still landing Home. the innocence of unknowing wisdom shining through layers of confusion and resistance and planning. breathing wheezy congested breaths into sad lungs. feeling the tired and the stress and the surrender in the body. being the space for all of it. somehow in the loss, there is grace. immensely grateful. 

wow

it is a surprise to me how good and free i feel without any hair. friends helped me shave it off this evening. it is a relief. i am feeling into this body, this honest face, seeing from the backs of my wet eyes, space all around, holding me. i am going to take a walk and go to bed. prepare for ecstatic dance tomorrow a.m.
love
grateful to my hair for this gift this process this seeing myself more clearly for being here and being willing to leave
grateful to my friends. ashley, wyatt, bob, mark for being present and bhavani and kerry for here in spirit.

there is this closing over vulnerability i feel it is a stance of "i get it" or even a stance of emotional of vulnerable as an idea rather felt sense in the body

when i am not in my heart me judges vulnerability in others...and myself
caught myself before the hook a few times today


i also must say that i have felt incredible spaciousness this past week...just feeling amazing love in the realization of what freedom we have to be as we are 


what a miracle at the endless creativity of life showing up in the most surprising and crazy ways and without any resistance reality ALLOWS ALL IS ALL wow

demon of not-good-enough/need approval blue skin drowning black tar drips from greedy mouth decaying teeth arms flailing drinks my nectar of Worthiness, Importance, Being Held

went through the Chod practice as adapted by Tsultrim Allione in Feeding Your Demons.  I had tape recorded myself giving the verbal instructions for the stages so that I could be guided through it the first few times without having to break the inner focus and dialogue with my demon by referring to the book. I kept avoiding the practice out of nervousness...and skepticism, a bit. Today it just came that it was the right moment to go into the practice. So the tape recording was there and very helpful. And the process was very powerful. I met my demon, and it was especially interesting to sit in his place and see me sitting opposite and feel what the demon was needing with compassion for the demon because I became him and had his pain and so then when I returned to my body and started dissolving it into the nectar that would feed him the feelings he said would be the outcome of getting needs met, it felt like love and surrender and instead of the fear and dread I had in thinki  ng about this step when read the book, it felt very tender and loving when he was drinking the liquid i became. and then he was fulfilled and disappeared. my ally...didn't immediately appear. imagination called up various creatures who kept answering no when I asked are you my Ally. finally i saw a young monk in saffron robe who told me a name i could call upon to access him but i cannot remember and that doesn't seem important but he said he would help by Reminding me, Guiding me, and would offer protection of holding me in the stream of Divine Love. 


i have been reading Reggie Ray's book Touching Enlightenment, which Wyatt gave me for my birthday. I hadn't picked it up and forgot all about it until Wyatt then emailed me a little online teaching with Ray that includes a meditation that is body-centered. The book is great! The writing really resonates, the voice feels so close and intimate. I was also noticing the connections with David Abram's Spell of the Sensuous and how this is embodied spirituality that brings us into our wild animal bodies to better sense the interconnectedness of all Life, ALL, US. i am so called to do this work and so long for a teacher. i am grateful for Judith and for Adya and want to go deeper in the body, and make my commitment run through every moment of my life. i found a Meditating with the Body training through Ray's organization, Dharma Ocean and feel lots of YESness about it.


peace

CLARITY

purple
gold

forgive me
for i have sinned


sinned is "missed the mark"
according to eckhart tolle
to me, it is missed the point
was giving primacy to the me
living for a phantom
the ghost that i feed and pretend is real
instead of living for the heart
in integrity
cut off by meanness stinginess projecting my shadow self on my teacher
on every friend and enemy
so easy to escape my reality
here i am here i am devoted dear mother
i surrender now

i want attention

for being NOBODY


but the font still needs to be trebuchet because this nobodys cares how her typeface looks


who cares?
i don't know shit and i never have especially when i say i do know

i want this thing

that doesn't exist
to be liked

so much that i am willing to LIE

no turning back

on the way to feed kitties, not far from my former farm home a young fox dead in the middle of the road. small body long snout up open mouth like trying to breathe or say something the soft red brown coat looks healthy and alive, a recent casualty of a car. i wonder if it is one of the babies i watched grow up outside my my window. hand goes to heart. sad.

sad has been the mood. it's this constant in my life from the disease of not enough, never satisfied, seeking seeking seeking. i see Being as this possibility in the future or elsewhere. when i was at retreat with Adya i was just totally in Life with Life and unwanting or able to see the wanting immediately for what it was. it seemed to be such a possibility that i could create this in daily life...the primacy of existence of Being over doing over looking over thinking over getting caught up in the person's little stingy selfish concerns and desires and aversions. was reading Pema Chodron last night. she shared about the kleshas as the drug pusher..."Even when we find ourselves saying, 'I don't want to give up my kleshas," at least we're being honest." and that was totally my experience at Adya's retreat...i saw how much pleasure i derived from false hope, desire, and daydreaming and i reached this conclusion that--even though life was blissful in silence--that the promise of love of relationship of finding meaningful, purposeful work was still alluring enough to stay part way in the dream, that it allowed for passion and imagination and excitement. there is no part way, though. and choosing kleshas? well, life has shown me what that's like...it's more delusion and disillusion. am i ready to truly kick the habit? "No outer foe will ever plague us as much as our own kleshas." Ain't that the truth!

from the Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva

4.33-35

All other foes that I appease and wait upon
Will show me favors, give me every aid,
But should I serve my dark defile emotions,
They will only harm me, draw me down to grief.

Therefore, if these long-lived, ancient enemies of mine,
The wellspring only of increasing woe,
Can find their lodging safe within my heart,
What joy or peace in this world can be found?

