Writer's Block Day 2

There seems to be a trend toward writer’s block in the air, at least in the Internet space. I saw that Joe Perez has a post on his blog about the same phenomenon. He has a different take on it than I do. He does have this to say however.

What do I mean by block? Too confused to take action, too weighed down by
judgments and worries and concern over self-image, too filled with regret
for what might have been and anxiety over fulfilling future expectations,
too doubtful about the meaning of it all in The Vast Scheme of Things. Block
is the pause before what comes next, a calm in the storm, a chance to look
both ways, and then to cross the street.

I like that last little bit, especially the pause part. “When agitated or doubtful, we pause.” That’s a Big Book phrase. I posted a reply on his blog about

Hello from a longtime lurker!

I've been reading your blog occasionally, finding it quite interesting at times. I'm personally not quite sure what to think of the whole Integral/Spiral Dynamics approach to things, but I'm a "TWICALTRist" heart. (Take What I Can And Leave The Rest-ist.) That's my #1 spiritual tool, thanks to 12-Step groups. I take what I can from Integral stuff and leave the rest. Not an off-the-rack kind of thinker as it were.

I wanted to write because I've been thinking a lot about my own writer's block, which I've been inside for a couple of years now. It's quite a long pause before whatever comes next, or I'm waiting a really long time for the traffic to clear. Or more honestly, I'm wondering if I want to go further down a certain road I've been on, and looking for a way of egress to something more my speed. (Though looking at the length of this post, I do seem to have quite a bit to say about my long pause.)

Like you I seem to have hit a wall re: the larger world. I surf the web and it's not that I don't care, but little really grabs me these days. I have been a writer of dramatic media for the better part of my life--have an MFA from NYU and a BA from Dartmouth in Drama. For years I wrote from a place of gay/fat person anger. Now I'm no longer overweight and the engine just went pfffffft.

But I also feel my writer's block is somehow tied in with some spiritual awakenings I've had over the past 2 years since I lost the weight. I've also changed my place of residence, my job, my hours, and I'm dating someone seriously for the first time in my life. I set down to try to write stuff other than morning pages (which are helpful), but I just don't have much heart for anything at the present time.

I don't especially feel that I want to participate as a writer in a culture that's dying. I used to rue the fact that no theater or film company would take me seriously. Now I look at that as a blessing. I might be more caught up in fwa-fwa if I were to be one of the cognoscenti di literati.

I may be in-between subject matters as well. One of the last plays I started writing was my reaction to the Columbine massacre. (I'm originally from Littleton, Colorado--went to a rival h.s.) Columbine made me realize that the model for my "family play" was Chekhov, who wrote about the twilight of Russian imperial culture. "My Littleton Play" is about the twilight of American imperial culture. Perhaps I might even be more hopeful than that, as to say it's about the twilight of all imperial culture but with a Colorado feel. But I also wish to be a bit more constructive and encouraging as I provoke thought. I dream of being a Shakespeare for the post-civilization age. (An oxymoron? A Paradox? Time will tell, but until then, I guess that will have to be in-between -- hence, a "paradoxymoron.")

I'm just sitting with my writer's block for now, and I'm starting to write abou

(It actually got cut off there. Oh, well.)

*******

I’m trying to remember what else I wrote after that, but I don’t honestly remember much about it, other than mentioning a couple of books that were helping me. And I do seem to wax poetic about my writer’s block. Who knows if I’m helping anyone or not on this? It does seem to be something with which I need to sit for a time.

Writer's Block

I've started writing a bit about this subject that seems to be occupying my consciousness a bit more these days. My postings have been quite spotty, and I'm just not feeling it. Still. It's quite annoying, but here are some thoughts as they've come up:

Lately, when I come home from work-not-as-a-writer, which I’ll refer to henceforth as “w-n-w”, I make my dinner, maybe do the crossword or an acrostic or a sudoku and clean the dishes and my kitchen space. If I’ve decided on a certain lunch the next day, I’ll go ahead and prepare that. I may need to do the laundry or some such household chore. I may even read something if I have a book at home that interests me, or I may sit with a divination tool and meditate on some issue, such as my creativity.

When I awaken in the morning, I usually start out either making breakfast or doing a breathing meditation. They’re usually the one-two of my morning in that order, though sometimes I do start out with the breathing first. Once I clean up the dishes and put them away, I go into my living room with my cup of coffee and perform two magickal tasks, leading to a twenty-minute meditation and then I write my morning pages. Once I’ve done those (and drawn my tarot card of the day) I do my toilet, dress and leave for w-n-w.

All the while, whether I’m at w-n-w or not, I’m thinking “I’m not doing what I want to be doing. I’m showing up for what I need to do, but I’m not ‘doing my job.’” At least that’s how a part of me sees this situation at present while the “spiritual” aspect of my larger self sees that I’m right where I’m supposed to be, blah-blah-blah. This is the part of me that, probably wisely but not without generating some frustration, takes a long-view and observes that I’ve never been continuously writing through my long identification with the written word, that I’ve had fallow periods.

This time feels a bit different than times previous, however. The curious thing is that I’m not at a loss for ideas, but I do have curious listlessness that I don’t quite understand. Much of my time these days, when I’m not at w-n-w (or more truthfully, when I’m at w-n-w in between projects), I log into web sites celebrating the end of our civilization as we know it. How much of this is for celebration is anyone’s guess, though I think long-term that egress from the corporatized and toxic existence we collectively and gingerly inhabit would do humanity as much good as it would the rest of the planet and all the other species we deny coexistence with.
Getting there will be quite like my own kicking my sugar/flour habit. Those days were filled with sourness, strife and contempt to be sure. But in the meantime, I need to be of service to others, and since I’m a writer, one would think I’d find a way to put that skill to use. I want to, I really do. I sit at a computer or with notebook in hand, and I think “So, what are you waiting for? Not inspiration for Cerridwen’s sake!” And I try to set to writing, I even get a couple of pages into something, then I put it down. Will I return to these started projects that don’t seem to go anywhere for the time being? I don’t honestly know.

Am I moving toward becoming post-literate/post-literary? A thought I’ve been having of late is that I don’t really want to add to this necropolitan society by competing for some ridiculous carrot called fame. Or even to send my paper-soilings in to literary magazines, theatrical literary departments, agents, editors, website proprietors, what-have-you, for them to peruse at their hectic leisure and to give a text ye-olde yea/nay, blah-blah-blah.

Perhaps I’m depressed and just don’t choose to call it that. Depression usually forecloses against hope, however. I feel happy and optimistic pretty much all of the time. Right now in fact, I’d say the only despair I feel is residual and it rubs off on me as I interact with others to whom it adheres like chewing gum left on the side of a bus. I don’t even have to know the person or to even be in the same room with them! Since having lost a whole bunch of weight, I have become so psychically open, it can be sometimes painful. Last Christmas season, I was meditating upon waking and found myself inside someone else’s head as the person was putting a gun in his/her mouth. I could my tongue against the metal, and when I realized I was tasting steel, I said “What the hell? Where the fuck am I?” and got out of there. (I learned my lesson, and now I shield at the holidays, and don’t take any sadness I may feel at face value. Most of the time, someone else’s yuletide despair has crept in.)

The most helpful I’ve ever been as a writer has been when I focused on my own experience. Why stop now, when I find myself in this strange and abundant writing-wasteland? What better place to start? It’s funny, but I’ve written quite a bit more on this subject already than I have put forth in my own artistic journal in several months. It’s not like I lack for ideas; I also have scripts and stories I’ve begun that I would like to return to at some point. But I sense there’s this blockage of grief and sorrow I need to dive through. I have the image of a big, amorphous bag of a sickly purplish liquid that sits inside this membrane that I can’t poke through or dissolve or have any impact on. And my spiritual assistance seems to be telling me to just sit with the situation and let its lessons unfold.

I could affect a Hercules approach and will myself to do battle with the amorphous gourd that impedes creative access and attempt to slay it a la the hydra, or to clean some Augean stable inside my heart and mind. But I sense I need a more soulful approach, one that lets the lessons of the melancholic place beside this massive obstruction seep into me. Everything is all right, there is no need or reason to do anything. And isn’t the world a pretty place to live in, by the way?

*****
(Day 2)

As I put together my thoughts on writer’s block, I need to be respectful of its delicious and capricious contours. As a for instance, I looked at what I wrote yesterday, and decided that the line I ended it on was the end of that whole thought. Time for me to begin a new page! Also, I understand that I might repeat myself, and I must give myself the permission to let whatever spills out onto this page to just be. Will I edit this mishagoss or just let the stink sit there and fill up the literary airs of pretense? For now, I will let the shit harden into a nice little clump of turd as if I was my Kitzel-bitz doing his bitzelness in his litter box.

Tangent: Isn’t it interesting that somewhere in the 1950s and 1960s, artists started talking of creating “good shit?” That isn’t an accident. Fecal matter is made within our bodies, after all, and when we’re babies, we’re so proud of our physical production numbers. And when we feel we’re in the zone of creativity, it is as effortless as sitting on the pot and letting it all go. In many ways, I do experience my writer’s block as creative constipation. I long to be able to spew my thoughts out as easily as I go number two. (And number one for that matter!) And also to have that satisfaction of having had a good dump!

I suppose my creativity is much more like the digestive process than I would care to admit, for I consume my experiences, research, ideas, dross-for-exorcism, what-have-you and process it through my “creatimentary” canal as it were, where the spiritual processes of the work progressing inside pull out their requisite nutrients and leave the work of art to be squeezed out of my “creanus” and plopped in all its olfactory loveliness into le monde d’art. (Oh, isn’t that just dreckful? I do amaze myself sometimes.) I think that’s enough shit-talk for now. Oh, and look!

The end of the page! Just in time, too…

******
(Day 3)

Now that I’m beginning a new page (on a new day), what other impressions arise about this state of affairs? In years past, I’ve thought of the notion of writer’s block as being akin to wandering through the desert in search of an oasis. Today, it doesn’t feel like that as much. In a way, it feels more like just being inside winter. Personally, I’ve always loved the fall and winter. Spring and summer were for many years difficult. Of course, I had my weight issues for most of that time, and since that problem has been kept in abeyance through the grace of deities unseen, I now can enjoy each season for what it truly offers.

