $30,000 to fund their latest appeals. It seems that the court system is bound and determined to make these men pay for something they so clearly did not do.

I was not a mother when this happened, I had at the time no interest in children, yet every day as I read the Memphis Commercial Appeal I cried at the photos of those beautiful baby faces. I still cry, especially now that I look at my son, who is not that far from the age of riding a bike and hanging out with his buddies. I cry now, for the babies, for the people who love them, and for the young men in prison and their families. I cry because I think of six lives destroyed by this travesty, and so many others touched and ripped apart forever.

I don't understand why there isn't more outrage about this. I don't know if people haven't heard of it, I don't know if people are just jaded to yet another example of perverted justice. I don't know if it's just "old news" now, after 17 years. It breaks my heart.

Please, if this raises any of your hackles, investigate it on your own. The website is full of information regarding the case including recent news and transcripts, and two different synopsis of the case, one by an interested and devoted supporter of the WM3 (Burk Sauls) and another by one of the attorneys for the case. There are also two excellent HBO movies made, Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2 which I highly recommend. Both are available at Netflix. I can direct you also to an extensive Crime Library article regarding the case, and there is a new book (Devil's Knot) that is highly recommended as well.

All that I ask is that, if you are so inclined, you share this with other people and help put this case out before the public in hopes that someday, some way something will happen to fix what has been broken. Meanwhile, say a prayer, light a candle, hold your thumbs - whatever it is you do, for the souls of the three boys, and the lives of the three men.

*1. From page 2 of Burk Sauls' case synopsis

Original TIBU publication date: 9/25/2007. Presented here with edits.

Questions from a Fat Girl

2010-09-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

This was written in response to a piece of fiction about fat girls who never get dates and are lonely and miserable. Girls who overeat because they were miserable and heartbroken. It made my heart hurt because I've had friends who went through that kind of torment on a regular basis and ended up scarred deeply from the experience.

It left me wondering though... what about us fat chicks that are the farthest from that? Why doesn't anyone hear about us? Or is it that we try to get our story out and no one believes us?

I'm fat. Yeah, really overweight - it crept up on me over the years. I was a little heavy coming out of puberty, then there was the 'Freshman 15' in college. Then I broke my foot running and that helped... 10 pounds a year over a course of years and *boom* here I am. Yes, I love food but... I don't use food as a drug. I don't use it to salve my feelings. Naturally, like all human beings once in a while some ice cream or a plate of pasta does help pacify an emotion, but it isn't any more of a problem for me than any skinny folks I know - in fact, I know some very skinny people who "emotional eat" constantly. They just have a very different metabolism than I do.

I'm not lonely. I never have been - I've had a lifetime of really sweet, good looking men who were crazy about me at every stage in my weight gain. Not because of the weight, but with it, through it, beside it. Not "in spite of" either. Yes, I've screwed up a few relationships and I've ended up with a few major duds - but none of those situations had the slightest bit to do with my weight. Only once in my life has a man given me a problem about my weight - but that was my husband (now ex) of 13 years who knew what buttons to push. I knew that he, in his right mind, thought I was lovely and sexy and amazing - it was the crazy cruel deluded person in him who knew that he could knife through my heart by cutting me with the one blade I never dreamed he'd pull out of his arsenal.

I'm not alone. I'm married to the best man ever (really, not just because he'll probably read this). I'm mother to an amazing little human and I have a treasure trove of friends, some of whom have been in my life for 40 years. Being fat has never challenged these things, has never compromised them.

I am not unhappy because I'm fat. I'm unhappy that I'm fat, but that's a totally different story - that's because I worry about my health and my ability to keep up with the Bundle. I know it's bad for me, I know I need to drop these pounds. I do sometimes down on myself because of my weight, but that's more of a habit of self-deprecation that predates the weight by years... I'm as likely to down myself because of my intellect, or my clumsiness, or my forgetfulness.

I'm not unhappy that I'm fat because I think I'm less than human, or that I think people constantly judge me for it. Yeah, maybe someone at Sizzler is thinking asshole thoughts when I go up to get a plate of food - but that's really not a worry for me. Most of the guys that I hear making comments about women being overweight are grossly fat themselves - which is a completely different rant, fat guys who say "no fat chicks"... nothing could be more amusing.