And if the jail guards of the prisons of samsara,
The butchers and tormentors of infernal realms,
All lurk within me in the web of craving,
What joy can ever be my destiny?

as Pema puts it: "we create our own infernal realms: our personal hells are interdependent with our klesha-ridden minds...if we give safe lodging to neurosis, then how can we expect to result in joy?"

this is resonating nicely with Feeding Your Demons, especially how Tsultrim Allione talks about Demons that show up as positive emotions...that's my addiction. this sense of falling in love. my own suffering is so seductive! i just remembered a time i went to Judith for support--was really in suffering then, during the job search plus lots pain around my story, blah blah and she asked me point blank if i wanted to stop. i didn't answer or i lied...really i wasn't ready to stop suffering. that familiar pattern is the grounding...to go into groundlessness???

i want to assess my life situation and the choices i am making to see how they contribute to Being and Love and how they hinder. and my work schedule, nia classes and commitments to activities. is it the best way to serve truth?

1. getting enough SLEEP
2. disconnecting from internet
3. taking a daily walk
4. daily sit
5. balanced healthy meals
6. building high quality friendships with people
goal:
learn Nia routine: Alive

i am looking forward to working one on one in moving psychotherapy/continuum. it has been painful to feel my own resistance to life. how i hold back from giving myself fully over to the moment, fully inhabiting the body, inhabiting my power. i feel myself hiding and it hurts. and it's how i end up in relationships that don't serve me because it's not me who is putting myself out there it is the carefully crafted me that will be liked by the object of desire. what a fool's game. i am finished. Shantideva will slay the foe with compassion, Allione says feed them. yes, there's no turning back.

nothing to say

cat face meows in my human face this morning 7 am i let ruby outside and look up breathtaking blue streaks across the sky as the dark breaks open into soft yellows and wisps of blue and the pony trots closer to us, curious as i cross the land with camera in hand.

a new friend shared with me what Winnie the Pooh characters correlate with the enneagram. she, a delightful curious energetic adventuring 7 is Tigger. me, a 4? Eeyore. i have so been Eeyore. it is here now. that mournful of the past and not just so...also replaying things said, what i could have said, what i can say now even though it's over. this has been the brain loop playing since my conversation with my dad. a miraculous interaction in that he didn't hang up on me. he stayed on the phone and we spoke for the first time ever about our relationship. and then there's this: the same words from him, from ex R and ex A: "you require too much" and that is, indeed, a characteristic of the Love Addict, to have unrealistic expectations triggered by a fear of abandonment and needing constant reassurance, more acutely felt by those avoidant addicts who tend to feel uncomfortable expressing emotions or aren't even in touch with them and for some--it just doesn't matter. my dad kept saying "most people do not talk about their feelings." or "most people do not engage with each other" this view of the world was his reason to make something wrong with me for having feelings and wanting those feelings seen heard acknowledged. as a kid it is painful to have feelings and needs and to be told you are wrong not only for the content of the feeling and need but that you have them at all. it was confusing because he said his love was not conditional but then told me these things that were wrong with me that justified him not speaking to me...so aren't those conditions? me being too "needy" i guess is one. the other was in college, something like "you had come to the conclusion that you were the most enlightened person on earth." well, i was expressing views different from his and was passionate about it. of course, i was young arrogant and naive, too but i am HUMAN. i bet if i had expressed with as much vehemence ideas that conformed to his world view he would not have had a problem. it was that i was sticking up for gay people and saying my hair was my own to decide what length it would be. and if not being able to tolerate hearing a view different from your own justifies not speaking to your own daughter, who is the one who is self-righteous? i don't know...

what can i do? here's what benjamin smythe says this a.m.

Anything you think someone else is thinking about you is testable. Ask them. If they are, welcome to a free world. If you have a problem with it, stop believing it. If you can’t stop believing it, welcome to your problem.


this is true. and there is also a need for some tenderness, gentleness. because it's my fucking father, ya know, and there IS, understandably, a lot of hurt there. and yes, i am learning, as my friend Shawn Luby beautifully sang last night in a song about his inspiring grandmother, that "she always warned me that her love couldn't hold me...i'd need to find strength on my own."

would have been nice to have gotten that Love from my parents, but this reminds me even if i'd had the deepest Love comes from within...of course would have been more easy to touch and tap into if i had gotten that as a kid. and what can i do about the past...nada. it's my responsibility now.

actually...my responsibility but not mine. i can stop trying so hard and let it flow through me. God. Mother. Love. a power greater than me.

three haiku

midnight starless sky
swallows up trees houses me
out of nothing, Whoooooo?


quiet oak table 
window view giant oak tree 
wren swoops in "HELLO!"


moss caressing wood 
leaf twirling to wet earth--
we land in silent green

wow, what INFORMATION

i am getting from this experience. really grateful. to be able to see my CRAZY. and it has given me so much insight...and empathy. wow.


heard pileated call this morning...so close yet so hidden. it has been 5 years since i have seen one!!!!! please? 

loving the green wet quiet. 


so, yes. LOVE ADDICTION. should be called romantic fantasy/rescuer addiction. addicted to avoidant addicts. perfect match for CRAZY. haha. i can see how i move between the two--love addiction and avoidant addiction. i was the avoider with M and can have such understanding of A's sudden retreat when i recall my own response to the intensity and overwhelm and pressure of someone rushing into relationship with constant enthusiasm and constant need for validation and for intensity. it's exhausting...and not based in who the person really is, not seeing and getting to know but in love with a dream, an image, and then upset when person doesn't match this. and this is what I DO! ahhhhh! stop the cycle!


