Old Concrete Is Brittle, and Breaks Easily

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

A fish cannot drown in water.
A bird does not fall in air.
Each creature God made
must live in its own true nature.
--Mechthild of Magdeburg

it is imperative that we find that vital element that brings us alive.

Talking with Mir the other day, she brought up something that I have been thinking of on and off for quite some time now, and a part of me thinks she's right, and wonders where I lost the ability to be so free and fluid, and a part of me rebels against the thought and – probably because of environmental factors – tells me that focussing means that 'one thing' gets done better, and 'being free flowing' means that everything gets done in a kind of haphazard way. I don't know which is right, but I do know which feels 'better' and by that I mean more comfortable.

It's like today, for instance, when I want to be catching up on journal entries and other things I've fallen behind on, what I actually ended up doing was spending the better part of my available time doing nothing – playing a game – because I knew that any minute now I was going to get interrupted, so there's no point in starting something, right?

Well… the 'old' me would have just taken it all in her stride – started journaling, got up to help dad with the computer (even knowing that he doesn't listen half the time because 'he knows better') and then gone back to journaling when I wasn't needed, or when we were waiting on something to update or whatever… maybe with a little reading in between while my mind was working on what the entries meant to me. Instead I sat here getting frustrated at being constantly 'badgered' which meant I could get nothing done, so I play a silly game instead…

And yeah, nothing wrong with playing a game if you want to, right – but if you're playing it for the reasons I've just given, that's not good, least not in my book. So… how do I go back to being the free flowing, warm, energetic person that I was (and I hope still am, somewhere inside)… or is this all just a symptom of getting older… because some days I /do/ feel old?

If > Then... I Am NOT a Computer Program.

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

You are the laboratory
and eery day is an experiment.
Go and find what is new and unexpected.
--Joel Elkes

The power of these unspoken maps should not be underestimated. For the endless gravities of expectation we move in and out of govern most of our thinking and summon most of our energy in denying them or complying with them.

What can I say about this except that I own this fully – it seems to be programmed in to my DNA these days… the following of unspoken maps, the yielding to unspoken pressures. Expectations of how I'm supposed to respond to a given event, or parts of a conversation just drive me in a way that I don't like… and mostly I don't like it because it's never right. It might be what's expected, but when the expected is delivered, it isn't at all well received. I guess that's one of life's stupid ironies.

The hardest part about it all is that in my head, and in my heart, the 'me' response gets crushed by the expectations. Have I become so cowed by societal/community/whatever expectations that I can't be myself now? Is that it? Am I really so pressured by my perception of what others think of me that I have been crushed to the size of a spec, and am no longer myself.

Then there are times when I don't do as expected – I just worry myself sick.

It's no one's fault. I've always been this way, I just used to refuse to surrender to the impulse, live with the worry (or somehow ground it). I don't know why I am not doing that any more. I'm just so tired of disappointing myself and everyone else I know by not being the person I am. I've had enough.

And yes… I hear you all saying 'so do something about it' (is that the expected response to someone telling you that you've had enough? – just a little tongue in cheek irony)… so I ask, what…? And how?

The Fog of Being Apart

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

To be near something beautiful or precious but
to be unable to experience it is the subtlest
possible form of torture.
--Robert Johnson

Being human, we all have fogs roll in around our heart, and often, our lives depend on the quiet courage to wait for them to clear.

I am lost in a fog right now… as I type this. Oh, I know the reason for it, and I know that it will pass, but right now I feel heavy with it; wet with the droplets of it as it weighs me down – the fog of separation from love and home; from my guy, from my babies, from everything that moves my heart to beat.

No one that has not been in this position can even begin to understand how it means that I can be lonely even though I'm surrounded by people that love and care about me; how it turns an ordinary day into an uphill climb, or how one cross or even vaguely sharp or dismissive word from anyone – everyone – can crush what little resolve I have almost completely.

And I would wish this understanding on anyone either – because it means that they are where I am now.

Tea and Scones

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Two scientists travelled halfway round the
world to ask a Hindu sage what he thought
about their theories. When they arrived, he
kindly brought them into his garden and
poured them tea. Though the two small cups
were full, the sage kept pouring. Tea kept
overflowing and the scientists politely but
awkwardly said, "Your holiness, the cups can hold
no more." The sage stopped pouring and said,
"Your minds are like the cups. You know too
much. Empty your minds and come back. Then
we'll talk.
-- Leroy Little Bear

If at times you feel numb or distanced from the essence of what you know, perhaps your mind, like the sage's teacup, is too full.

Universe pushes, and I run away screaming… Why am I doing this…?

I came across a link yesterday, via Facebook for some kind of 'online Wicca' college. To be fair to myself I know two things to be true. First, the do things differently across the pond, and secondly, I went to check things out and see what it was all about before I through about how I felt about it. Even with those two things true in my heart, I thought to myself, "hmm, not sure how I feel about this."

I understand that there is a shortage of groups and teachers around the world with whom those who wish to explore Wiccan concepts can talk, and experiences, and practise the things that are all part of being Wiccan, Pagan, Alternatively Spiritual, but honestly, there really is no intellectual knowing that can replace honest experience… and unfortunately I don't know a way around that.