What I notice about this particular writer’s block, which has operated in tandem with my abstinence, is that there’s a reevaluation of what I’m doing and what it is for. Truth be told, when I wrote B.A. (before abstinence), I was focused on the selfish goal of “making it.” I was doing it because I have never seen myself as merely an office worker, but a writer with a day job. And while I look at my 8-hour days at a workplace as being w-n-w, I have a different perspective about it today. I get to go to the place I work, and I get to type other people’s documents. I get to interact with these wondrous people called “attorneys” and “secretaries” and pretend to be a secretary myself. I get to even pretend that I’m not pretending to be a secretary, which is a gleeful kind of divine fuck-you energy subtly infecting everyone with joy and good will.

I also see that this workday thing is something to enjoy while it lasts, because it won’t be lasting much longer. And I won’t really grieve when it’s gone, though I do wonder what sort of thing will replace it. What sort of new opportunities for joyful obligation will emerge in the not-too-distant future? I also sense that my writing needs to take a more serious and painstaking approach to my writing, because it’s not for me anymore. Not that it ever really was, but B.A. I had to get things out that were to exorcise demons and to expose “the way things really were.” Also to write about the way things ought to be as I thought they should be. Now without my sugar addiction, that’s all changed. The writing needs to somehow serve as one bridge among many from this dying society into whatever is next. This particular writer’s block is much more profoundly restructuring my entire Writer’s Persona into something else entirely, into a creature I still don’t know or understand.

My writer’s block is part of my coming to terms with the person I’ve been waking up to these past almost three years as well as this wonderful and bizarre planet’s place in the scheme of things, this crazy and beautiful species of which I’m a part. It’s been about Instead of writing about stopping inside a field of colorful flowers and taking in the abundance of glory and beauty available to sight, sound and smell, I actually savor the present moment whether I’m in that lovely field of asters or one of asphalt. Why spend a lot of time creating another world, when a new world is creating itself around me, when I am adding my own energy into that creation?

*****

(Day 4)

In meditation today, I was told by my guides Freyja and Odin that I need to start preparing for “whatever is to come next.” I have been woefully inadequate thus far. I asked Freyja once not long ago how I was doing and she laughed at me. I need so much more, evidently.

Perhaps a part of me is understanding that writing is less important than other things right now, such as having enough food and staying warm throughout the upcoming winter. Our way of life is coming to an end, and it looks like it might be an abrupt one at that. The gods and goddesses really do want us all to survive and thrive. I do believe that they really do wish us to have a blessed and joyous time in this realm. Certain beings have interposed themselves between our gods’ desires for us and our own desires to “return home” or rather to create the memory of “home” we all carry inside us onto this planet.

I have the sense that the writer’s block is meant as a subject for my deeper exploration, but with things like being told “prepare for difficult times ahead,” I am curious to see how I’m supposed to have all these foci going on all at once. I suppose it’s one thing, then another, then another sort of. But I need to get cracking on something else now. I’m all of a sudden a bit scared, but I can start telling some people who I trust about this too. Wild.

*****
(Today)

I described the obstruction to a friend last night as a viscous and sickly substance inside a gelatinous and impenetrable bag sitting over a drain as a stopper. I’m looking for/waiting for the necessary solvent to dissolve the container and let the gunk traverse that drain, to clear it out and make space for something new. But I also realize that this stoppage has appeared because I’m also being restructured, my personality and soul are being reorganized to accommodate “the next world” whatever that may look like.

I don't know about the stuff I've written in the past, if it will help to serve this new world coming into focus around us all. I sort of think the scripts and poems and essays might serve the new structures emerging, but what the hell do I know? I feel hopeful, even joyful about the changes that are popping up all around us. Goodness, I even saw The Nutcracker for the first time ever this past weekend! Talk about joyous celebration. Perhaps I can be a sort of post-civilization Drosselmeier, I don't know. I see fairy dust out of the corners of my eyes every once in awhile. The gods and goddesses are with me every day, I invite them with me to the workplace. I sense I am a walking fountain of continuously streaming light emanating from my heart and pushing both up into the sky and down into the earth. There is so much more to this life I live than I know, and whatever this writer's block is about, it doesn't halt my smile, my urge to give thanks and my desire to celebrate my blessings. For I truly am blessed, I know it in my heart.

Well!

It's been about a month now since I've started my new job. It's OK as far as jobs go. I do see more of what I need to pick up from my new place--a sense of community can happen anywhere. I'm still a bit tentative, but I'm slowly becoming a part of this new place. That much is called for, on more than one level.

I've been also getting more activated regarding rituals I do for myself on an ad hoc basis. At some point, I hope to involve some other people in these workings, but I have been able to do my rituals as part of my early morning meditations. It's a good thing to be able to commune with deity as the beginning of my day, and to find moments such as this 0ne to check in again with the Goddesses and the Gods of my cherished understanding.

All in all, I feel really good just for today. I have to put that caveat in, because that's all any of us have. And there might come a day that will be difficult but even then, I hope to be able to choose gracefulness and serenity. I really do believe it's there, all the time if I just awaken to it.

Finally Moved!

It's great to be in Albany. I really love this place. I check in with the State Capitol every day, and I try to say "Hey" to the SUNY Systems Administration building at the bottom of State Street each day. I was running late yesterday, so I was unable to. But she's a rather stately and redoubtable force. Perhaps one day I shall find a picture of her and put it on this site.

So much about this move was easier than I could have possibly imagined. I'll post about it soon. But right now, I don't have a computer line at home. I'm doing this at work, and they have strict Internet limitations. I actually don't mind this at all. But it can be a pain sometimes.

Last Day at Work

Today's such a bittersweet day. I have a job to go to in Albany, I start a week from Thursday. I have an apartment and a boyfriend. Last night I discovered one mover thinks he can move my stuff for $1400. (Cha-ching!) That is if I keep some furniture which I'm having a hard time unloading. I saw an ad on Craigslist for a junk mover to come get the stuff that I don't want to take. They see all the stuff as an investment and are willing to take it all free of charge.

I really do want to divest myself of all of it, actually. My cat's freaking out though. I think he understands my phone conversations and has been snarly of late because he knows I'm talking about "his" China closet, file cabinet, dresser and desk. Maybe I'm wrong.

I feel excited and scared--change does this to me. I want it and yet, in these moments I wish it was all over and done with. I have difficult choices to make, and the thing is I have to remember I'm not alone. Tonight at work, I received a wonderful gift from my coworkers. They took up a collection for my move. I'm moved to tears and beyond. All the cash I can get will come in handy for this transition. I'm in one of those hard places where I feel like it's not going to be enough, and I've created my own Perfect Storm.

Still not sure what the best option is for getting my stuff up there. I threw a quick tarot reading for the various choices. 5 Cups for going with the quoted mover, but without the stuff. 4 Swords for a Craigslist mover. 3 Disks for UPS and The Devil for the P.O. (I find that last one Hi-LARious!) Seems like Craigslist or UPS, though UPS will be more expensive than the PO. Craigslist seems like the best approach, provided I can get the right guy.

Seeing the Devil in my reading though, lightened my mood. ("Lightened my move" I typed first. Yeah, baby!) He reminds me to keep it light, ironically. Devil's Play is what the Voyager calls the card. Helpful. These 78 friends of mine do offer comfort every once in awhile. And the card for the day is the Queen of Cups. Counselor. So hopefully another answer lies with my AA meeting later this morning. (I drew a card for that--10 Wands. Burden. Perhaps to be lifted? I saw the owl on the card, see and feel appropriate guidance through difficulties.)

I can be trusted.

Recovering from Conservatism?

I think there's another way to deal with this:

http://www.michigandaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/26/4337873e6380f

In addition to pointing out how "coming out" as conservative is inappropriate, it might be a good strategy to shift the focus toward its positive aspect by of truth-telling by pointing out the more accurate comparison of conservatism with alcoholism. "Ann C., that is so wonderful that you have admitted it. I am so relieved that you understand what you're wrestling with. How did you figure out you were powerless over rage and that your life had become unmanageable?"

Two more days left

It's a bittersweet moment to leave a job. I won't really miss the work at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I'm just headed to more of the same, but maybe with a different kind of pressure. I'll be leaving a rather cushy gig as a weekend overnight word processor for a more stressful job as a 9-5 Monday-Friday legal secretary--though it is in Albany and not NYC. I'll find out how busy the job is when I get there, and who knows? I might love it, I might hate it, I might have all sorts of feelings until I get into a groove with it.

Still, the feelings I'm having about leaving the weekend/overnight gig are as intense as I would expect to have, given that I've been at this job longer than I've been at any other one. Before this, the longest I held a job was 3 years 10 months or so, and that was the most fun job I've ever held, as a book indexer. It just didn't pay well--publishing just doesn't.

I had feelings about leaving that job as well, and actually almost every job I've left there's been some sadness. People move on, it's part of the postmodern condition I guess. Some people move on much more frequently than I have. I started this job 6 years ago. Interesting that the longest duration would be at a job that has the oddest hours possible, and at a place where day shift would be the last shift I'd want to work. "Place"? Really I meant "field."

I'm going to miss the people I have had the privilege to work with over the past 6 years. I do hope to stay in contact with these people. I have said that in the past and not meant it, but I do mean it now. These folks have become a part of me, and it is a sorrowful moment to leave them and go on to brighter, bigger things. I'm deepening my relationship to nature--that will make it bright, bold and beautiful at the onset. I'm also saying yes to the earthly relationship to my writing as regards the notion of place. I'm impelled to relocate to Albany--this is a movement from my soul, from my own unusual daemon. People for whom New York City is "IT" would never understand this idea. I myself used to be of that persuasion, but I see that staying here has been slowly killing me. It's time I sashayed up to a more verdant and lush possibility.