it has been so clarifying eye-opening relieving these past few days. to see it and know I CAN MAKE CHOICES for myself. nurturing what makes me feel GOOD. also, my friends are INSPIRING and LOVING.

seeing me

• i call my mom when i am experiencing uncomfortable emotions and want her to fix it
• i eat food when i am in emotional or psychic pain to avoid the feelings
• i judge in others what is always an attribute of my own of which i am most in denial
• i compare myself to others better or less than
• i seek outside of myself for approval validation love and pleasure...relief from suffering...i make it someone else's responsibility!!!! isn't that INSANE?!
• i sometimes fall for the false belief that i know better, am more "evolved" than other people?!?!
• even though my concerns are so SHALLOW! ego surface how sad to see myself how much energy i've wasted in presentation 
• seeing lots of arrogance and stupidity on my part here!
• and spiritual LAZINESS
• i know the right things to say
• i read the books
• another thing to decorate me
• even another way to avoid the pain...mastering the concepts!
• hahaha

vanessa is having the totally new and unpredictable experience of....Life, well yes, but this specific manifestation? my hair falling out and not growing back, not knowing if it will grow back, when, how much if ever, if all will fall out and how do i look in this hat this scarf this headband and how do i feel when i look in the mirror? what a unique and precious experience. i am actually moving to the edge of interest, curiosity, and almost some play and lightness...even considering shaving the head...maybe that would feel really free and totally give me a new experience of SEEING myself. i have these potions and concoctions and herbs and newly adopted dietary rules but i am kind of at the point of...let's let life do what it's doing. let it be, let it be.

blocked heart

James Blake - I Never Learnt To Share from Michal Zielinski on Vimeo.

this knowledge, this mind, this smartness, this intellect...it protects me from breaking down, from feeling, it jumps up and says "i know this...i know all about this" so it stays in the head and doesn't move into the gut and heart. i've felt it in the gut and the heart, been there, visceral reactions (reading Langston Hughes Alice Walker and books like Invisible Man, Savage Inequalities in high school then college bell hooks and Urban Studies-chicago 1999 and community organizing uptown Chicago with kids of color criminalized and harassed by cops and Aaron Patterson and all the black men tortured into confession released by Gov. Ryan, Bomb the Suburbs and ethnic studies courses and KRS-One and Black Star the Marcus Garvey line, the shock of my own ignorance and the overwhelm of all that is wrong that i benefit from) and there was an openness and softness that seems to have closed and hardened as i've felt less and less hopeful and more and more helpless at making change. this inner conflict of despair at not knowing what to do to transform these huge systemic problems and not wanting to experience the constant pain and havoc oppression wreaks in every instant. i mean i have the choice to escape, avoid, close my eyes. sometimes i look. i have looked closely fiercely and gotten outraged and self-righteous and was just as ineffectual. so what is to be done? to feel it, feel it fully the pain and empathy and to do what i can. power is local. yes those large scale systems of power over exist. and yet there are cracks, there is leeway, rules broken and dominant structure defied in our personal interactions. it's why i work at the cybrary. it's so not enough, so minimal but i do have an intention of loving and attending to each person, serving from the heart. patience for my path to unfold in the best path of service to others, self-denial is certainly not the way. living out my best, in integrity and awareness and compassion. allowing my heart to break at all the devastating reality. not pity. no victims. to have dignity. respect for those living out their freedom within constraints...it's always been this way. inspired by remembrance, all the history i've studied shows how people have exercised their will, their SPIRIT, their independence in the most impossible conditions. our own denial of reality, this maintenance of a fiction has caused material corporeal injustice for oppressed and cause such lack of self-awareness and lifelessness and disconnect from reality among oppresses. to the winners the SPOILS go. so we are all suffering. of course, there are material inequities, unequal choice, opportunity, and access and these do matter. i have used political ideology and spiritual ideology to find a way to be RIGHT about it rather than break down and truly feel the horror of it. something that transmits that, gets me in the gut is James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. i have read it four, five times...perhaps time for a re-reading.


i want to feel my failure from the vulnerable heart, not from the mind, the intellect that went through anti-racism trainings, studied the history of racism, and "knows" the white supremacy of our culture, of my own conditioned mind, very well. i want to feel the grief of being part of this legacy and the joy, as well, at the paradoxical inextricable links and interdependence we share with everyone that makes this nation. i also feel glad when i see how faces have changed...that there are, in fact, more multicultural-anti-oppression driven organizations out there and beautiful people (many college friends) do amazing, powerful work from a place of Love and Justice. i want to melt my mind from the block of "already know" into the despair that lives there, in the heart and gut.


i also want to acknowledge and say thank you to my friend who is in the RAWNESS right now, in it, feeling it with courage and facing all the scary confusion with honest openness that i really admire and reminds me of just how blocked my heart is with THOUGHT and IDEA and SOCIAL CRITIQUE and POSTSTRUCTURALIST THEORY i can foucault all fear away. 


p.s. timely news. 


Troy Davis

the melon collie

vanessa looks cute with a hat
nevermind that missing hair
it isn't missing it's just not there
who says it's supposed to be?

i am in a cafe listening to what's this track??? "a dedication" by washed out
it's fitting my melancholy, something i've PERFECTED: melancholy melon collie
i feel sleepy relaxed i slept on the sand this afternoon after reading a bit of my book,
Black Swan Green, a beautifully written book, touching, aching in its awkward portrayal of teenage boyhood
i have been lucky with books, lately, yes. splashed in the choppy waters swallowed more salt, loved those pelicans madly! no dolphin sightings today. the idea is ITP: the institute of transpersonal psychology. maybe it will help me stay in remembrance and i won't fall out of myself into a dream, into romance. there's something...below the throat above the heart...it feels like loneliness and has a little story that says "i am alone. i will always be alone." there's a sadness and a almost out of breath feeling there. on the verge of crying too tired to cry giving up. my hand is there now. diving in it moves deeper into the gut and feels 6 years old sad where are my stuffed animals? where's my little soft blanket with pastel bears dancing? where's my bedroom, door closed alone the only safety. tearing tearing tugging tugging.

here's an Osho nugget posted on fb today.