So what about it girls, am I the only person who hasn't had her life destroyed, altered or marred for the single fact of fat? Am I an anomaly or am I one of many that just don't get heard, or believed?

Originally published at TIBU on: 1/30/2008. Presented here with edits.

Fear

2010-08-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

This week's Facebook mission is to confront a fear. Talking about fear always reminds me of the Dune books, and the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

It is true, fear kills a lot of a person. If you're frightened enough of something you can create an entire lifestyle out of avoiding that particular thing. You can shroud yourself in so many protective layers that not only do you never touch the thing you fear, but you don't touch anything else. You spend so much time planning things out to keep yourself safe that you never live.

I had a conversation with a surgeon friend of mine a few weeks ago. He mentioned a guitarist he'd done a workshop with some years before, a man who is considered one of the fastest guitarists in the world. Apparently the musician has certain ways of playing that he feels have kept his hands free of carpal tunnel, and continues to play fast and practice to hone his technique. My surgeon friend and I then wandered into a discussion of making a living with your hands, and protecting them. He said that many of his friends and family over the years had cautioned him to not do this or that to save his hands. He has always shrugged these admonitions off because he believes you cannot live in fear of life, even to protect your own livelihood. Caution is healthy, fear that cripples you from living is not.

So, what fear can you face? Start off slow, there's no reason to jump into the serious phobias first. You might need help with the bigger ones, don't be afraid (there's that word again!) to seek out a professional when facing fears is challenging. Meanwhile, choose something you avoid because you are uncomfortable. Meditate on it, pray about it. Assess your life to see what impact this fear has on it, and do an old fashioned pen and paper "Pros and Cons" list. Consult your therapist, talk to trusted friends, seek out wisdom and comfort on the path. Let's all try to make our lives as fear-free as possible so that we can live fully.

This is not a poem

2010-08-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

Who am I?

I am a goddess, a whirlwind of light and life and vitality. I am this by my very nature, by my very humanity.

I am beautiful, I am stunningly beautiful even as I am short, tall, fat. skinny, gorgeous, homely. I am beautiful because I draw breath and smile and love and believe.

I hold the world in my arms, I push the world away with a gesture. I move, I sway, I dance, I eat, drink, laugh and am merry, I pulsate with the rhythm of ten billion hearts.

I cry. I weep the tears of the world from my two eyes. I hold the souls of children, men, women, animals, the unborn, the never born, the lost, the friendless, the desolate. I gather their souls about my skirts and climb the skies to heaven, descend the depths to hell, wade the vast limitless ocean of the the universe and carry them home, home, home.

Who am I?

I am the pocket of God, I peer out from His shoulder like a frail bird, I peek out from His eyes like the wanton earth.

I am fearsome; I am the thunder and lightning; I am flood, famine, death and destruction. I reap the fields with a sharpened scythe; I take the sheaves of wheat to the thresher, and grind them into meal.

I sing. I call the world into being with my song; I call the world to dusk, and bring the night on with my verses and rhymes.

Who am I?

I am a goddess. I am you, I am me. I am the universe, forever and ever, world without end. Amen.

-tdkg

Original TIBU publication date: 9/26/2007

Missions

2010-08-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

From time to time I've been doing a little thing on Facebook that I'm calling "Missions". I've had fun with it, but I think I should use this blog to explain a bit more about each one. I'll start with today's, and probably do a blog entry for the older ones I've done.

Your mission for this coming week is to follow the advice of Mikao Usui... (my interpretation of a vast variety of translations and interpretations):

Just for today try to live without anger.
Just for today be grateful for what you receive and do not worry.
Devote yourself to each thing you do. Be kind to yourself and everyone else.
Spend time each day in prayer and meditation.
Remember these words in your heart and with your lips.