So I'll relish these last two days of overtime--yeah, that's kind of confusing that word--and then I'll trust the universe to provide.

Card of the day: The Emperor.

Wow! Two days in a row!

Perhaps it's because of my impending move, but I do have a desire to post another entry into this weblog. Because last night I had a rather dislocating experience, literally.

I was walking through Tompkins Square Park headed toward a cafe on Avenue A where I thought I'd get a cuppa and sit down and write for a minute. I got to the door of the place, when I was struck deeply by the notion that this was the very last thing I needed to be doing right then. I stood in the doorway for a moment, then turned and walked back out and then the thought washed over me like a wave:

You do not belong here anymore. New York is no longer "home."

I did feel a bit dizzy and disoriented all of a sudden. This was a "universe" moment, and I had been having them since I had awoken at 5 p.m. I had a "universe" moment when I was writing in my journal about the fact that this moving company my boyfriend recommended quoted me $192/hour for moving my worth-approximately $800 stuff upstate, and musing about whether it wasn't time to let pretty much all of my stuff go, when I get a knock on the door by next-door neighbor, asking me to help her with an art project. We got to talking and I asked if she knew of anyone who was a decent (and relatively inexpensive) mover out there, and she suggested "if it was just me, I'd let it all go." And really, I don't have a lot. I think I'll keep the kitchen table and chairs, and the futon and frame and that's it.

I had another Universe moment when I realized my phone had been disconnected early. I asked the provider to disconnect the phone on 9/30 but they did so a week before that. I am starting to understand that I'm not New York's kiddo anymore, I'm in the hallway. I've decided that's for the best.

In any case, it seems that all of this led to the moment outside that cafe, and the feeling like I'm standing inside the Void. All told, that's exactly where I am. I called my best friend, and we chatted about it, but I was needing a bit of listening-to. I really don't know what awaits me in Albany. I have a pretty good idea, work-wise, but I don't know about the rest of it. What exactly will I be called to do? How will it relate with all the other stuff swirling about us all? Do I have a meaningful role to play in helping what is salvageable from this demented civilization to continue on and thrive? And will my writing benefit from all this? I do know that Albany will provide me with a more chthonic connection to the land which my writing has been hungering after. Other than that, I am taking so much on faith, it boggles my mind.

Yowza!

Crazy in/crazy out

Amidst all the tumult and change going on, I feel a compulsion to blog a little this morning. It's 4:45 as I start to type this, at my cubicle. I am making so many huge switches with this move upstate to New York's fifth or sixth largest city. (Or maybe eighth or ninth for all I know.) I'm switching from a night job to a day job, from working in the basement to working on the sixth floor of a building that sits right next to the Hudson River, AND conversely, I'm moving from the fourth floor of a building to a garden-level apartment WITH AN ACTUAL GARDEN!!! (Can you say "herb blogging," anyone?)

I have been reading various blogs, such as Ran Prieur, Tim Boucher, Pam's House Blend, Americablog, etc. The news is so odd. I'm feeling like so much of it's toxic. And yet, as I make this move, I have this odd hope and faith that things are unfolding in a beautiful and momentous manner. Perhaps there will be a big ol' Hurricane to barrel up into the Northeast. (After all, Hurricane Maria did hit Norway, eventually. One person died.) Perhaps the PNAC folks will jumpstart their pet nucular war project and turn the world into a fiery furnace. For some reason, I'm keeping my thoughts on a huge-ass divine intervention of some sort.

There's a lot of craziness in the world, both on the ground and in the ether. I have no idea what's going to happen, but I'm still optimistic and hopeful that there are some people out there, especially in the Albany/Troy area who will have enough awareness and acceptance in their vistas to reach out and grab my hand once I extend it to give/receive help. We are heading into a time where we will need to find people to give our protection to, the same people who will give us their protection and mutual blessing.

May we all find those people and soon.

The Gods & Goddesses Moving Heaven & Earth

I'm moving at last! O Albany, my new home town. I'm excited and terrified about the changes that I am welcoming into my life. They are coming after a long period of gestation and now, here I am nearing conception point. Another bend in the road, as my former boss Sydney Cohen said in a recent phone call. Life just never ceases to amaze me.

I'll be working at a new firm, living in a new apartment, keeping the same boyfriend but I'll be a lot closer than the 3 hour bus-ride via Adirondack Trailways. Wonder if I'll see him more or only just as much as I have been.

So, let me say thank you to New York City for having been a great host to my journey and to have been an alembic for the massive changes I've undergone in the past 5 years. Thank you to the folks at the present firm for having been supportive through these amazing years. And thank you to the spirits of the cities of the Capital District (esp. Albany & Troy, but also Menands, Colonie, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Schenectady, Loudonville, Saratoga Springs, Lake George, Greenwich, Rensselaer, Defreestville, Latham, Voorheesville, Ballston Spa, Averill Park, Brunswick, New Scotland and others) for working to make this move a reality. All I'm doing is getting into alignment with Mother Earth and whatever chthonic structures are pulling me toward this special tellurian place.

Yea! Onward!

In the throes of it

I'm moving. Still don't have an apartment or a job upstate yet, but I made the decision to abandon New York City for the beauty and lushness that is upstate. I will be looking at apartments in Troy and Albany this week, and I hope also to have an interview or two up there as well. But it's not easy to make this shift. There are a lot of factors to be factored in.

I need to take into account my finances and what I owe. The fact that I have graduate student loans weighs heavily on my heart. All told, I'm about $65K in debt, with the loan ($53K) and the remainder in credit cards. All this, coupled with the expected rise in gas/oil prices and the also expected rough winter ahead, I'm wondering what I'm pushing myself into.

Another factor is my boyfriend. I need to include him in my decision making, but in the end I still need to be the one to make the decisions about the job and the apartment. My guides are telling me that I need to focus on an area west-southwest of the capital itself, particularly focusing on Madison, the "zero" street of Albany. (The line where North Main stops and South Main begins, and vice versa.) It'd be like living on 5th Avenue in the City or Broadway in Denver. So I'm curious about that, but my guides say they have a place all picked out for me.

They've also said that the job they scope out won't be one I particularly enjoy but that "if I play my cards right" it'll be the only job I will have before I move into the line(s) of work that my soul are calling me into.

This move is really one of a plunge into faith and also into my fate, whatever it is. On some level I'm in pursuit of an Epicurean life as Thomas Moore defines it in his books. What I take that to be is a fuller, more ensouled and spirited life that is grounded in the reality of this world. That finds the sacred in the ordinary. And indeed, the sacred is inside the most ordinary of objects, a rock, a paper clip, even a plastic bottle.

There's a lot going on in my life right now, and I'm taking the next right step. For example, I confessed my worries about finances and talked with my mother, and she broke the ice with my uncle and found out how much of a loan I could hit him up for. So he'll be sending me some money to help out. That will be a huge relief.

I have lots of concerns right now, but I'll handle them one at a time. They are what they are. I'm moving through them.

And at the end of it, I'll have a nicer life. I'm pretty sure that the Capital District will amplify certain trends and right-size others. It doesn't feel like the endpoint. But it's the necessary next step.

Systemic Light Blogging

I see that I'm not the only one out there who isn't posting much to their weblog. I don't really have much to say except that I'm planning my move upstate to be completed by October 1st at the latest. I'm hoping to line up a life up in Troy (hopefully, else Albany, or mayhaps Schenectady), and finally close my New York chapter. I've done a couple readings about my options however, and it looks as if I might be shuttling back and forth between el pomo grande and Albania. We shall see how it all works.

It was Lammas last week, and I have felt that, true to form, fall is just a flavor in the air. I guess I've always felt this way in August. As a kid, I longed for being in school. Yeah, I was one of those perverse ones, but I found life at home to be really boring. Perhaps that was because I had become addicted to sugar and flour, though if anyone would have told me that back then, I'd have ignored them. So thick was that denial. If I wasn't sleepwalking through school as everyone else was, I'd probably have found a way to challenge the whole edifice. Or maybe not--perhaps I'd have become one of the ranks of the underperforming brilliances that I later seem to have joined. Would it have happened earlier? Or would I have found something else later to become addicted to?

I don't know what I really want to say right now. One of the readings I did was a Toltec Oracle about this next phase of my journey, and the Vulture came up in the Mind quadrant. Basically, I'm counseled to recognize the death of a dream and to let the corpse be the nurturing factor, the sustenance of my new phase of development. This feels absolutely right--I feel that I'm letting a dream of being a writer die to become something else. To give energy to something else that has yet to become clear.

Yesterday as I was going off to sleep I had a momentary vision of a flash of light. It reminded me of a blinking light of a plane at night, and as I pursued that vision, I saw the plane as if I was sitting on one of its wheels. It was dark where the plane was, though the vision took place a little after noon. I tried to pursue the vision more, but got mired in my apocalyptic fantasies of doom and mass destruction. A few minutes ago I wondered if it wasn't more a reminder that my soul knows what needs to happen next, and the light is always with me. I don't know. But I gather there are things to take place in Manhattan today that are a bit unnerving, given that the last big thing happened on 7/7. And today is 8/8.

Whatever. Across time, all is well. Truth becomes apparent, but I know the power of denial. We get to see how strong a collective denial is over the next few months...

Venusian times

Having a perfectly lovely time right now, preparing to paint my apartment. It's been so much fun to look at colors for my place, having to choose between "Acorn Yellow" and "Peach Cobbler", amongst other home-fashion chromatic choices.

My spiritual journey continues apace. Now I'm examining the gnostic element in my spirituality. One of the things I TOTALLY AGREE with Gnostics about is the private nature of spirituality. I have often been tempted to initiate the following discussion with those "perfectly nice literalist Jehovah's Adventists and "Latter Day Witnesses" who come up to me with free "literature."