"Falling in love you remain a child; rising in love you mature. And by and by love becomes 


not a relationship, it becomes a state of your being... Whatsoever is happening, you give 


your love to it. You touch a rock and you touch as if you are touching your beloved’s body. 


You look at the tree and you look as if you are looking at your beloved’s face. It becomes a 


state of being. Not that you are in love — now you ARE love. This is rising, this is not 


falling." -Osho


songs of the sea...oceania, sea talk, ritual union...a new playlist in the works? 

reflections

it's cold and i am at the beach and that's totally okay cuz it gives me a veg out do nothing day in a different way then the do nothing days on the sand with book in hand (read The Invisible Wall = amazing! and Life on Land = inspiring and started Black Swan Green = beautiful) so i am contemplating my paths...seeing this library gig is totally doable financially secure and stable and supportive emotionally of my need to contribute and connect in the world and also giving me the foundation i need to go out and explore a bit i know i know i have 2 masters degrees but these were then, previous life from which i still carry financial debt but if i were to go to school for the first time based on my own actual genuine passions and interests it would be Transpersonal Psychology. but is it viable? reasonable? practical? hmmm....interesting queries...i don't know! i am exploring options and staying open. it is clear librarian is not life path. do i need a degree yet again? not sure. maybe, maybe not. self-awareness is what i know. self-knowledge, that's a passion. relationships, that's what i care about. how to turn this into a career? i don't know! i care about people but i don't really care so much about library. i am in my element the most these days when i am teaching Nia and when i am holding space for someone in pain or feeling whatever they are feeling. my strengths are unconditional acceptance and listening. not organization of information and management systems snore. yet here i am...and i tried the Story Time thing...i need lessons in how to ham it up. i was feeling distraught because i of my PERSONAL PROBLEMS as i let drama (Enneagram #4...remember???) take over. 


1. romantic fairytale
2. looking for rescuer
3. addicted to pain of wanting someone who doesn't want me
4. how satisfying the false hope of getting a withholder to release and love...staying in the longing
5. forgetting who i am and giving away my power
6. needing something from someone else they aren't giving me
7. idealizing the "prince" and setting myself up for disappointment
8. losing my way 
9. prioritizing getting the "love" from the unprincely withholding prince over taking care of needs (food, sleep) and my responsibilities (focus at work)
10. making someone feel like they are wrong 
11. placing demands for a particular kind of way of being loved, cared for which makes me oh so alluring!!!


this is a list of? my habits and patterns and sillies
love me anyway! scheduled therapy and made some sounds Es and Os based on Emilie Conrad's book that did shift me, made a collage that loved me, made a mix called Story of a Summer Romance that captures my penchant for the dramatic and my ridiculousness of falling for the first heel that expresses interest without discernment just because i so desperately NEED that validation when that old wound comes alive and then there are those times when i feel total whole happy GRATEFUL for AMAZING friends, my INCREDIBLE home, the BEAUTY of life around me...and for NOTHING at all

and then...

i lost touch with REALITY and went into deep self-created suffering. again. lost center. fear mode. lots of OLD wound, pain-body issues hijacked my emotional responses and undermined my ability to see clearly. coming back, though...sadness at the disconnections and demands i put out on the world. the more i groped and grasped outside the more gaping the the wound seemed though it's only made real by that looking elsewhere and then when i come home to it, in it, the hole is whole, it leads me back to me. i have much to be grateful for but it seems lately my default state has been worry and disappointment...the hair loss, the self-conscious struggle with my new presentation, the comparing my life as it is to what i once thought it might be. there's a good poem about that, robert bly.


The Resemblance Between Your Life and a Dog

I never intended to have this life, believe me -
It just happened. You know how dogs turn up
At a farm, and they wag but can't explain.

It's good if you can accept your life - you'll notice
Your face has become deranged trying to adjust
To it. Your face thought your life would look

Like your bedroom mirror when you were ten.
That was a clear river touched by mountain wind.
Even your parents can't believe how much you've changed.

Sparrows in winter, if you've ever held one, all feathers,
Burst out of your hand with a fiery glee.
You see them later in hedges. Teachers praise you,

But you can't quite get back to the winter sparrow.
Your life is a dog. He's been hungry for miles.
Doesn't particularly like you, but gives up, and comes in.

  

caffeinaccident

when the wrong drink came up from K's order i offered to switch, forgetting that caffeine makes me ill...in the body and mental...praying for gentleness here. amazing release dancing this morning. my playlist available for download here. 


the last of the chaos in the mix was so amped up, emotionally, i was so absorbed in my dance and the emotion of it i shrieked it just arose spontaneously startling myself and others. it felt so opening and healing. i am going to get off the computer and move, clean, craft, read...i had a great day at quarry, making dinner, connecting yesterday. and sweet to have K out here today to hang with her. i have amazingly awesome caring friends! 






here!

my collar has huge room for two hands

start at the chest and move slowly down....ooooh. (the sugarcubes)

desire pulsing through the body...recently, it's a longing a very pleasant pleasurable longing.... 