I am a Reiki Master/Teacher. I began my study of Reiki when I had a chance to take a local class from a non-traditional Master in my home town about ten years ago. When both my Mother and Father were diagnosed with cancer, I decided to take my study farther and obtained a traditional Reiki Level One and Reiki Level Two. The work I did and the amazing help it seemed to give myself, them and anyone else (including my cats) that needed it convinced me that I needed to branch out and obtain a Master/Teacher Level so that I would be able to hand out this incredible gift to others. I think part of the reason that I found myself so taken with Reiki were the words of Master Usui. A translation directly from his own journals is found on his memorial:

...when it comes to teaching, first let the student understand well the Meiji Emperor's admonitory, then in the morning and in the evening let them chant and have in mind the five admonitions which are:
Don’t get angry today.
Don’t be grievous.
Express your thanks.
Be diligent in your business.
Be kind to others.

I'd like to think my version is faithful, but reflects my own personal Reiki interpretation. I hope that it gives you something to think about, and possibly helps you in your day-to-day life.

It's a dog eat dog world.

2010-07-23T05:58:00.000-07:00

So get to barking.

When I got involved with the Co-Worker* he had a Dog. Not just any Dog, he had a Beagle. I have a love-hate relationship with hounds. On one hand they are the best dogs, loyal, sweet, loveable, gorgeous. On the other hand they're the most wretched excuses for dogflesh on the planet... veritable stomachs with legs, minds solely focused on the next meal, or what they can scam off the couch, tables, out of hands. That drives me insane.

*My son, the Bundle, is referred to in the house as Boss, thus my husband is the Co-Worker. No, we did not meet at work. We met online. Really.

We realized when Bundle was about two that he really ought to have a dog. The Beagle was older when Bundle came along, and quite frankly he was cranky with the baby. Not mean, not worrisome - but not really up to the challenge of having a small troll mauling him and snuggling him, climbing on him and talking in his face constantly. He was grumpy, and growled and huffed at the Bundle regularly. He’s also incredibly neurotic (thanks to my darling’s ex who did some extremely cruel things to the Beagle as she was leaving). Other dogs seem to perk him up and reduce his neurosis, so our thoughts on the Dog topic were twofold: a pup would be good for the Old Dog and a pup would be good for a Bundle.

This was something we tossed around back and forth for about a year. We looked on rescue sites (some of the breed rescue organizations are nuts, that’s all I’m sayin’.) and we looked at local humane societies. My Beloved Co-Worker wanted another Beagle. I wanted a small dog, like a daschund (the favorite breed of my childhood). The Boss just wanted a Dog, I couldn’t tell that he’d be choosy at all as long as it loved him back. Dither, dither, dither. For all that my partner and I are fabulous at getting things done there are issues that we discuss quite endlessly and this was one. Nothing seemed to get planned, and neither of us were in a huge hurry anyway - it was just one of those things that ought to get done eventually.

Then came the fateful day that the phone rang and it was a friend of the family telling me that the Mother had suffered a heart attack and was in the ICU. Plans were made and the next morning found the Bundle and I in the van headed toward my hometown - an eight hour drive that seemed to take forever. The week was packed with angst and trips back and forth across town to the hospital. One such trip took me past a garage sale with a fated “AKC Basset Hound puppies for sale”. Hmm… the perfect compromise between Beagle and Daschund! I pulled over and called my husband. He said to find out how much, and we’d see what his “Yipe” factor on the price was. It turns out that the cost of the New Hound was about 1/6th what he’d expected, so I picked out a pup. They were very noncommittal about his next needed shots, and (not having ever owned a puppy as an adult) I had no idea how crucial timing is. I don’t remember it ever being a big deal with puppies when I was a kid, and the owners certainly didn’t tell me.

So, we finish taking care of my Mom, get her home and get her settled in. Bundle, Basset and Mama hit the road for home. The Pup was a cute little scrap, happy and bouncy and barky. Bundle was in love with his New Dog and his Dad was over the moon, too. Everyone that came to the house was in love, too, and all was well. Then the day before he was to go to the vet, he started feeling bad. You could tell. I took him in, and they said they couldn’t do the shots - get a fecal sample and come back, they said.

I’ll spare you the grosser details of the next few days - suffice it to say that after three days and three separate trips to the vet, each day taking a more skeletal and forlorn Hound, we got them to pay attention and hospitalize him. The prognosis was poor - more than poor, but my husband shielded me from the worst of the doctors’ beliefs. When Bundle asked for his puppy all I could say was “J.D. had to go to the hospital, and we might not get to see him again.” My son is a very smart three year old, and he sadly stopped asking. He seemed to understand that he might not have a puppy anymore.