"Yes, now can I ask you a question, ma'am? When you're masturbating, does J-Lo do it for you or maybe Angelina Jolie or Uma Thurman? And when you come, is it a full-throttle sort of release or do you experience wave after wave? What, you demur at my question? But don't you know that spirituality is much more personal than mere fucking? I mean, what kind of spirituality do you have if you'd rather talk about that than what trips your pussy's trigger? (appropriate snigger) Oh, and by the way, what is your feeling about the word 'cunt?' I think we should change the meaning to describe Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and other vampire-hypocrites. What do you think?"

Really, the whole aspect of the spiritual journey, and to reveal it only to those I trust, has to do with 4th Chakra stuff. For me it's about finding experiences and revelations that open up my heart to trusting the ineffable. I came across this phrase that I want to one day believe:

Life is Good and Death is Safe

If I lived my life with this notion front-and-center, what sort of freedom would I have?

Odds and Ends

It's difficult to try to show up to a blog every day. It's not that I don't want to--it's more that I frequently feel like I don't have a whole hell of a lot to say. Or too much to say. I could have a real big buncha stuff to say about the upcoming difficulties we'll all be facing with S.D. O'Connor's resignation from the SCOTUS yesterday. Part of me feels panicky, but another part of me feels, "Yeah. This is what's next."

Over at astroworld.us, which is a site for astrologers of a decidedly anti-Bush, progressive bent to examine the astrology of what's going on on this bizarrely affected planet, I recently read someone's post who said about PBS being overrun by corporate bombthrowers "let it collapse, because it's rotten." Or something to that effect.

That's kind of how I feel about this sad has-been entity known as the "United States of America." I think that as the Xtofascists push their agenda on the rest of us, we're going to see just how different we all are. This, together with the peak oil situation, climate change, and all the other environmental stuff going on around us all, might just lead to the rending of the contract between all the states. Will there be Civil War? A Velvet Divorce? I don't know, but to just put the objective view out there: There is a persnickety group of malcontents out there who seem to be Acting-Out-Of-Their-Addiction-to-Toxic-Beliefs, who are bent on eliminating those they have deemed chaff. They are people who are very close to TPTB (The Powers That Be), and who are snapping at their heels. They are not content to share this planet with anyone else, having gotten stuck at some pre-teen age when their addictions really took root.

It's a truism amongst 12-Step recovery groups that when we start with our various addictions, that was the age where we stopped growing. I started with the food before I had the dawning of awareness, or at least that's how I see it today. I've seen pictures of myself at age 5 and 6, and I hadn't started to gain weight yet. But I still point to around 5 or 6 as when the food addiction started. And I was stuck in that place until I was 39.

So today, I'm emotionally 7 or 8. Not that I should be talking about where these fundies are, but it's quite similar I believe. Together with those in my fellowship, we have thrown off the powerful addiction for the time being and we're growing up again. But as a 41 year-old fellow with a lot of life experience, even as a stuck-at-5 adult, I can see that others who just rail against this group or that group, who have somehow decided that there are people and not-people out there based on criteria a-sub-1-to the 10th power, are really another group of addicts. I have often wondered whether they were the sickest people in our culture. It's a curious thing to try and ascertain who the sickest are, because according to experts on addictive organizations, groups organize around the sickest person. (I would also amend that to frequently include the sickest relationship, in the case of families. For the most part, I'd say my family was organized around my Dad's drinking persona--belligerent, enraged, paranoid. But there was a time when it was difficult for me to know whether my mother wasn't actually the sicker of the two. The relationship between the two of them, however, did qualify as the sickest of all the permutations.)

I don't think North American society is arranged around 43, but there's someone close to the administration who definitely qualifies. Again, I don't know who that is, or, if it's a group of people, what that group is. But as people awaken to their situation, as we individually and collectively hit bottom, we will start to comprehend the truth of our situation, and hopefully we will at least try to reach out to one another. I need to remember to have hope, actually. And the best sign of that for me came from, of all things, the Blackout of 2003.

New York City was a party zone for those hours from 4:23 to when the lights returned nabe by nabe. It was the strangest of days, I have to admit. And at the end of it, when the lights came back on, I burst into tears in the middle of Avenue A. I didn't realize how much stress I'd been carrying over the course of that time. Still, I will remember that as the night I met my neighbors for the first time really. In the darkness on the rooftop. At the time I didn't realize it, but I had a contact with one of my guides and he filled me on a few things. I wondered for a long time whether I was just crazy, and by the f'd standards of our society, I probably am still "crazy." But I have a feeling that the strange events of that freak occurrence could serve as a reminder that we don't have to choose panic as others may do so. Even in New York City, there are people who will choose to show up and do what's required. Even if it's just to sit tight and wait actively.

The other thing I wanted to write about is that another piece of my spirituality is starting to emerge in tandem with the witchy stuff. I've begun to understand that much of what I've gone through as a part of my recovery from food addiction has been gnosis. I've awakened, or rather I should say I'm in the process of awakening to the nature of this reality. And I'm choosing to honor the True Self. It's interesting to me that I don't have to do any stretching of 12-step, earth-based spirituality or gnosticism to accommodate one another. They all really point back to the Perennial Philosophy as laid out by Plotinus and Heraclitus, amongst others. It's breathtaking to see these chunks assemble within me, and without.

So as regards to the upcoming Culture War--a part of me thinks like Starhawk: "Let us ride out to meet them." And a part of me feels that I don't really want to do a whole bunch either--not out of apathy, but more out of a sense of "what's the next right action?" How exactly does a monist take sides? I can't control whether a belief-addict is driven to "take a side" against me/himself. Do I need to protect myself? How do I transcend this situation and include the other person? How do I get through this obstacle course and to the life beyond our wildest dreams?

Those are the questions I seek answers to.

What Would Dumbledore Do?

I have this odd fantasy of being a guest on some stupid talkshow like the defunct "Politically Incorrect" where I'm "the designated nut." The funny thing is that, in my fantasy, I come across as "the reasonable one," even though much of what I'd be saying would be considered "out-there" by contemporary standards. (Given what is "mainstream" these days, I'd say that "out-there" would most likely be sane and reasoned.)

I imagine that while I'm sitting on whatever panel I've been thrown together with, that I'm aspecting Dumbledore, and not taking the bait of the punch/counterpunch rigmarole. I imagine that I do actually find some little thing that I can appreciate about one of the necro-con neanderthugs of the right or one of those annoyingly reflexive lefties who kneejerk offspouts some insincere blather. I fantasize that I keep only to discussing what it is that I'm doing, and not taking other people's inventory. I also recognize that I don't have to tip my hand about all that I do. (Of course this is at some future time when I've actually made a few accomplishments, and before peak oil pulls the plug on all that we have right now and renders television quaint.)

It is a helpful question to ask oneself, however--What Would Dumbledore Do? I have the greatest admiration for that character of the Harry Potter series. I would like to think I might grow into being someone as sagacious as he, someone as filled with life, vitality and child-like wonder, but who has quite a lot of patience and compassion for others as well. I remember being struck by how he was able to dance at the Yule Ball with Madame Maxime, approaching it with the greatest of ease and grace. Totally unflappable, Dumbledore. I also loved how he just showed up at the Ministry of Magic to assist with Harry's defense in Book 5, pushing back against the bureaucratic push to deny the reality of Voldemort's return by officially discrediting Harry through the case against him. And yet, Dumbledore isn't perfect. He won't look at Harry throughout the proceedings, no doubt out of a primal fear that he has come to understand about the boy and his odd connection to the V.

I wonder what Dumbledore would do if he were to appear on a talkshow with Ann Coulter and Ralph Nader. (That would be rather odd, don't you think? Throw in someone like, I don't know, Florence Henderson, and we'd have a real odd combination of energies.) Makes one wonder, if a bit bemusedly, how D. would handle the others. I do think he'd manage to rise above it all like Pegasus, looking totally regal and golden in the process.

But then again, I am a Pisces.

Still...

I saw the title of my last post. There is so much to blog about really. I have discovered a couple of new websites, however.

http://www.ranprieur.com -- An interesting fellow who seems to have a grasp of the link between spirituality and the post-civilization mindset.

http://harmonhouse.net -- More of the same, though he is trying for a mythology of post-civilization, to change the memes from the destructive to the affirmative.

http://gone-to-croatoan.blogspot.com/ -- Another post-civilization guy, found through ranprieur.

http://www.pamspaulding.com/weblog/ -- Great lesbian bloggrrrl site.

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/ -- Passionate feminist and gay-friendly weblog.

There's lots more. That's all just a start. My tarot readings and guides seem to be pointing me in the post-civ direction. I do see problems ahead however, with people who are doing it in the spirit of going berserk on the rest of us in that special "Kill 'em all and let the angry white small-dicked god sort 'em out" brew. I've gone deeper into the understanding that civilization/addiction/cancer is an autoimmune disorder on the collective/mental/physical level. An autoimmune disorder is where the organism's defenses have lost the ability to tell what is "of-the-organism" vs. "what-is-other." All three of these metastases of vampiry share the obsessive need to extract from what is sustaining the agent. Just living in the empire culture is enough to make any of us feel drained. Interesting. I was just thinking of the Cosmic Tribe Tarot deck's 8 of Cups.

http://www.stevee.com/pages/t.fs.html (look for 8 of Cups, I think you have to do a little searching.)

Some days I feel that it's a drain, but on other days I feel that I'm experiencing the lancing of a wound or the puncturing of my ego. Both of which are welcome in my book. It's all a matter of perspective I guess.

Lots to blog about, but where's my motivation?

I wish that I was a bit more energetic. There are a lot of reasons I could list for my lethargy. One of the most painful ones, believe it or not, is the fact I work in an office that is beige, black, grey and brown. I crave color. In fact, I'm going to write the rest of this text in Spring green. (Isn't this pretty?)

I went upstate for my Vision Quest, which was awesome. In retrospect, I've encountered a couple of entities--personal demons I guess is what they are. One I encountered in a meditation not too long ago--"Familios" was its name. The other one, "Soporis" was clutching onto my Point of Passion (from the Iron Pentacle), desperately trying to turn me back toward becoming a 7-11 when I've converted my temple more to a health-food provider. The poor dear was addicted to my brand of negativity, and I don't supply that anymore, not that I couldn't with a carefully placed noshing of some sugary-floury ethelly-deathel-death Froofaw.