here i am...having a really good time at work because i have things to do! feeling productive, purposeful, so much more rewarding. i wrote courtney a letter...reflecting on how resistant i was for so long to working more than 20 hours for fear it would take away my free time but i was not free in my time away from work, i was consumed with worry and stress over money, job-searching, reluctant to do anything that cost money. now with my 30 hour work week i feel free at work...free to express and create from my strengths in the contribution of our community, the library's resources, and i feel free away from work...the foundation of financial stability and basic happiness to play and enjoy life. and i am also so grateful i didn't get any 40 hour work week jobs that would have taken me away from this area. it is truly HOME here, and yesterday i so felt it, in my body, that i could not leave. i could not uproot myself from my nourishing community and land here. 1000% improvement here...in my life situation. there are zen adages about if you want something getting it won't make you happy...yes i heard this from spiritual folk and teachings while i was struggling last year, but really, making enough money to live does matter and having work that is meaningful makes a difference! and i have been so much happier for it...meeting the basic needs has allowed me the freedom to be happy.

i would like to visit NandJ in Seattle
and chicago...people and architecture
first beach...then? we'll see. have to save the money.
very content to be here right now...settling in to my new home.

found 2 opera chairs at surplus sids + a lamp
found a nightstand at Oddities and Such
cool

wtf???

i am back to the lack. the lack that isn't really there. when the absence is felt of what the brain contracted around and the heart leaped towards without knowing anything about the future except that everything changes all the time. the longing the confusion the disappointment the hurt the frustration the annoyance the sadness and in it and through it--the beauty of the the diamond in the center, the brilliance of the love and courage of the cracked openness. even in the silly fantasies of a young girl going on 33, there is the purest intention to see and embody spaciousness and to soar with someone's spirit. that's beautiful and mind doesn't always know best when it grasps towards that when it wants when it tries to figure out and hold on. the end is a new beginning!


 it's oh so subtle and seductive the mind's little sneaky tentacles hooking into a fantasy into expectations into a little movie and i bother myself when i believe and things do not go as planned for how could they??? confusing the temporary high for freedom...


my friend Julia posted these relevant words


Quit trying to make things work... say goodbye... move on... let go! Fly Blackbird it is time!

heart hurting

really...how can a year that seemed so challenging while deep in the thick of it now be remembered with such love and fondness...resistance to actually leaving this home. feeling the air the magic of the land around this amazing house, the quietness, the sweet spot i found here despite it not living up to my fantasies, the reality was more difficult, more trying, and much more rewarding, and revealing. will miss this house and housemate.

ya know...

i am suspecting telogen effluvium rather than alopecia. hair started falling from emotional stress of visit with family. it was that day i got to my mom's after the 3 days in car with my dad, i broke down crying, exhausted, defeated, then went numb after i poured out my heart and mom wanted to use my heartbreak to gossip about family. took a shower and pulled out so much hair, so much hair!


Telogen effluvium. In this condition, emotional or physical stress pushes large numbers of growing hairs into a resting phase. Within a few months, the affected hairs may fall out suddenly when simply combing or washing your hair.


actually...who knows...cause this says it takes a few months. maybe it was just the stress of winter which was intense not as acutely traumatic but more of a steady burn of discomfort. hoping the love and nurturing that i am receiving lately from myself and my friends is healing this. 

p.s. hurricane

thought it would bring more rain. praying for everyone's safety as it moves north.

ahhh! i am really missing my beautiful long locks of healthy flowing hair...body, what's happening??? why you not happy? why my hair keep falling out??? sigh. having some sadness seeing old photos & how much hair i had. feeling the thinness and lightness of my mane. remembering how free i once felt wearing my hair down. loving myself unconditionally, letting go of ego attachment to my thick feminine hair, getting used to and sick of scarves and pinned up tresses. how I long to have that hair grow and flow again! my most prized possession...it was the center of my sense of feeling pretty, beautiful-- my hair...now it feels like sad straw and more and more coming out...cry cry cry. 


need to load more stuff in the van i'm using to move to Hillsborough...tomorrow....still in denial. i mean, i am going to love it. the house is amazing...the yard...the quietness...the peace...the walkability...my landlady now friend. friends to help me today and tomorrow morning, thankful for them. i am feeling laze lax in sort of a state of denial. i really will miss my wonderful housemate friend companion brother so much even though i think it will be healthier for me to have my own space...and certainly an insulated one. but this land and this house is truly magical and gorgeous and this was a fertile & intense year...lots of gloom in my bedroom and also lots of transformation and stripping down to the raw real me. this space held me in a weird way even the cold shivery days and nights held, even midwifed, encouraged, my deep pain and confusion, which were needed, necessary, had to come out finally, had to be Seen and loved and embraced like the girl i was rejected and throwing tantrums with my stuffed animals thrown in the shower with all my clothes punished spanked with towels for crying and it's okay to break down and cry and to Need and to ask for help and to feel sad and lonely and hurt and angry. and the resolution...still resolving. a big moment was when my therapist started yelling on my behalf, inviting me to join her in the rage, helping me to generate that and release it myself, all that had been built up, held in, not expressed, really seeing the insanity of the family, really seeing it and know it's not my fault and i don't have to carry shame for being rejected by the logic of this family, for being not good enough. to see how perfect and good i really am as i am.


so in love with the Austra album. there's a sonic warmth and emotional intensity of the voice and piano juxtaposed with haunting sinister beats. the music moves me!

postscript

i love my fabulous friends! how moved i feel to have them share their inner worlds with me and how kind and sweet they are to play with me.

planet earth

it sounded like david attenbrough's narration, the documentary was already underway when i arrived at B's house.  


planet earth documentary and WHOA--stunning what is happening in this wild world!


