I am often amazed how it is when we let go of things that we get them. I saw this in high school with lovers. There were people then that I had huge crushes on. Several times, I gave up on my crush of months, moved on, forgot, and then a year or so later, they would fall into my lap with the perfect timing, perfect situation, and I would have what I had longed for so many months before.
My former housemate, apparently, has a variation on the theme. In her life, she will work for something, strive to manifest it, be frustrated, get stubborn, and then finally leave for greener pastures. Right after she leaves, it comes to fruition without her. Perhaps it is her Aries nature. Perhaps, to make a fully astrological metaphor, she has to leave the Piscean imminent completion of a cycle to go butt heads with a new beginning because she is Aries.
Either way, I don't know. But I do know that she and I were the ideologues behind this living in community thing and she was always so frustrated that we were not, well, communal enough to satisfy her longings. Now that she has left for pagan communities in the Smokies, I find myself wrapped in community. I often spend hours a day talking with my housemates and the vast majority of my socializing is at the house. We share meals sometimes and talk about philosophy and magic and sex. We now share wine together, have even designated a communal wine cabinet (the box stuff really isn't all bad).
My former housemate, the one who wanted this and left, still comes back some weeks and is glad to be here for a couple days. She has moved on to other things she really wanted. At the same time, I wonder a bit about what would happen if I did let go of my yearnings, what might come. It seems sometimes that Time does pry them from between my fingers, little by little, as they grow well-worn.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friends With the Land
I do not believe in the ownership of land, and yet I desperately wish to own some. On the one hand, I do not believe land CAN be owned, or really even ever SHOULD be owned. I much prefer what I understand to be a more indigenous idea of living in relationship with the land.
That said, I also live in this world, this reality, and this socio-economic system, which decrees that I have ownership of these things and you have ownership of those things, and we are all allowed to do with those things exactly what we please (within the letter of the law, or at least as long as we don't get caught). For that reason, the only way I can come to be in true relationship with land is to legally own some. Otherwise, I can never know when it might be sold, developed, logged, drained, flooded, appropriated, hunted, mined, etc. Without legal ownership, I cannot protect the land that I love or have much, if any, influence over how it is treated in the hands of humans.
I know, I could choose to be in relationship with the entire earth, with all the land and sea on the planet, but honestly, my heart is not that big. My head, yes. I can think my love and send the energy of my love for the planet easily. But in my heart, when I think of the planet, I think of the green of grass in my own yard, the light coming through the leaves at the park I grew up near, the dirt I planted beans in once, and then a picture of earth from space or in an atlas with all the different countries picked out in yellows and oranges with blue oceans. In other words, I take what I have known with my own senses, and then use my mind to stretch it out to cover the world.
And since my heart is so specific to what I can see and touch and sense on an energetic level, I yearn for a parcel of land that I can see and touch and sense energetically and fall in love with, a bit of the earth to invest with my love and plant bulbs for spring on and converse with trees and honey bees on, to run around naked and make love on, and somehow I am fully dissatisfied with the corner lot grassy yard of my current home. I am so dissatisfied that I have been unwilling to bond with this partial acre because I have dreamed so intensely of leaving.
I do not believe in owning the land, and yet paradoxically I yearn to call a property my own so that I can set it free from ownership and we can be friends.
That said, I also live in this world, this reality, and this socio-economic system, which decrees that I have ownership of these things and you have ownership of those things, and we are all allowed to do with those things exactly what we please (within the letter of the law, or at least as long as we don't get caught). For that reason, the only way I can come to be in true relationship with land is to legally own some. Otherwise, I can never know when it might be sold, developed, logged, drained, flooded, appropriated, hunted, mined, etc. Without legal ownership, I cannot protect the land that I love or have much, if any, influence over how it is treated in the hands of humans.
I know, I could choose to be in relationship with the entire earth, with all the land and sea on the planet, but honestly, my heart is not that big. My head, yes. I can think my love and send the energy of my love for the planet easily. But in my heart, when I think of the planet, I think of the green of grass in my own yard, the light coming through the leaves at the park I grew up near, the dirt I planted beans in once, and then a picture of earth from space or in an atlas with all the different countries picked out in yellows and oranges with blue oceans. In other words, I take what I have known with my own senses, and then use my mind to stretch it out to cover the world.