I'll blog about that in the future--I've got to finish writing a poem in homage thereof. But the big news is that I've met someone and we're dating. It's been going on now for about two weeks, and it's wonderful. I've made the commitment to move up to the Capital District, so I will probably be taking a very different direction when I'm there. Don't know what the timing will be, but I have deepest faith that things are working out the way they're supposed to. Yippee-skippee!

Papal Bull

Well, as a former Catho-holic I have to make some comment about this. I suspected this was coming, partly because I have the sense that the reactionaries are going into pre-bottom mode. They are losing their grip, and they are attempting to force things back to a place where they can keep control of stuff. "Conservative" seems to have become a synonym for "arrogant" of late, whether neo-, paleo- or whatever version.

I can guess a few things about the immediate future. These people have determined to make those who disagree with them the objects of scorn. They have chosen the path of separation from others, separation from themselves, separation from the Divine Source of All That Is. These are people who steadfastly refuse to awaken to the acceptance that God wants Nothing from us. Absolutely nothing! These are people who, having been denied love and nurturance at some key point in their lives, and who have kept themselves in that delusional place and labeled it "holy", have turned things around to tell everyone else how to love and how to be thus and so. They are pretty much telling the ocean "Stop being wet, you mother of us all!" and they've got problems with that dirt problem that is so Mother Earth.

In my spiritual understanding, I see that I have a huge opportunity to practice forgiveness. My friend Michael believes that something can be salvaged from the structure of the Church, but as a former R.C., I can say pretty much that to change the structure would be to kill it. The Catholic Church since Constantine has been pretty much a rogues' gallery, and the hierarchy is itself the problem. (Catholic church without a hierarchy? That's like a chicken with no skeleton!) You focus on the problem, you say bye-bye to the whole thing. Which is pretty much what I have done.

I don't look forward to when I talk to my Mother about this. She thought J2P2 was a holy man, and I would agree with that, insofar as to say that he, you, my mother, my father, everyone I know, everyone I don't know are holy people. He did quite a bit of damage in my life, I can tell you. Since he (and the latest Pope-ourri) hand-selected most of the curia, that damage is going to continue, though I suspect there will be quite a few defections. Only the most insane of people will be staying in the pews and they can have it.

Do I feel sad or angry about this? I felt a queasy sensation in my stomach, only because I sense that there will be rationalized hatred and bloodshed as a result of this gaffe. These old things are meant to blow away in the breeze, I feel. The Churches, the Banks, the Governments, the Corporations. None of them are real. Not as real as the gentle interactions we have with one another. They are to be forgiven, though I don't feel ready as yet to do so. That will probably change over time. Maybe I'll get some clarity on this Medicine Walk I'm taking on Sunday. I'll be decoding whatever happens up near the Canadian border.

In the meantime, I feel the need to start working on whatever is the next right action. What, Dian-y-Glas, would that be, I wonder....

Medicine Walk

I'm going away again! Seems only a week ago that I was at Winter Witch Camp, but now I'm going upstate to do a Medicine Walk, which is a modified form of a Vision Quest. I'll be eating less for 3 days, then fasting on day #4 for 24 hours. (Means I skip just two meals--dinner Saturday to dinner Sunday.) I'm looking forward to it, but I'm also a bit apprehensive. I've never done anything like this before, I don't know what to expect. It may not sound like much--I'm going to stay in a motel for those days, and even on day #4, when I plan to rise before dawn and get to the State Park near sun-up, I'm going to pack it in when the sun starts to go down. I'm curious what sorts of things may come to me up there on the St. Lawrence River. Should be interesting, whatever happens.

The Mind and the Heart

I really do think that mainstream religion, with a few notable exceptions, does screw people up. I sat with a friend today who suffers and understands partially the nature of his suffering, but not the part of it that makes it worse. I heard someone say something really profound, which is that it's the desire to be good that makes one make so many mistakes. The desire to get the brownie points with . . . . who exactly?

I must give thanks for my parents' unceremonious disabusing me of the notion of "religious tolerance." It's really rather an oxymoron. Think of it this way: Churches are really religious corporations. They have absentee owners, central banks, the franchises are run and different manager-types jockey for favor ultimately with the Central Office as represented through National and Regional Centers of influence. So. In keeping with the corporate theme, is there such a thing as "Corporate tolerance?" Does Coke "tolerate" Pepsi? No. Coke would really rather see Pepsi obliterated from the face of the earth. And vice versa. The companies only tolerate each other the way that two hungry wolves tolerate each other when there's an elk carcass in the middle of a clearing.

While there are people of faith across the various "sectual preferences" who put aside their dogmas in favor of the language of the heart and follow a deep ecumenicism, for the most part the people who cry the loudest about "religious tolerance" are the people for whom religious tolerance means "convert to my religion or die, and if you complain about my vampiric behavior, I'll scream about you being an anti-religious bigot." (O Driest Alcoholism! thy name is James Dobson!)

That being said, I listened to my friend discuss the nature of his spirituality and I felt pained for him. He grappled with the language of the Heart, which I think most spiritual people do actually long for, wish to put into the speech of their eloquent actions. Yet, he was in this place of separation that so many orthodox-tending (read: fear-based) people repeat by rote, that I did wince inside even as he spoke about what he honestly believed, what he honestly hoped for. As I write this paragraph, I remember my own highs from being in that religious superiority zone-out. I was of the glazed eyes myself, and I could be again tomorrow. I feel blessed to be trying out a tradition of Earth-Based Religion that emphasizes my own spiritual authority to question, question, question and to hold my own in negotiating with anyone, deities included.

It's tough to be right-sized, so tempting to allow myself to inflate into a puffed-up ego, or to slack off into deflation as well. I have compassion for my friend and I affirm that he is where he is and that he has lessons for me and for others, though he probably has no earthly idea of the lessons he has for me. At one point he shared this judgmental idea about "this world" vs. the spiritual, and I had to offer a different way of looking at it, that it was "the Mind" rather than "this world." The Mind, or really rather Ego is what creates a lot of the ugliness around us. When you say "this world," you're lumping a lot of valuable stuff into it that perhaps you wouldn't want to throw out. (Also, the spiritual needs to incorporate the soulful, but I didn't say this at the time. I was heading toward my bedtime as I conferred with my friend. I wish I had the thought to say that it's not either-or but both-and, and also that the mind is about separation but the heart is about integration and unity, nonduality. But that will have to wait.) Do you really want to throw out this beautiful spring day we're having? Isn't there a spiritual value in living with the weather, even during a hurricane? In the world of the Ego, however, all seems to revolve around one's not being right-sized--it thinks it can tell the ocean to stop being wet and it thinks it's the sole reason the world is such an awful place. Which in an odd way is true because the ego has a habit of selective focus where reality is concerned.

The Ego/Mind does have a place. It's just not at the center of all things. The Heart is at the heart for a reason, after all. It's centrally located in our bodies and it is the source of all that we value and cherish. The Ego/Mind needs to support and feed the Heart's desires. The aspect that is "The Brave Soldier" needs to be honored and given new work rather than defending ourselves against illusory attackers. When faced with a real attack, it can catapult into action if it's necessary. Which it turns out isn't as often as we would think. The brave soldier needs to work for the Heart's Desires. This world is only a vale of tears if we choose to hold onto this reality as the be-all and end-all. And it passes by so quickly, it seems. It only makes sense to be in the Sacred Heart, the Black Heart of Innocence.

Don't pick up my addictions, stay connected, help others. That's what it all comes down to. Simple, but oh what a challenge. I even forget to add that into my prayers each day, this from which all goodness flows. It's so much easier to focus on the juridicidal maniacs, the homophobic wannabe-butchers out there. But I get to shine my Excalibur of Light on them and seek out the Divine Children within these confused and woozy folk. Guess it's what I signed up for, though I don't have any idea how it's going to happen.

More to be revealed.

Whirlwind of Insanity

It's difficult to know exactly what to do in all this mess. The addictions we face in other people are fairly breathtaking. It's fascinating how Americans of all stripes are dividing into all sorts of camps. I don't really know where I fit, though I can't say I am comfortable standing in the question.

The loudest addicts out there are the religious wingnuts. "Wingnuttia" they're being referred to in the world of weblogs. They're being fairly brazen about their hatred of those who have any differing ideas, now coming just shy of advocating "juridicide." I could go on and on about what a bunch of violent crybabies these people are. I do feel troubled, but it's the same kind of troubled I felt when my Dad would come home from a crappy day at a crappy job. Alcohol was the thing he turned to as friend and lover. (Oddly enough, I'm listening to Tim McGraw's "Walk Like a Man"--"Your daddy's demons will call your name/don't you listen to 'em cause they got no claim/temptation may come that ain't no sin/you get stronger every time that you don't give in/The sins of the father are the sins of the son, you can't undo what has been done./You'll have to retrace his footsteps through the sand./And pray you find the love of a girl/and take her by the hand and walk on like a man...") And though I can only speculate as to what went through his mind, he got all twisty-turny on his own family and would wake up the morning after all ashamed and whatnot. But the addict got a deep hold of my dad, and as far as I can see, it's just been entrenched with the Alzheimer's. He's said some crazy crap to my Mom still to this day, living in ancient vindictiveness.

There's just a whole lot of pain across the Western world. A lot of it comes from the unnatural way we've all had to live our lives in civilization. But each of us adds to our misery in our own special ways, and it's amazing the mystery of how we can all get out of it if we just turn our focus inward. When we do that, when we feel the universal love of the Source-of-All-That-Is (aka The Star Goddess, as I understand Her), when we see that each of us is a material node of the Source and that each one of us has access to that universal love, fear really does dissolve like cotton candy. Oh, to be sure, there are certain entities that appear to be nonplussed that we have so found that place of peace. I have really pissed off a couple of entities that I know of, and the entity I encountered in Journey a couple of weeks ago ("Familios") wanted the light, drank it in, but boy did he feel pain. I could feel that pain myself. I feel pain when someone shows tenderness and gentleness with me. I like it, I need it, I crave it, and of course I want it to stop, and I try to stay with the tenderness till it's fully expressed, but I also feel that little soldier inside me wanting to bolt.