I came to my own path through the channel of the intellect, but it was not until I let go of knowing, and starting feeling that I think I really learned anything worthy of being able to call myself Wiccan, or to say that I follow a Pagan path, or however you want to put it. Only when I was living what I 'knew' did anything make sense… and then, just to remind me that that's true, when I tried to return to an intellectual way of looking at things… well that was when I lost all sense of location within my path… and it's only recently, as I step my toes back into the spiritual stream and start to get my feet wet again (even if the Tsunami is just off the coast threatening to break over my head), am I feeling like I have any business to call myself Wiccan once more.

My tea cup was well and truly overflowing, and I was enjoying none of the tea because I was standing there with my hands in my hair going "Eeeep, what do I do now?" Isn't it obvious? Drink the tea!

Drink deep, my friends.

Look Ma, No Hands!

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

To arrive at understanding from being one's
true self is called nature. To arrive at being
one's true self from understanding is called
culture.
--Confucius

-Center yourself, and as you breathe, look over your life and try to discover whether you are more natural or cultural in how you learn.

For physical things, I think I learn naturally – I find it easier to remember something if I can do some kind of action while learning that can be brought to mind when trying to repeat the processes. Then again, I am quite cultural in some way too. I observe, I process in and attempt to understand and I try to 'mimic,' but here's the thing. I don't think either works in isolation from the other… because me personally, I end up getting bogged down in being afraid to make a mistake (which is definitely something I have come to from a cultural angle).

The number of times I've told my students, 'It's okay to make a mistake. It's part of learning,' is really… well it's too many times to count… and yet I will go out of my way to avoid mistakes, why? Because they make me seem stupid, useless, unreliable – fill in the negative adjective as you'd like. The older we get, the more we come to that way of looking at things, sadly. Cultural understanding, (or maybe that should be conditioning, or expectations) makes us afraid to try and be able to learn naturally… where yes, we might fall flat on our arses, but hey, at least we tried.

It's like ice skating… no seriously; bear with me, this story will make sense.

Before a couple of Christmases ago, I'd never been ice skating before… no particular reason; I'd just never had the opportunity. Mir took me ice skating and it was a hoot, a lot of fun, but I was singularly rubbish at it. I didn't care… I was having too much fun… I was being too child-like to worry about how foolish I looked tottering around on the ice, falling on my backside… and hanging onto the wall to avoid falling. As much fun as I had, I did do a lot of falling and in one of those falls, I hurt my knee… actually I did a good job of hurting my knee, but again, I really didn't give a flying tinker's cuss because I had enjoyed myself so much. That's what pain killers and anti inflammatory drugs are for, right? By the end of the session, I was pretty much able to skate all the way around without falling down. Yay me! And I learned to do it by doing it… naturally. It was only when I stopped trying to watch other people or remember what I knew from reading about skating or whatever, and got out there on the ice and did it, that I was able to learn to do it at all. Next stop… skydiving… um… no. (I really am kidding on that).

Incidentally, I want to go skating again; maybe this year… we'll see… there's just one thing. I know it'll be fun, but I'm scared of hurting my knee again.

Acceptance of Change

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
--Kierkegaard

Every time we reach beyond what is familiar, there is this necessary acclimation to what is new.

Two new (and fairly recent) things:

The Vegas Star Trek Convention moved to a new venue. I've talked about the pros and cons of this move in another post elsewhere on the journal and I don't want to rehash all that here. Suffice to say that after a lot of consideration and time to let the emotion of the change grow cold and be able to be objective about it… in other words, part of the necessary acclimation process… I still don't like the change. Will I still feel the same next year? Will it change how much or if we want to go again, the fact that we don't like the new venue, the people we go to see are still there, right? Are we going for them, or to line creation's pocket?

The other new experience I had recently was flying with Virgin Atlantic. This was something new that I actually liked. Yes, the plane was bigger, but it was also more modern than the American Airlines fleet… had in-seat entertainment, provided real headphones, not noise cancelling, but one that were calibrated to work with the in seat entertainment systems, so that didn't really figure. The also gave out little goody pouches, complete with warm sock, shades for blocking out the light from others if you want to sleep, a pen, and a toothbrush and toothpaste – things that you only get on American if you fly business class… and it really wasn't all that much more expensive. The only con – they don't do a flight direct to RDU and American does. In this increasingly competitive world of Air Travel, where more and more people are flying with whoever gives the best price/service, I wonder how long it will be before either Virgin descends to the level of others, or the others are forced to pull their socks up.

Either way, I have decided to sign up for Virgin's air miles, because they're in a different 'alliance' of airlines from American, and I figure, with sometimes flying with different airlines these days, and not just being loyal to American, if I collect miles from one airline in each 'alliance' sooner or later I'll have enough miles somewhere for a free flight. Of course I'm going to try and stick to one 'alliance' where I can, but… it won't hurt to be able to say, Ooh, hang on, I have such and such an airline alliance miles.