Gearing Up for Change in August

About 27 months ago (2 years, 3 months), I left my job with the family non-profit to pursue other projects. I felt great about it. I was sad to leave the work I found so meaningful, but was also excited to have more time and energy to devote to concerns a little more core to my values. That, and being able to be openly out of the Broom Closet and not have to make the 77 mile round trip commute anymore felt like a huge relief.

Since then, I have done many things. I have co-directed/produced/performed in 3 plays about gender. I have written 3 novels and a mess of poetry (that is an official unit of poetry, for sure). I write this blog and have recently begun a couple others, I have organized various retreats and special events, I have done some community organizing and activism, I do my energy work, and the list goes on. I have had a lot of failures and almost as many fiascoes. I have learned a lot. It is good.

And now, I am officially BORED. I got there. I am amazed it took this long. I sit to read, and am bored by the book. I read my blogs and feel restless. I exercise and wish it had a point. There is only so much media I can consume. I create projects, like drums and wirework and Easy Buttons, etc., but I have to stop and let the glue dry, and at this point we have enough invested in drums that as soon as we finish the next round of prototypes, we need to be focused on selling before making more.

Feeling this restless and bored is a great sign, I think. It is a sign that my health has improved to the point that I have the physical energy to feel like I want to be doing more than I am, rather than feeling grateful that I can lay in bed for half the day because I am in pain. I find that I keep going over my to do lists in my head, trying to accomplish more on my various projects. And the thought of getting an active, part-time, cash-paying job excites me.

Every year, things move in August. Shift happens. I can already hear the whine of the engines as they rev up....

Reviewing Transition

I recently got an email restarting the Transition process and looking into Steering Committee type stuff in town, asking for all those still interested to reply. And I hesitated. I still have not replied.

I was excited about it several months ago, but I feel a little sour about it now. I wonder if perhaps our conflict of vision is what caused us all to walk away/take a break for these several months. I think I was one of the main conflict headers. I think that Transition is cool stuff, is necessary, is win-win, and I want to see it succeed. I wonder if my participation would hamstring it, because I would always be questioning some of the paradigm that seems to get a lot of people really fired up about it. I have seen a tendency for those excited about Transition to be folks who believe in the Peak Oil Apocalypse and the Enlightened Few versus the Ignorant Masses, and those are both Mytho-Realities that I actively question and choose not to live.

With my questioning, I do not want to sabotage the very fervor that would lead to Transition success. Or, as the voice of an old friend and activist whispers to me, perhaps they need my voice questioning those paradigms that keep them limited, so that Transition can be successful. My friend would tell me that my input is highly valuable and I would be an asset to the committee instead of a hindrance. I admit to having a little less confidence than that.

Relatedly, I find that my focus of what I want to work on is changing. My projects seem to be contracting into the personal: baby-making, alternate streams of income via drums, growing my healing practice, and acquiring land to raise our family on. On the one hand, I absolutely believe in the bigger picture and its relevance to all our lives. On the other hand, my kids and partner come first. I am conflicted about it a little, but then again, I can feel myself relaxing into my own advice to other friends who became parents before me: You are doing what you can right now, and that is enough. There is a reason most activists are the young and old. They have the time and energy to work on the bigger picture, while the parents are raising the next generation.

I'll have to keep pondering the Transition question. I think I will call a friend who is still involved and see what she thinks about my contributions and how they will play out in the politics of the thing.

Obsessing over Shrodinger's Pregnancy

I have got to let go of my obsession with Schrodinger's Pregnancy (like Schrodinger's cat, we have placed egg and sperm in a closed womb. Given a non-menstrual--but not necessarily without bleeding--womb and lack of positive pregnancy pee test, the womb is simultaneously pregnant and not pregnant). I am driving myself nuts. Time will sort it all out. I'm just not a very patient person. 

So, instead of obsessing over early pregnancy research and encouraging my partner to engage in yet another round of muscle testing, I have been obsessing over drums. Making drums, finding the right materials for making drums, making last minute runs to evil national chain stores that I have sworn to not give money to in order to find out if they, unlike their fellow box-store competitors, have the right kind of fabric, only to discover that in the many years since I went in there, they have taken out their fabric section all together and the whole compromise of my ideals by setting foot across the air conditioned threshold was an utter waste of time.

Realizing how silly I am being, I have laughed at myself and taken my obsessive behavior to an appropriate arena: very silly computer games. I have a couple that I enjoy that involve matching three objects of the same color, and once the match is made, they disappear. They involve shiny things, tranced out music, explosions and shooting things, so this seems like a harmless way to take out my angst. Once the angst is worked out, I can't imagine I would keep playing, because they do get boring to a non-obsessing not-silly mind. 

The only challenge now is to get myself out of this loop before my dreams start involving matching three similar objects to make them disappear. It's odd when I'm having one of those back-in-high-school dreams, and I suddenly line up three desks and they go poof! with an appropriate chiming sound. Very odd indeed.

Drumming for Athena

We've been getting into drums lately, my partner and I. We are excited about playing them, dancing to them, and making them. My partner is such a wonderful perfectionist that drum-making might be just right.