I see all these people out there inside their addictions, be they religious-belief addictions or economic-belief addictions or other forms of secular-belief addictions (as well as booze, drugs, sex, shopping, TV, etc.) and they're all defending themselves against ghosts who they have chosen to incarnate in some "Other." These people aren't really there. They're vectors of mechanized rage, astroturfing their way into newspapers and showing up armed outside the houses of judges. The language of that is particularly telling. They've latched onto the aspect of Judgment and they're attacking it even as they feel attacked by judgment. The religious wingnuttia out there have a particularly mixed view on the word "Judgment", longing for the "God who's taken their side" to sit in judgment of all those whose side the religious wingnut in his projected dementia has determined to be Them. And it all stems from a fear of their own darkness, a fear of their own imperfectly glorious humanity. Some of them really do believe in their heart of hearts that they are truly scum, but there's this childish notion that they'll still be "saved" because they've opted for the Plan A+ Spiritual Package.

There's no reasoning with people like this. For all intents and purposes I treat them like other alcoholics who are drinking. I try and stay out of their way, and if I need to deal with them, I bring a heavy load of detachment. It doesn't make sense to take whatever an alcholic says personally. What they're doing is spewing their self-hatred onto others. It's sad and it's transparent, and it's best to limit one's precious incarnated time with them as they refuse all assistance, and possess the deepest contempt prior to investigation. For the religious addict, the selections from Bible Verse or Koranic pronouncements or Talmudic Wrath is the booze. "Justified anger, it turns out, is the dubious luxury of those who don't have a problem with [addiction]." I've been noticing a certain sort of wooziness in the pundits and a breathless antsiness that makes me think of drunks who've not been able to get the kind of hit they got when they were 15.

Can we really detach from these people as they careen around the world stage? Or do we have to find a way to gently and lovingly intervene? But where are the political mental-health professionals out there who have a means to stroke the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of this world into World-Stage Rehab? How do we work that one? To be sure, if these radical clerics could wake up to their shortcomings and just say "This isn't working like it used to, and I have a real problem," that would be the heavens opening up and saying "God is with us all." And I'm sure there is someone out there who can do this. Or maybe it's several million someones who get together and say "Look guys, you've got to get yourselves together, and admit you're powerless over these toxic beliefs and that your life is unmanagable." To be certain, people like myself--witch, recovering compulsive eater, gay--I'm one of the people they would never in a million years listen to. But there are probably decent, caring Christians out there who might have a shot. I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud here. What do you think?

Popelah

I don't really know where I stand about the death of an 84 year-old man while all these other people are clutching their breasts in "grief." I put the word in quotes because I'm not convinced a lot of it is genuine. There are some really bizarre ideas floating around out there. I take it that the Pope, who I thought was ultraconservative, was seen as a raving wild-eyed liberal by some uneducated pundits. (Is that redundant?) To be sure, there were the right words spoken about labor issues, about international relations and about elevating peace above all else. But the divisiveness of this powerful politician within his own bailiwick together with his silence about the priestly abuse-of-power issues symbolized by the pedophilia scandal do also combine to mar his stint at this helm of the war-bark. "One of the best 13th century minds, laid to rest" as a co-worker quipped.

I'm curious to see who the next Pope will be. I surmise that, should they choose someone from South America, Asia or Africa, we'll be seeing an even more entrenched opposition to modernity/post-modernity and toward the coming earth changes that our unsustainable ways of life are leading to. Mother Earth is getting ready to turn over a lot of that dross whether we do so or not. I'm inclined to go along with Gaian flow as it were, but we have various people at different stages of cognitive development who are straining to force their points-of-view upon everyone else. "Screw acceptance," they seem to be saying. "Fuck the spiritual and the soulful! We've got all the playing pieces so we'll tell you what's 'spiritual'!" Ullshit-bay. We have a saying in the 12 Step Rooms that applies to all people regardless of their ego-state: "Let go or get dragged." It may have taken the church 500 years to grudgingly acknowledge that Galileo was right. It may take another 400 years for the church to acknowledge that homosexuality is a con natura, not contra natura. Or not--maybe the Ossifitution won't be around then. Who knows? But the thing about change and moving from one state into another--I don't like to call it "progress" necessarily, because sometimes what seems like progress is backsliding and vice versa--we are each waking up to our own value as spiritual beings in material bodies. We do this in our own way, on our own time. And so-called "lower energies" as embodied in the first three chakras are as holy in their expression as the 7th chakra of spiritual revelation.

The Church as it stands today seems to be stuck in that 7th chakra, while insisting the rest of us stay stuck in the first. The Second chakra where we find our desire nature and sexuality is a gateway to higher chakras, and if we are all stuck in survival mode--and what a poor manifestation of the 1st Chakra at that--then the powers that be have no challenges to consolidate their "empires of the mind." But in this rather short galactic age (if I understand the Mayan calendar correctly, we are in a very compressed section of history that precedes an even more compressed year of daily change from 2011 to 2012), then we will most likely witness the attempt to consolidate followed by its necessary implosion.

The thing that I keep observing about the craziness around us all though, is how like drunks most of these people are. I look at their pictures, and I wonder just what drug they are each on. I guess Ann Coulter's drugs of choice are cigarettes and Chardonnay, if David Brock is to be believed. I would imagine that Tom DeLay's is money and whatever it is he buys with it. I'd imagine that Cheney's is force itself, which is a distortion of true power. I think of other people I know who are in the clutches of "Red-state-itis". One of them drinks. Another one seems to be in denial, and may be an enabler extraordinaire. I think my Mom has a thing for closet drunks. She'll come up with some corkers all right.

One other comment: I see there are lots of people who label J2P2 as "a holy man." I would agree with this, but so too dear reader are you a holy person. I am a holy person. Michael Jackson is a holy man. Ann Coulter is a holy woman/man. We each one of us are sacred gifts, and while that is sometimes a difficult thing to swallow, no one is truly a demon really. We need to shine our loving lights on everyone for we are as much that which we seek as we are that which we despise. Does this mean to turn doormat to these people who would take away our rights? I think not. Compassion isn't service unless it also serves us. Compassion seems to be something that sometimes does require that we resolutely fight for ourselves sometimes. Because we are really fighting for the others as well, whether they know it or not. I for one am not sure that we can go through our legal and judicial systems any longer. Somehow I think the key lies in local controls, in lots of people everywhere just deciding "pfffft! I can't take this anymore, I can't make this work anymore, I just need to let go and let the/a God/dess." Rather than be pushed around or put up a resistance, to just stop. Get together with other tired folk who have had enough and just slump together. I guess you could call it an "Exhaust-In." But aren't we all tired of worrying, of overworking, of being taken advantage of? Can we at some point wake up to the understanding that we get reciprocity when we give reciprocity, and really take it seriously the idea to "let it begin with me?" For we are all capable of magnificence, my friends.

Let it begin with me, whatever that means.

Spiritual Growth

I had a couple of epiphanies last week regarding spiritual growth. The first I think I mentioned in my last post, that "spiritual growth" as a concept is not akin to growing up physically or in wisdom. It's more like cleaning the basement, and the thing that grows is space itself. When we grow spiritually, we are clearing space around our True Selves.

The second epiphany came in a dream I had. I finished reading Putting on the Mind of Christ last week, and while I found much of value in the book, I personally had trouble with the notion of moving from one realm to another, as if we don't look back. Whether Jim Marion meant to imply that or not, the message I got was when we have the Dark Night of the Senses, we leave the Psychic Realm behind for the Subtle Realm, then when we have the Dark Night of the Soul, we leave the Subtle Realm behind to enter into Christ Consciousness which then evolves into Nondual Awareness.

In my dream, there were three boxes in my heart. Each box was connected to a Self. I sensed that one was the Psychic Self, the second the Subtle Self, and the third the Christ Self (which was a little bit fainter than the other two, but I saw and felt its presence nonetheless). The boxes were set one within the next, with the Psychic Box being the most inset, the Subtle in the middle and the bottom was the Christ self. I felt I had access to all three simultaneously, that I could go back and forth between them as I needed. I only felt myself go into the Psychic Self in the dream, and watched a fifth self (my inner child?) reach into my heart to pull the psychic box out, but it was attached to the Subtle Box, which wouldn't let it go. So the dream appeared to me to say "don't try to figure out which of these Selves is the one where you're most at. Just accept that you have access to all three as you need, and don't worry about it." It's not that I evolve from one to the next, it's more like they are different outfits I can get myself into and out of. My True Self is probably in a nondual state, but I can wear the Psychic Outfit, the Subtle Outfit and the Christ-Causal outfit as well.

Last week, I also journeyed into a spontaneous meeting with Persephone and Hades (guided by Hecate) and they gave me a doublet and tunic and a light-bearing sword. It was gorgeous, giving off a bluish glow. Kind of reminded me of the Orc-sensers in the Lord of the Rings books. I went out into the fog and I was instructed: "You will meet a creature out there. If you slay it, you have failed, if you are slain you have failed." I wasn't told to make the creature my friend so I decided to keep it fairly detached. Basically, I encountered a black dragon with red eyes and black wings that was surly, depressed and lonely. He called himself "Familios." (How literal can you get?) Anyway, after a bit of negotiation, I pulled out the sword and held it up in the air to give light to the beast. I could tell it was appreciated, but that it was painful for Familios to be put into the light, and he quietly asked me to put it back in the hilt and to please go. Which I did.

In dealing with my family demon, I need to approach him with perfect love and perfect trust. Somehow I found it, and it was much easier than I had imagined it would be. I guess I'm just ready for it. I don't know if I was dealing specifically with my collective families' karma or with civilization's family karma in this moment. I'll have to ask my guides, but my sense it was more the latter than the former. Familios didn't feel so specific to me and my family. I'll be curious to see how news of my own family and of all families breaks out in the next few weeks. Provided I hear anything about it.