And since my heart is so specific to what I can see and touch and sense on an energetic level, I yearn for a parcel of land that I can see and touch and sense energetically and fall in love with, a bit of the earth to invest with my love and plant bulbs for spring on and converse with trees and honey bees on, to run around naked and make love on, and somehow I am fully dissatisfied with the corner lot grassy yard of my current home. I am so dissatisfied that I have been unwilling to bond with this partial acre because I have dreamed so intensely of leaving.
I do not believe in owning the land, and yet paradoxically I yearn to call a property my own so that I can set it free from ownership and we can be friends.
A Family of Children and Trees
I went to hear Joy Harjo perform and read her poetry Friday night. My friend Thandiwe Shiprah has been dreaming of bringing her to Nashville for years, and finally managed to get the art grant money to get it done. I did have a moment of disorientation when I walked in and found out it wasn't free like a Facebook friend had said, but since I was already there in the beautiful new space of the W. O Smith Community Music School, I decided to spring for it.
Some of the lines of her poetry struck me like blows to the chest or hammers suddenly released from their moorings to ping inside my skull. One line in particular that stuck with me talked about drops of blood falling to the earth and springing up into daughters, sons, and trees. As someone on the cusp of making babies and obsessed with getting to the woods, it really resonated with me. That is exactly how I feel about life. The trees are as close to me as children, and the longing I have for them in my life is very similar to the longing I have for kids. I have also seen my partner mourn a beloved shade tree that fell in a storm, and I understood completely.
What I long for, really, is to be in full intimacy with the lives of my children and the land. I yearn to be in long term relationships with trees, to get to know kids and trees and earth as they grow ever closer to being their fullest selves, to protect the womb, the soil, from whence they come, and to nourish them with nutrients and love even as they enrich my life.
It is the same hunger, the same bone-deep longing, but until I heard that line in that poem, I had not realized. I had not seen that my yearning for land and my yearning for children are at their heart the same yearning for family of my own.
Some of the lines of her poetry struck me like blows to the chest or hammers suddenly released from their moorings to ping inside my skull. One line in particular that stuck with me talked about drops of blood falling to the earth and springing up into daughters, sons, and trees. As someone on the cusp of making babies and obsessed with getting to the woods, it really resonated with me. That is exactly how I feel about life. The trees are as close to me as children, and the longing I have for them in my life is very similar to the longing I have for kids. I have also seen my partner mourn a beloved shade tree that fell in a storm, and I understood completely.
What I long for, really, is to be in full intimacy with the lives of my children and the land. I yearn to be in long term relationships with trees, to get to know kids and trees and earth as they grow ever closer to being their fullest selves, to protect the womb, the soil, from whence they come, and to nourish them with nutrients and love even as they enrich my life.
It is the same hunger, the same bone-deep longing, but until I heard that line in that poem, I had not realized. I had not seen that my yearning for land and my yearning for children are at their heart the same yearning for family of my own.
Two-fer
Have a Monday double-post to compensate for my unfortunate lack of bloggage last Friday. And look, they are even related thematically!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Everybody Loves the Trolley
Headed to the local Earth Day festival at the park downtown this year. Wandering around the booths, I stopped at the public transit booth and got to ask some questions. I am so excited to learn that we now have a local bus that runs for free around downtown. There are two lines heading to different sites of interest, and one runs until 6 and the other until midnight 6 days a week.This is especially exciting because I saw a similar transportation solution in Seattle when I was there a few years ago. It really made the city friendlier and much more accessible to everyone, local citizens and tourists alike.
I also got to ask the transit folks if we are going to get trolleys. We used to have them about 100 years ago, but they were all taken out. The city is laid out in a good design for trolleys (or light rail, as they are more modernly called), since we are in a spoke and wheel instead of a grid. I love the idea of running trolleys (trolley is more interesting than tram or light rail, come on, admit it...) down the major arteries out of downtown, and then smaller neighborhood buses could run exclusively to dump (ahem, transport) passengers out of the neighborhoods onto the trolley lines. Add a few circuit buses to connect trolley lines several miles out of town (the wheel part of the spoke and wheel) and I think we would have a highly functional and FUN transit system that I would want to ride.