an elephant babe lost, far from mother, separated from pack, in sandswept kalahari desert 


searching for water, exhausted & moving in the wrong direction. great white shark 


launching enormous body up, propelling into a magnificent spin, seal in hungry jaws, 


masked zorro alien castanet tap dance bird of paradise showing off for the female and all 


of this is happening on 


the same planet on which i live?! and so much more?! amazing.


work week finished...phew. let the packing frenzy loading unloading arranging begin. tomorrow the plan is pack kitchen and bedroom in morning, go get a pap smear (!) (been way too long) then *finally* send my mom her birthday gift/card...oh, only 1 month late! pick up van for moving from b. check out TROSA for furniture. then, then, then,...steady centered grounded calm relaxed secure and elated excited romantic turned on spacious curious all at once! bed time!

yesterday evening's sky--aglow with sherbet pinks, purples, oranges, golds, outlining the clouds and rays of sun magically beaming low along late summer green landscape--had me feeling i was in the middle of a Maxfield Parrish painting.

Daybreak

The Garden of Allah

life is being so sweet and gentle to me lately...even with the alopecia, i have been able to find ways to feel presentable, feminine still, feeling good, even with these peachy patches of fuz


feeling nervous about my move...news of a hurricane rolling in this weekend could complicate matters and it's going to be strange not living in carrboro after 6 years aqui...only 20 minutes away yet...i will really miss this house, this land, my housemate, the wild here. embracing change, though, and will love the space and peacefulness there. since my hours changed and i committed to this house i've had job interview offers come up in Sacramento, Contra Costa County, and San Francisco. i couldn't be happier than i am here, though. this is feeling like home. i have the most amazing kind generous friends i feel so spoiled! and north carolina is gorgeous....mountains beach woodlands farms. okay....coming down from my day...feeling the tired in my body. relaxation station.

vanessa needs to pack

boxes of books and books and books pots pans plates mugs CLOTHING, drowning in CLOTHING cds and miscellaneous sundry items...i move Saturday, eek!

the perfect opportunity

posted by Zensing Coaching this a.m.:

There is no other version of your life where things SHOULD have been different. There is no; IF ONLY..... THIS is your life! It is complete. There is NOTHING missing here. Not even a grain of sand.

or a strand of hair!

life is giving me the amazing chance to love myself without conditions, to love life, yes, to meet the fragility and tenuousness of image, identity, vanity, the who i think i am when i have looked in the mirror and seen long flowing voluminous hair. beauty beyond all that. it's hard and i feel sad sometimes and yet grateful, too.

and now finding sweetness

and LOVE in the pain. tender broken heart, falling, melting, dissolving into surrender and softness, gentle tender sweet sweet kind love to myself my father metta.

ambivalence of childhood dreams and nightmares

going to see my home-to-be this evening apres trabajo...so excited to see it and visualize the space to create my home. i can't believe moving happens so soon! i am imagining a nest-cocoon of quiet solitude for reading books and a room dedicated to dance with my booming speakers and barefeet on hardwoods a cozy cute kitchen and my sanctuary bedroom. i may need to get a kitchen table and couch...also i am overflowing with books, piles spilling over and out of my shelves means another bookcase. things i have at my dad's house i would like to bring down, inherited from his mother...the favorite lamp in the room i slept in so often as a little girl. that lamp lit up little girl dreams, an illuminated globe dancing petals with one click, the next click lights the top bulb, one more and both top and bottom glow. it is a romantic lamp...from another time, and it stirred my childhood imagination in that room of antique furniture, black and white photographs of my grandmother as a young woman. also, one more standing lamp, a scene of a ship battling the stormy sea. and a huge old fashioned turntable/radio.

something like what is pictured...

the question is how to transport what is there, in Rome, New York to North Carolina. not sure my system can handle another encounter with that edge between wanting to love the father wanting love from the father and fearing the father and the very childish way i cope with the emotional squelching repression you've got to hide your love away, hide yourself away suffocating choking choking i can't even breathe and of course my hair fell out and my heart closed and i went numb. i just can't handle being pushed out, being pushed down, sinking into so much heavy silence, being ignored and at once talked at incessantly. it was fucking horrible and i adapted to it so well because i wanted reconciliation and forgiveness and the power is so invisible...it is not a smack it is not hand slapping my face it is not unkind words it is fucking invisible and oppressive constricting confining shallow loud breathing being told what i feel what i should what i should what would be good for me without anything that i ever say being heard or acknowledged much less understood. usually talked over, always ignored. crazy making. then telling me something about me and what i need that contradicts what i have expressed and then i stay silent, shut up be good.

it sent me into a state of shock. and into regression...reduced to wanting to please wanting to be liked drained from the effort expression affection of trying so hard to connect forgetting what it had been like to be alive and fully loved i treated the most pathetic dull showings of connection as if they were my biggest dream and warped my reality and so lowered my expectations. meeting my high school english teacher on the final day of my trip was a fucking miracle that started to pierce the numbness since she is such an alive firework of passionate energy dedication and commitment to another she could listen and reflect and mirror and empathize...

i soon be going to breakfast with mi amiga esta manana. little rattled with the memory of this May trip. such a crazy and heartbreaking week...jolted out of deep peace and self-love in my week of silent meditation by the sight of a father who doesn't see love when it slaps him on the face. i was so open and ready and my heart broke in that moment and then was put in prison for 3 days, confined to heavy breathing anger pain fear seething under silence trapped with him and his smelly sweet dog in a car driving driving driving add misogynistc uncle and what a trip. throwing up.

it's okay...was just holding my breath. safe again. safe. with less and less hair...can't wear it down in public anymore...so sad. i love the way my hair feels down, free feminine and may use scarves to cover soon. grow hair grow!