Going to Source in Meditation & A Fellow "Believer"

Really, it should be as simple as it was today. I went right into the Source of All That Is, and before I knew it, I was "in" Albany. Whether I was really there or not, it's hard to say. It felt like I was really there and in my body here in Manhattan simultaneously. I was on State Street and Pearl, and it appeared there were people either getting ready for a parade or some sort of Easter celebration. I saw a bunch of objects that reminded me of golden chicks. They might have been balloons or they might have been stuffed animals, or I don't know what. At first, I thought they were little kids dressed up though.

I walked up State Street to hang out on the Rotunda in front of the State Capitol. Some people were there feeding the birds, and to my surprise, after I sat down on a bench there, one of my sometime guides "Dave" appeared. Dave is an older fellow, a fisherman, white, very Christian-Middle-America type guy. He reminds me of fishing guides who are retired pillars of their communities and who volunteer for a nominal fee to escort outsiders around the lakes and waterways or maybe even into the forests for hunting. Dave was a comforting presence, and we didn't really have a lot to talk about, other than things are fine. We've got no complaints going, relax and enjoy things.

I thought it was interesting that I went to Albany though. Don't exactly know what that means except that I was really glad to be "out of New York" at least in my head. I do love that building, and evidently the building seems to like me. Other buildings in Albany could care one whit about me though, and the spirit of the City seems to enjoy me, but not anymore than others who love the town.

Reminds me, I watched Big Eden again the other day. This time around, though I cried again as per usual, I started to doubt what I wanted. Perhaps that is because I sense that it is becoming a reality around me, and that certain "old" frequencies are winding down and soon I'll be set free to create my own version of Heaven on Earth (HoE). All of the spiritual websites I read now say pretty much the same thing, that I need to constantly choose gratitude, love, acceptance and service to others to make HoE happen. So I breathe in my dreams right now. It feels pretty good, but there are responsibilities and there is grunt work, and there is tedium involved because that's what happens in all lives. The thing is I can choose my areas of tedious expertise. And I have several with which to play at any given time! I release the fear of achieving what I want in my life. I release also all my doubts about what I want and embrace community, good fellowship, helping others to enter into God/dess consciousness. I release my fears of want and lack as well, and I trust my source, the Source of All That Is.

Music: "Montana Half-Light" by Philip Aaberg. (Just love this tune, it's the third time I've played it tonight.)

UPDATE:

I've been surfing ye olde Webbe and I discovered a thoughtful article from a Christian gay perspective that basically says the same thing I have come to believe about the Religious Fanatical among us. These people need our love, friends. They need the light we can shine into their fearful lives, which they think is plenty bright enough right now. But check this link out:
http://www.whosoever.org/v9i5/minor.shtml

Minor says very eloquently what I've been saying to myself and to anyone who would listen. These people are basically drunk on their beliefs, and this can only escalate. The only real thing we can do is to calmly articulate our positions and live the best lives we can. Lead by example. Let it Begin With Me. Praise Jesus! (And Dian-y-Glas! and Hermes! and Kwan Yin! and Hekate! and Freya! and Odin! and Hestia! etc.)

Food

For being "The Disappearing Chef" I haven't blogged much lately about food. Right now, I'm in a comfortable rut with my food. I have pretty much the same thing for "deakfast" every day--2eggs, 1/2c 4grain cereal, 2T nuts, 1c mixed fruit (berries, pineapple and banana usually, though occasionally I throw in grapes or bits of peach or bits of an apple). Lunch has been fairly consistent--either "Lentil Bentilz" or a Mexican Turkey Burger at a local restaurant or salmon with turnips & brussels sprouts or squash from Mama's Food Shop. Plus 2T dressing and 2T nuts, some grain (usually 1oz grits), and a fruit (usu. a banana). Dinner, typically is 8oz of some animal protein or 1/2 chicken, an ounce of rice cakes, 1c greens, 1c salad veg., 1c squash, 2T dressing, 2T nuts, 1tsp butter, 1 apple, and 1/2c tomato sauce/salsa. Very simple most days.

Even though I'm comfortably "rutted" this way, I do every once in awhile get a desire to venture out a bit. I'm hoping that I'll see some of that happen now that the change of the seasons is upon us. I think I've mentioned it before, but I feel the Cross-Quarter Days--Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasa and Samhain--are the emotional beginnings of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter respectively, and that Ostara, Litha, Mabon and Yule are not so much the beginnings of the seasons as they are the capstones of the previous one. Ostara effectively ends winter. Litha is the end of Spring, Mabon the departure of Summer and Yule says goodbye to the Fall.

Spring foods aren't something I really think about much. Eggs of course are considered a spring food, even though I eat them year round. Spring greens are probably much in abundance, and I'm sure there are other foods out there to consider. For some reason I think Cilantro is probably a "spring" herb. Feels like one to me, anyhow. I'm going to have to go over to the Farmers' Market on Union Square one of these days and see what the spring foods are. I'm looking forward to the end of May though, when Avocado Squash will be back in store. (Yum!)

I've also been thinking a lot lately about my food addiction and how it still can play out in my head. There's a bakery nearby to where I work, one that makes really good old-fashioned cakes. When I was really into the food, that place was such a favorite. I walk past it now and sometimes I wistfully remember "way back when." Of course those memories completely obliterate the wheezing breath, the difficulty climbing stairs, the headaches and the wooziness, the wondering if I was diabetic, the crushing loneliness and desperation and the demented self-hatred I had of myself as "that fat faggot."

I'm really glad I eat well today, and I'm also glad that I have the memories of the pain to accompany the nostalgia after the foods I got too much of but never actually required. I've also made friends with my hunger today, and I've heard that at the University of Wisconsin-Madison they are exploring how calorie reduction expands life expectancy. So it's a good thing I'm making friends with my hunger if I want to stick around this planet longer. As I change and as I let my delusional ideas of who I am drop to the wayside, I see that yes indeed, that's exactly what I want!

Working with Jesus outside of Religion

On the first day of working the Warriors of the Heart path at this year's Winter Witch Camp, several events of note took place. First, I saw my different points on the Iron Pentacle in various states of health. My point of Sex (top of the head) was like a blue flame having a difficulty catching the wick. My point of Pride (right foot) reminded me of a machine that was trying to work with a whole bunch of mud thrown into its works. My point of Self (left hand) was a nice bright yellow light, my point of Power (right hand) was a purple Nerf ball(!), and the first day I worked the IP, my point of Passion (left foot) was shrouded in fog. For some reason I visualized the sword from the 7 of Swords in the Cosmic Tribe deck sliding down the bone of the leg into the ankle. It just happened like that for some reason.

The instructors told us to anchor the experience, and asked if any of guides appeared. That was when Jesus (of all avatars!) showed up and smiled at me. I grimaced, surprised, and then I touched my right side. The word "spear" came to mind as the thing to anchor the whole experience, because my affinity group was Tiwaz, the rune for Spear and the warrior god Tyr.

Since then I've been working with Jesus a bit more. I see him somehow as connected to The Blue God, at least he is to me. And there are mystery schools that believe Jeshua bar Joseph did actually go to India to study esoteric Hindu ideas. (Whitworth's The Nine Faces of Christ depicts several mystery-cult initiations of this figure, including Druidic, Persian and Egyptian, with some references to the Mayan Jaguar Priests as well.) When I was 11 and had my Dian-y-Glas/Kitty Carlisle Hart dream, I knew I had experienced a vision of some sort and believed it was Jesus who was showering.

For all I know, it might have been. (Ah, :) I feel Jesus smiling at this winsome possibility.) I've been reading a couple of books now about Jesus, with the openness to working with the cute avatar of the Essenes in my spiritual development. I've been reading now the books of Jim Marion--Putting on the Mind of Christ and The Death of the Mythic God. Both have been really helpful, but the Mind of Christ book has helped me to understand more of where I am on the spiral of spiritual development.

When I was in Madison, Michael and I did a ritual where I basically journeyed into the Underworld. We called Freya and Hades into the circle. Hades was the decided-upon god because a mourning dove showed up on the deck as I asked "Which God should we call?" I really was open to anyone, and when I clarified it was "mourning dove" not "morning dove", I said "I guess we call Hades then." The mourning dove showing up at that moment, and then another one crashing into Michael's window the next day alerted me to the need to pay attn. to these birds. I'm pretty sure one was outside my window just the other day. And so, I'm reading this book in Washington Square Park yesterday morning and I'm in a section about The Dark Night of the Soul (which evidently is different from The Dark Night of the Senses, something I've heard absolutely nothing about but which Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross both discussed). All through Marion's book, I had many pings of recognition as well as moments of "I didn't have that experience at all." So I'm feeling fairly confused all in all about what level I'm at. I was pretty sure I wasn't in The Dark Night of the Soul when it started to become more and more obvious to me that I'm probably about to enter into it. And that Hades and Hecate and the other deities in my pantheon are here to help, as is Jesus of course.

Marion's book is also helpful to any seeker of any spiritual understanding be it Hindu, New Age, Sufi what have you. And for gay/lesbian seekers, it's especially helpful because Marion is a gay man. Today I had a dream, after asking for more clarification about this stuff. In the dream, I saw three boxes in my heart, each one inside the next. The three boxes were also attached to three other Selves. The innermost box was the Psychic Realm Box, the Middle one the Subtle Realm and the Furthest one in the Causal Realm. I was trying to pry the Psychic one out of my body, and having moderate success in lifting it but something was keeping it stuck from below. It would "thunk" back into place. My Psychic Realm Self seemed pretty solid as did my Subtle Realm. The Causal was barely a presence, but he wanted me to know he was there too. I feel the mystery of this dream points me to an awareness that I'm really in all three at once, even though I haven't yet gone through the Dark Night of the Soul. Part of me feels that it might not be necessary for me to do this, but I don't know. I'm truly open to however this manifests.

(I think. I say that now, but I might change my mind, knowing how these things can go.)