The transit advocates say that trolleys are being looked at as an option, and it looks pretty good. I also asked if they have any ad campaigns in the works to counter the public sentiment in town that the bus is only for the poor and those who cannot afford cars, and despite a lot of talk, the answer I got was really a no. I think that is a shame, because I think the public image of public transport is one of the first and most important steps to getting public transport in town up to something sustainable and functional.
On the whimsical side, I picked up a little keychain in the shape of a bus, and when I push the button the headlights come on. They are LED and so pretty bright. I figure I'll keep it in my truck (oh the irony!) as an emergency flashlight.
I also got to ask the transit folks if we are going to get trolleys. We used to have them about 100 years ago, but they were all taken out. The city is laid out in a good design for trolleys (or light rail, as they are more modernly called), since we are in a spoke and wheel instead of a grid. I love the idea of running trolleys (trolley is more interesting than tram or light rail, come on, admit it...) down the major arteries out of downtown, and then smaller neighborhood buses could run exclusively to dump (ahem, transport) passengers out of the neighborhoods onto the trolley lines. Add a few circuit buses to connect trolley lines several miles out of town (the wheel part of the spoke and wheel) and I think we would have a highly functional and FUN transit system that I would want to ride.
The transit advocates say that trolleys are being looked at as an option, and it looks pretty good. I also asked if they have any ad campaigns in the works to counter the public sentiment in town that the bus is only for the poor and those who cannot afford cars, and despite a lot of talk, the answer I got was really a no. I think that is a shame, because I think the public image of public transport is one of the first and most important steps to getting public transport in town up to something sustainable and functional.
On the whimsical side, I picked up a little keychain in the shape of a bus, and when I push the button the headlights come on. They are LED and so pretty bright. I figure I'll keep it in my truck (oh the irony!) as an emergency flashlight.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Weddings are really zombies that eat BRAINS
Okay, so my previous wedding post was all about "everyone wants to know about the wedding and it is going so smoothly and easily that I have nothing to tell them."
Well, scratch that. I still don't have anything to tell people, but the freak out is definitely setting in. There is no one piece that is worrying me. I am absolutely certain that I want to be married to my partner and make a life and family together. I am not worried about how the wedding itself will go because I have done enough Full Moon Celebrations that I know that events come off easily when lightly planned. As a friend told me, the wedding is a success if you are married to the right person at the end of the day, nothing else matters. Completely true.
And yet, somehow, the sum of the parts is starting to bring on tremendous anxiety, and what is most worrying is that there is no particular thing that worries me, only a generalized sense of freak. I think I need to get my house in order, clean and organize some things that need it, and especially I need to refresh my personal altar. Perhaps then I will feel calmer.
I have a great support network and I have been talking to them about this. Mostly they say, well, yeah, weddings are a big deal, they are inherently stressful. But, really, can stress be this completely amorphous and non-localized to specific concerns? Bizarre.
Well, scratch that. I still don't have anything to tell people, but the freak out is definitely setting in. There is no one piece that is worrying me. I am absolutely certain that I want to be married to my partner and make a life and family together. I am not worried about how the wedding itself will go because I have done enough Full Moon Celebrations that I know that events come off easily when lightly planned. As a friend told me, the wedding is a success if you are married to the right person at the end of the day, nothing else matters. Completely true.
And yet, somehow, the sum of the parts is starting to bring on tremendous anxiety, and what is most worrying is that there is no particular thing that worries me, only a generalized sense of freak. I think I need to get my house in order, clean and organize some things that need it, and especially I need to refresh my personal altar. Perhaps then I will feel calmer.