About four days into his hospital stay, after they’d as much as told us every night that we wouldn’t have a puppy the next day, he was still hanging in there and they were amazed. He got stronger and happier, and (although the blood test results needed to continue to get better) the doctors said he was improving steadily. We brought him home after almost 6 days in the hospital. After he was home the final blood tests came in - he’d had a combination of Parvo and roundworms. Poor little pup was a fighter. I’m not sure I’ll be up for ever having another dog under six months old because it seems so fraught with danger.

It’s a joy to watch the dogs together - the Beagle has taken on a fatherly role toward the Basset, and he seems to have finally figured out that the little pink thing (aka the Bundle) is actually a puppy, and needs to be tolerated like a puppy should be. The Basset is learning proper puppy submission to the other Four foot and to the Two foots (which is always harder). He jumps in the air with joy - straight off his paws, but in sort of a ‘wave’ fashion, since he’s so long he can’t jump at the same time from both paws. It’s very cute. He has a way of planting these huge paws (he’s going to be a giant dog) and barking a very low and manly bark if he thinks he’s being unfairly treated (in other words not being fed). We’re so grateful that he’s still with us, and happy, and healthy. Here’s to a long Basset life!

Originally published at TIBU on: 11/15/2007 Presented here with edits and additions.

Reruns

2010-07-22T15:13:00.001-07:00

I've written many scraps of things over the years in various places and I've decided to start editing and re-posting them here. I'll still be doing entries on self-fulfillment and self-change, I'm sure I'll post photos, discuss projects I'm working on, and talk about many other things as well. This is my letter to the world, my home to talk about what I think is important in life, and hope that others might happen upon my words and appreciate them somehow.

If you are reading this, what are some topics you'd like to hear me chatter about? I might take the concept in a different direction than you expect, or tangent out to other things. Suggesting topics is a crap shoot with me.

More about breathing

2010-05-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd post a couple more breathing exercises to calm and steady the breath, and ground and center the body/mind.

Square breathing: (Start with a number that you are comfortable with - I'll use the count of four as an example.)

Breathe in to the count of four. Hold to the count of four.
Breathe out to the count of four. Hold to the count of four.

That's it. Good imagery is to imagine building and tracing a square with your breath, in a color that you associate with calm, peace and healing. This is an incredibly useful breath if you've been hyperventilating or breathing raggedly. The combination of breathing, counting and visualization is an amazing calmative.

Mind clearing:

This is a good one to do prior to meditation. It helps you clear your mind and center on what you're going to be doing. Count to five, then start at one and count to five again. Breathe normally. If you find yourself counting beyond, stop and start at one again. If you find your mind wandering (and it will), stop, try to clear it and start at one again. The constant return to one is a good centering tool, and one that will bring you back to your purpose for meditation and help keep it in mind.

Breathe and Believe

2010-05-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

These are my watchwords for 2010 - breathe and believe. As an asthmatic I know the value of breathing. As someone who's had panic attacks and other similar issues I have learned to use the same breathing exercises and techniques to calm myself and keep myself centered. It is impossible to stay angry or panicked while you focus your breathing, and focused breaths will calm you out of many moments of negative emotion.

Paramahansa Yogananda, a yogi and guru who introduced many people to yoga, referred to the "Om" as the "vibration of the cosmic motor". I think that breath is part of the sound of the cosmic motor as well. Without breath we couldn't chant or say a mantra or do anything else - breath is a basic life function. When we practice breathing as a meditation, we tune into ourselves at the most fundamental level, we tune into the universe, and we create a safe space where panic, anger, angst, fear and other negative things cannot survive.

The next time you have a panic attack or are filled with fear, angst, anger or any other destructive feeling, try my favorite breathing exercise. Begin by sitting or lying comfortably. Begin breathing slowly and deeply. Count down from 50 to 25 taking a deep inhalation on the even numbers and a deep exhalation on the odd. At 25 change to a deep inhalation and exhalation on each number. Take stock of your emotional state at 1 and see how much better you feel.

Let's save belief for another time - for today, just breathe.