Still, I'm confident that the choices I have made have been largely good ones. I look forward to how things develop, as always.

Go-Stop-Go and other thoughts

I'm in a persnickety mood.

It's a bit confusing to me at the present time, but I feel like I both want to sleep for many, many hours AND get on a bicycle and ride until I drop. I want to enter into a wild orgy of delightful, joyous connection AND sit by myself in a grove of oak trees. I want to write prodigiously about all the thoughts, feelings and impressions I have been having, AND I want to shut myself up in silence in a monastery out in the middle of the High Plains somewhere.

I want to show up to my night job AND I want to high-tail it to the next place I'm going. I want to keep up the chop-wood-carry-water bit, AND I want to take some heroic action AND I want to procrastinate, all at once. How, truly frustrating.

And I want to blog, but I feel weird about it right now. The aspects of not blogging that have to do with feeling judged by other anonymities can not have an impact on me, but I do wonder what this is for. I am having a series of thoughts and it seems promptings to take some of the material I have herein published and turn it into a pamphlet of some sort. Specifically my assignment from the Samhain ritual to attend the ancestral campfire each day for 2 weeks for 20 minutes on each of those days. It appears that this would be valuable to others????

Taliesin seems to be encouraging me this way, as is the Otter. I sense that my dear blue god would also like to see me enter into engagement with the larger world, and I sense this would be a step in that direction.

On another note, I've been doing a lot of reading about Jesus lately, but keeping it to the notion of working with Jesus as I've been working with Ben Franklin, Cerridwen, Freyja, Dian-y-Glas, Otter, et al. Since Jesus appeared to me at the Winter Witch Camp, I've been curious about the man and how he used to fit in my life. He is "a long lost love who has recrossed my path," and perhaps he will manifest in the guise of a man who I shall deeply love and yearn for. Jesus has had a lot of sweet words for me, for a lot of people, and I find it interesting that his appearance ties in with Ix Chel passing the baton to Quan Yin, to be my "Foster Goddess of the West" until Beltane.

A tarot card reader told me she saw Odin, Freyja and "a green deity with an orange lotus above his/her head." It could be either Quan Yin or Avalokiteshvara, I would surmise. I'm having a lot of visions of deity for some reason, as opposed to animals or mythic creatures, or being clairaudient with the trees and the like. Each one of us has his or her gifts of communicating, and I see that I also have a deep resonance with the ancestors, and most likely the descendants as well. It appears that I need to communicate some of this to those who would listen, to those who would derive benefit, and even to those who would deride. Right now, I'm about 2/3 the way through a book my food sponsor recommended to me called The Nine Faces of Christ by Eugene E. Whitworth. Fascinating it is, for it ties in all these different mystery religions and brings them all together into something called "The Great White Brotherhood" and "The Order of Melchizedek." I feel all sorts of connections and past life mishagoss going off in my body as I read this book. It's like "Oh, I remember when I went through that. (shudder.)" Of course I hope I don't have to go through it again, but one turn on the wheel deserves another, eh boys and girls?

Que viene aqui, no sabemos. Preparasen Uds. (But it could be fun. I'm putting my beads in THAT basket.)

Getting back into the Swing

I had a really wonderful vacation. It's been a challenge to get back into the New York groove, and I must say I don't seem to resonate with the energies here. While I have issues with the 9-5 corporate mindset that is in force everywhere, I did feel that both Madison and Minnesota had more of what I need for myself.

I do have a lot to say, but I don't really know where to begin with it all. It's been difficult for me on several levels, not least of which to come back into the world of blogging. Writing is an aspect of my path through life, but it's not quite what I thought it was back when I was eating. I lived for my writing back then. Today, I have come into a bit of a shock where my passions are concerned.

At the Winter Witch Camp, I worked with a meditative tool called The Iron Pentacle. There's a lot of personal information that can be gleaned from working with the I.P., and on the first go-around, I got to my point of passion (my left foot), and it was all foggy. I saw a sword sticking out of the fog, and I had the sense it was a sword of clarity and healing, as in the Ace of Swords. In the Cosmic Tribe Tarot, the 7 of Swords (interference) shows a clear sword being fogged up by 6 niggly, wimpy sword-like emanations. I was thinking it was more this sword that was being activated, reminding me to focus on my passion. The next day, the fog had cleared, but I was left with a point of passion that was in a cast, and negative messages were scrawled all over it. Messages like "You suck, no one's ever going to read your plays;" "you're such a loser who can't write commercially to save your ass;" "gay men deserve the violence that's done them;" and so on. I wrote all of those messages on little pieces of paper and burned them in my best friend's fireplace as an energetic way to sandblast those messages off my healing cast. And I've replaced them with more encouraging and healing ideas.

So now I'm working with the IP, the Ha Prayer and a 2o-minute meditation when I get up. All totaled it's taking me about 4o minutes once I eat breakfast, to even be ready to face getting dressed. There's so much I want to do now. Two of the aspects of Freyja that I am working with is the attention to beauty and the need to give of myself in joyous obligation. Both of these are translating into my decision to get a storage locker and to put a whole bunch of my possessions there and to give myself more space. I've been boxing up books and will continue to do so as I give myself more space to creat the life I'm cut out for. And it's coming, I can feel it.

I get confirmations from the oddest of sources, too. I just have to keep doing what I'm doing, even though I feel bored half the time. I trust that this is all leading somewhere, and that I have a lot more to say about what I just went through on vacation and since. I don't have to put it all down right now, though. One blog entry at a time.

Going on vacation

Don't know if I'll be posting from Madison or not. I'm curious to see how this vacation will go--going to Winter Witch Camp over Presidents' Day Weekend, and I'm celebrating my birthday the Wednesday following. 41 years old, my my.

Looks to be a big year for change, but a year to come into myself more actually. My Solar Return charts for Madison and NYC both have a striking resemblance to my actual natal chart. Perhaps this will be the first year of entering into my real self? Should be interesting.

Talk soon!

Feelings Feb. 5, morphing into Alcoholic Belief

Feeling a bit rudderless right now. I don't really know what this is about, though I suspect a pink cloud I've been inhabiting for a few months is finally starting to clear. (Oh, well.)

Perhaps it's also because my 41st birthday is just around the corner. I had hoped that during my 40th year I'd finally see Paris, but it wasn't meant to be. Still, I did get to tap into deity energy, and that's molto especiale. This year, I hope to go on a spiritual quest of some sort, to dig deeper into whatever my mission is for this lifetime. For the moment, there's this sensation of floating, of hanging back from making any commitments because I'm unsure of what I need to do. Like with relocating--do I just move to one of the places that draws me? Or do I do what I've been doing, sitting here and trusting that the Goddess will move me to the next right place at the right time? What actions do I take in the meantime?

I struggle also to identify what my feelings are at any given moment. I do notice that when I walk through parks and under trees I feel way better. But I've been feeling listless and uninspired when it comes to my writing and when it comes to what I want to do to live out a full and passionate existence, about which I generally feel unclearly.

I pray for awareness and acceptance, but it doesn't come easy. So consequently, I waste a lot of time on yahoo games for single players or sleeping (which may not be so much of a waste as I might lead myself to believe). I am looking forward to my upcoming vacation in the Midwest, though I feel nervous about it for some reason. Don't really know what that's about. But I'm going to Madison, WI for a week, then to Winona, MN for the Winter Witch Camp. (Should be a blast, I hope!)

Under it all I feel a bit of sadness that is of a mysterious source. I try to remember to choose life and choose existence, even though it gets to be a drag sometimes. It's not that hard when I look at the insane people around us all, who would have us believe that the EndTimes(TM) are upon us. The glazed-eyed disconnect common to all addicts covers their fearful faces, and I see that I am at least making the attempt toward giving more of myself to human beings all of whom are worthy of their love and desires. In looking at these angry, suffering faces, I become conscious of my projections onto them, and their greedy receptors for that seemingly unwelcome energy. They want me to perceive them as their enemy, as a threat. And, not that they aren't, but the perception itself is one of the addictions they are fixing with, because these people need to believe there are people out there who "know" they are the pieces of shit they think themselves to be, but would never acknowledge publicly. And who better in which to kindle this reflexive hatred but people they've decided are pariahs for going after the very things they want for themselves--sexual liberty and power, spiritual understanding, an awareness of their own sacred authority?

These people don't want my love, and yet they want my love. They want the fool thing I wanted for myself when I was in the sugar--to be loved for my contempt, my judgmentalism, my blaming of others for my loneliness, rage and suffering. I wanted to win an effing Pulitzer Prize for writing plays about how awful our world is. Celebrate the human condition? Me? No way, not when there were Fundamentalist Xtians out there X-ing people out they didn't approve of, and all those simps who followed them willingly, blindly.

There's an addled quality to these people that I see, that I identify with on some level. It reminds me "There but for the Grace of Freya Go I." (Freya's mysteries are the camp theme for WWC this year.) I have my areas where I am just as off-base in my own personal map of health and insanity. One difference between me and say, SpongeDob Stickypants is that I try to keep those aspects of myself private. SpongeDob, Jerry-Winky, Batpuke and the others go public with them and attract others of like insanity, sort of like drinking buddies, only they're more a Belief Buddies. Perhaps a couple of them are even thinking, "Well, I'm not as bad as that guy there, so I'm going to hang out with him so that I can remind myself not to get that bad."

There's an alcoholic logic to these people. If they weren't possessed so by Deimos (Terror) and Phobos (Fear), the sons of Ares who added grist to the mills of war and bloodshed, I would feel sorry for them. Kind of. There's enough of the Al-Anonic in me to see that I need to stay the F away from these vampires. But they do reflect something in me crying out for love, even as it militates against the thing it needs and desires more than anything else. Alcoholics only want love, but they don't feel like they really deserve it. So they must win love through doing things compulsively and controllingly, or forego love entirely. Both paths get old, fast.

I pray these people find God's/Goddess's will for them. The only prayer that makes sense after all. I pray for my own alignment with the Gods' will for me as well. Godsspeed.