I have a great support network and I have been talking to them about this. Mostly they say, well, yeah, weddings are a big deal, they are inherently stressful. But, really, can stress be this completely amorphous and non-localized to specific concerns? Bizarre.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Breathing Wrong
I went for my first ever Breathwork session today with a woman who has been doing this for years. She had contacted me about a trade of energy work for breathwork, and I thought it would be a good idea. I have known for a while that breathwork would be good for me because I have trouble interfacing with the physical world. When under stress or pressure especially, I jump up a bit out of my body and groundedness and then find things like laundry and dishes overwhelmingly difficult. Breath keeps spirit and physical balanced.
I felt nervous when I got to her place for the session, and so was breathing shallowly. She didn't tell me in time and so I wore my shoes into her session room. Her chairs were white and I was afraid I might get them dirty somehow. I was afraid I had parked in the wrong spot and when I asked her if it was okay, her response was less reassuring as of-course-why-wouldn't-it-be.
She told me a little about breathwork, we chatted for a little while so she could get a read on where I am, and then she recommended that we work on the physical mechanics of breathing. She told me I am doing it wrong and probably always have. (This is, generally speaking, a bad way to approach me, I am an overachiever who hates to be told flat-out that I am doing something wrong, especially as a diagnosis by an expert.) I have done yoga for years, my initial instructions were very breath-based, and when I meditate I do a good bit of breathing exercises as well. That all is apparently rather irrelevant.
She worked with me a bit, had me try some things, notice and share my noticing about some things, and I began to realize that my scoliosis really affects the mechanics of my breathing. Even in its much improved state, the closer I got to how I am "supposed" to breathe, the more uncomfortable I became in my spinal musculature and therefore spinal alignment. These noticings were not within her area of expertise, I think. On top of that, I really had trouble isolating my diaphram, probably because so many other muscle groups have learned to compensate for it due to my spinal curvature, and that got frustrating. She seemed a little impatient with my difficulty, or maybe that was just me being overly self-conscious. I found it very hard not to be self-conscious since it is not like I can stop breathing in between lesson points and she was watching and evaluating the rise and fall of various parts of my body as I breathed.
So in the end, I don't think we will be seeing each other again. Our energies don't really click. I have learned that breath exercises will help to release areas of my spinal musculature that really don't want to release (structural muscles are like that), but I am enjoying my improved energy and functionality now that things have restabilized, so I think I will be shelving this knowledge for a few years until it is time to work on it again.
I felt nervous when I got to her place for the session, and so was breathing shallowly. She didn't tell me in time and so I wore my shoes into her session room. Her chairs were white and I was afraid I might get them dirty somehow. I was afraid I had parked in the wrong spot and when I asked her if it was okay, her response was less reassuring as of-course-why-wouldn't-it-be.
She told me a little about breathwork, we chatted for a little while so she could get a read on where I am, and then she recommended that we work on the physical mechanics of breathing. She told me I am doing it wrong and probably always have. (This is, generally speaking, a bad way to approach me, I am an overachiever who hates to be told flat-out that I am doing something wrong, especially as a diagnosis by an expert.) I have done yoga for years, my initial instructions were very breath-based, and when I meditate I do a good bit of breathing exercises as well. That all is apparently rather irrelevant.
She worked with me a bit, had me try some things, notice and share my noticing about some things, and I began to realize that my scoliosis really affects the mechanics of my breathing. Even in its much improved state, the closer I got to how I am "supposed" to breathe, the more uncomfortable I became in my spinal musculature and therefore spinal alignment. These noticings were not within her area of expertise, I think. On top of that, I really had trouble isolating my diaphram, probably because so many other muscle groups have learned to compensate for it due to my spinal curvature, and that got frustrating. She seemed a little impatient with my difficulty, or maybe that was just me being overly self-conscious. I found it very hard not to be self-conscious since it is not like I can stop breathing in between lesson points and she was watching and evaluating the rise and fall of various parts of my body as I breathed.
So in the end, I don't think we will be seeing each other again. Our energies don't really click. I have learned that breath exercises will help to release areas of my spinal musculature that really don't want to release (structural muscles are like that), but I am enjoying my improved energy and functionality now that things have restabilized, so I think I will be shelving this knowledge for a few years until it is time to work on it again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)