As part of the new obsession with drums, for the last few weeks we have gone to the Parthenon at Centennial Park and drummed on the steps with a friend or two. For those who didn't know, yes, there is a full-scale accurate replica of the Parthenon in the middle of Nashville. It is made of a sandy colored concrete, but there is a nicely tarted up Athena inside and it is intact, which is much more than I can say for the original (which I have also been to in person. I like Nashville's better, honestly.). 

We have been going in the late afternoon and staying until almost full dark (or after). Between my partner and I we have 5 drums from tiny to medium large, good for hauling in and easy to switch sounds back and forth. Our friends bring instruments, too, so the sound is always changing. Sometimes one person will play three or four drums at once, all cradled in one lap.

This past week I found myself just wanting to absorb the sound of the drums. I lay down on the giant outer step and stared up the columns to the night sky, the pink glow of the city limning the scattered clouds. There is something wonderful, something that speaks to my pagan soul, about drumming on the steps of the temple. At one point we chose a spot on the water nearby and played to the ducks (I love ducks, they wiggle their tail feathers and it makes me laugh every time), but I didn't feel that same satisfying charge as I do when we are in full physical contact with the temple itself. 

I know, I know, the city or whomever would love to say that the Parthenon is just a gimmick, left over from the World Fair, but Athena has been consecrated (I have heard the story from multiple bragging pagans around many campfires, each claiming to have been the One to do it), and there is Power there. I have gone and sat at her feet, just to have a chat. It feels right, it is right, to live in a city with a Goddess Temple at its center, and I am gratified to play drums on the stones of the Temple.

Drumming and Dancing is Good for the Soul

My partner and I just got back from our mini-honeymoon at ElfFest at Lothlorien. We have gone for the last several years, but this time we opted to splurge a little and spend an extra day, since it was officially coming out of the wedding money and it seemed appropriate.

ElfFest is a pagan festival on private land, which means a whole host of wonderful things, but for us especially, it means that it is naked-friendly. When we get there, we are usually still wearing mundane world clothing while we park in the unloading zone and scout a tent location, then schlep all our stuff over and stash the vehicle out of the way. Shortly after that, more colorful fest gear appears. We seem to just get more and more free and comfortable and naked as the weekend wears on. By the last day, right before pack up, we are lounging about with no self-consciousness whatsoever, maybe wearing something colorful/pretty/unique/bling-y, or maybe not. And maybe we get up from our lounging and change into something even more bling-y that we haven't had a chance to wear yet. Or maybe we just eat the tasty food our neighbors shared and grin at each others' appetites.

This year we purposefully found a location that was mostly private (it was a crowded festival with record attendance this year, so nothing was completely private) and hung a curtain, etc for a little more visual privacy, for obvious reasons. My partner spent untold hours wandering naked in the creek, we both did a good bit of visiting with friends old and new, and of course, we spent as much time as possible at the drumming and dancing around the fire. At ElfFest, the drumming around the fire runs from dusk til dawn. It is the most wonderful thing to go to sleep to, but it is even better to be there at the fire for as long as possible, dancing in the sand, cheering for the blue flames shooting out of the 6-foot log chimneys, and gasping at the performers on the hill who twirl and dance with flaming, well, anything. Fire poi, flaming swords, fire whips, fire staff, fire fans, and even a fire umbrella (that was a little odd). 

My partner and I both danced and drummed until we were exhausted, slept a little, ate a lot, and then went back to do it again. It was fabulous. And of course, I made all kinds of mental notes about what I like that they do, and how to take it as a model for a pagan community property here. Overall, a great weekend/honeymooners trip.

Lion Dance

On Sunday I went to the Unitarian Universalist church because they had a local Chinese Arts group performing a traditional Lion Dance as a way to help us celebrated Chinese New Year. I have attended the UU off and on for 6 or more years now, and it is always a good space. I had run into the minister the weekend before, and she had told me about the dancers, so I passed the word on to a couple friends and we all went. 

We were sitting in the last pew, which really isn't all that far back given that it's a small church. Even so, when the performers began playing the drums, my whole body and the pew under me vibrated. The drums were large kettle-type drums, played with solid wooden sticks in a highly stylized way, complete with poses struck by the drummers at the end of each sequence. Then the dancers came out, with two people (presumably men) in each costume, one working the head with its eyes and mouth that opened and shut, and the other making the rear, somehow keeping the short tail wagging, and supporting the front man in lifts to make the lions rear up. 

It was a great time. Just the drums alone and the way they vibrated my whole body lifted my mood and filled my cup, so to speak. I need to be around more drumming, more live, feel the sound waves bounce off and through my body drumming. The lions, one silver and one gold, were fabulous and funny, working through the crowd, posing for pictures and video, doing tricks, and being humorous, tricksterish, and full of good energy. 

It was a bit of a letdown when the service moved on into more churchy things, though the homily was about how people develop how to do something and then study the science of why it works, and that Chinese New Year involves the color red, drums, fireworks, loud noises, dancing, feasting, and lots of lights to lift the spirits and drive old bad energy away. It works, and now scientists are finding reasons why it works. But really, we can just experience it and get the benefits without knowing all the science behind them. 

I think that is a great message: just do what feels right, and let the reasons why it works come out later. I think it definitely applies to drumming. I need to go be around drumming, to drum, to dance, or just sit and soak up the sound if that is all I am up for.