i have awesome friends. thank god. and life. so grateful to be here.

my new obsession!

writing

i haven't been here in awhile. 


here i am. 


not sure why?


really. 


i wrote a letter today. to a dear friend. in it i said i want to be more authentic, more transparent, more honest, more vulnerable. i love to meet another soul from this space...of heart, with a willingness to be unprotected, unguarded, and to express feelings of insecurity, of fear, of being human. i've heard that voice come out of me, the defended one, the authoritative one, the mind made up one, the critical one. i was reading the book for our book group yesterday and noticed how often my sense of self, that false identity i say i've seen through yet still drives my opinions and preferences has me making my mind about something, dismissing or disregarding an idea or a story before i've ever considered it, because i already "know" which is ridiculous. how could i possibly until i am that person having that experience? i really could use more humility, curiosity, and beginner's mind. because really, i don't know. i have no idea. nothing repeats itself, each moment is different. each experience and perspective. so how much more enjoyment in life i gain by letting go of control and remaining open to the unknown instead of feigning a false and arrogant closed off answer. really, what could be more stimulating than engaging in the ambiguity and mystery of life and amazing variety of experiences? what could be more free than hearing everything for what it is, really being able to listen without taking it personally or needing it fit into my perspective. what could be more empathetic than understanding a view vastly different than my own? this train of thought came from my near dismissal of the content of the book we were reading...deciding too easily and lazily that i didn't like the book not really grappling with any of its themes or tensions but having a facile response that sounds smart. i am good at coming up with that and killing my own joy of learning and connecting. i got through college that way...sounding smart. writing smart and what i learned was how to write to impress but did not learn what i really thought or felt and how to express myself truly. that was too risky... humbled softened by life is good. excited to read/listen/sense with a new-found openness.


i think it is bed time...i have been low energy zombie like this weekend but always get more energetic when it's late. really need to take care of myself. i feel happy. goodnight.


song...i go away

marimba medicine meat mares

Guatemala's national instrument is piping out from the woods. a house tucked behind out of sight sends the marimba out to accompany wren, titmice and cardinal. then a peacock trumpets from further in the forest. walking in the mid-day, the temperature feels perfect.  it took this long for me to remember how good BAREFOOT feels and ditch the shoes and feel the massage of dirt, grass, uneven terrain on my happy soles. i can feel yesterday's cathartic dance in my calf muscles. my body feels nourished, made it my practice, going inside starting from inside and allowing all movement outward to come from center, and the energy came easily and kept feeding, feeding itself. big selfish generous greedy movements, rhythmic agile feet, rocking body, twisting spiraling, and the subtlest smallest moves offering some of the richest and most delightful of sensations.


very helpful meeting with my naturopath today. endocrine fatigue + iron deficiency. she gave me an herbal tincture--Chinese Medicine and had me pick up a bottle of Floradix + iron...she did a bio-resonance stress test to assess levels of inflammation in my body and pick up food intolerance. as i already knew, i am sensitive to milk and wheat--the unexpected was cayenne pepper (wonder if that contributed to my pain when istarted the so-called master cleanse, which i aborted on day 2 because my lower back froze and i realized i was starving myself and ingesting sugar and how would that help me break the sugar habit??? sugar craving is a symptom of adrenal fatigue). her test found inflammation/ stress in my endocrine system--specifically hypothalmus, parathyroid, and pineal glands, all having to do with hormones, regulating body temperature, reproduction and menstrual cycles, hair growth, circadian rhythms, sensing tiredness, sensing hunger or fullness...and the body's ability to handle and recover from stress. all issues. she also gave me a brochure by the Weston A. Price Foundation, that promotes an omnivore diet for humans, including meat and saturated fat. it makes sense to me that our unhealth and disease is related to corn syrups and sugars. this article online "Twenty-Two Reasons Not to Go Vegetarian"  expresses some interesting points, in particular #8 on some of the issues i raised in my discussion of ahimsa. 


"Not a single bite of food reaches our mouths that has not involved the killing of animals. By some estimates, at least 300 animals per acre—including mice, rats, moles, groundhogs and birds—are killed for the production of vegetable and grain foods, often in gruesome ways. Only one animal per acre is killed for the production of grass-fed beef and no animal is killed for the production of grass-fed milk until the end of the life of the dairy cow.

And what about the human beings, especially growing human beings, who are suffering from nutrient deficiencies and their concomitant health problems as a consequence of a vegetarian diet? Or does only animal suffering count?

Of course, we should all work for the elimination of confinement animal facilities, which do cause a great deal of suffering in our animals, not to mention desecration of the environment. This will be more readily accomplished by the millions of meat eaters opting for grass-fed animal foods than by the smaller numbers of vegetarians boycotting meat.

Vegetarians wishing to make a political statement should strive for consistency. Cows are slaughtered not only to put steak on the table, but to obtain components used in soaps, shampoos, cosmetics, plastics, pharmaceuticals, waxes (as in candles and crayons), modern building materials and hydraulic brake fluid for airplanes. The membrane that vibrates in your telephone contains beef gelatin. So to avoid hypocrisy, vegetarians need to also refrain from using anything made of plastic, talking on the telephone, flying in airplanes, letting their kids use crayons, and living or working in modern buildings.

The ancestors of modern vegetarians would not have survived without using animal products like fur to keep warm, leather to make footwear, belts, straps and shelter, and bones for tools. In fact, the entire interactive network of life on earth, from the jellyfish to the judge, is based on the sacrifice of animals and the use of animal foods. There’s no escape from dependence on slaughtered animals, not even for really good vegan folks who feel wonderful about themselves as they finish their vegan meal."

i am not sure what to believe of all the contradictory studies cited and i am not going to say anyone is wrong for choosing vegetarianism. trust how the body feels, listen to its signal, and honor your own values. i was never vegetarian for moral reasons...as in "animal rights" but because i believed the vegetarian take on the link between meat and cancer and toxicity...and i'm sure this is true of factory-farmed flesh, but these are modern diseases that did not arise in the traditional diets that included meat. and my body has been feeling the consequences. i must say i have been feeling much more energetic, more balanced, more emotionally stable in the past week or so when i started changing my diet. too soon to tell, though. i do have more energy. i haven't actually added much meat--compared to the standard american diet, just more iron from diverse sources. more protein and vitamin bs. i  know it is a sensitive spot for many and really respect that people will make the choice that is best for them.


*                       *                            *                         *
how little i know of Horses. really. i've gone horseback riding a few times...the first with my dad in Rome, or just outside, and loved it. i felt safe, secure, and excited. the horse was gentle with me and we did not go very fast. i was a young girl--maybe 11 or 12? then Leon, a spirited horse who wanted to trot ahead of the line...on a narrow cliffside trail that dropped off steeply and sharply into abyss at glacier national park. i felt terrified the entire ride and my dad got very angry with me for it...the fear, the bad attitude, i guess. this was when i was 15, maybe. i just wanted to feel safe and comfortable, and i felt rushed being assigned to Leon without getting to know his temperament and not used to not having any control of his speed. so it took some courage for me to hop on a horse again in guatemala a couple years ago...i felt much more secure on flat open land. and with a patient couple of friends and our cowboy tour guide, who took my nervousness in comedic stride. it was mostly uncomfortably bouncy and was tiring for my body, numb rump. even with these few equine encounters i had never taken much time to observe and be present with and try to understand the experience of a horse. i just went to visit the 2 horses here and just quietly stood and watched curiously. i am in awe of their strange bodies...really unusual when i look at them innocently, as if i'd never seen a horse and was gazing at one for the first time. incredible creature. i notice a calmness and peace when i am near them. they both came close to me, the pony massaging herself on a tree next to me as I use my hand to pet her long body. the older, m, she comes right up to me, and i don't know what she wants or needs. i talk to her and pet her and try to listen and see...i'm no horse whisperer and her strange yawn-like dentile displays confuse me, her eye seems to be leaking water, crying--is she sad? too hot? do they need water? turns out a horse (from my research) yawning can indicate stress and releases endorphins for a calming effect. maybe the visit from a stranger causes tension even though they also approached me and came close to my body, their sides breathing into mine. glad to see their caretaker is here to replenish water and see to their needs. 

sad to be saying goodbye to this sweet family of animals tomorrow morning. what an awesome little vacation. goodnight, spoon.

this morning's dance mix

download from here--compressed into 1 file

relief of rain

sleepy-eyed morning, refreshing dewy quiet stroll. the green of grass, moss, leaves, weeds popping out even more vibrantly after last night's storm. i sat out on the front porch and took in the torrential pounding, stepped out into it for a few moments. oh...feels so good on skin! then a little toad...perhaps the same one who snuck into the house a few nights ago that i had to scoop back out hopped by the puddles that were forming by the front steps. kirby was shaken with fright by the thunder and lightening. so we went in and watched the movie, The Social Network.the music very effective at building drama and tension, it was hard to take sometimes. i know it's a fictionalized account and i am hopeful that these guys aren't so immature and ridiculous in real life??? maybe--i was very immature and selfish in my college years and that is a lot of ethical responsibility for someone to suddenly get thrown into...the way it changed our social context in unpredictable ways to require new thinking on what is private. i can appreciate the way social networking has changed our world and created more opportunity for international connection and communication and self-production, equalizing media more than concentrated in the hands of the few...just want that to be balanced with face to face, slow interaction with depth. less internet has been more peaceful and happy for me.


4am barred owl. 5am chinchilla visit--she was squeaking and i was concerned, curious. i do have a hard time with cages. read up online about chinchillas as pets. learned that they love to gnaw and it's good to have lots of things in their cage to chew on--wood blocks, mineral rocks....plus they need lots of exercise, have lots of energy, so an activity wheel is good. makes me want to go chinchilla shopping, and i may pick up some wood, but there's not even enough room for the activity wheel. i think the cage needs to be bigger. what can i do? strange creature rabbit-rat like. i kept her company trying to make a little game of feeding hay and marigolds (apparently DELICIOUS) by making her run from level to level to get more tasty snacks, to give her more exercise. she was into it. and then i went to bed again...hazy dreams. 

saw a hawk yesterday that i thought might be a Cooper's but after looking at allaboutbirds i am not positive...was excited, nevertheless, to see a hawk i've never seen before. i see lots of red-tailed and red-shouldered around carrboro.


spent a couple hours last night reworking this morning's mix a little bit. i feel pretty good about its pathway through the rhythms. going to head into town now to bring this mix to ecstatic dance at the flowjo. maybe i will try to figure out how to upload the playlist and post it later!


love!

swampy summer sunset dreams desires disappointments delusions discoveries

a dusk sky lit by fireflies, air thick with cicadas, crickets, and sticky wetness. an owl calls in the distance, a dog howls, and kirby and i are walking alongside a quiet road. occasionally a car whizzes by at such an incomprehensible speed in contrast to the slowness here, amplified by the molasses night. mailboxes dotting the grassy edges where the country road meets the half wild/half tamed land. being walked by a sniffing animal. finding a spot to roll and massage himself, relief all over the body. a reminder to check into mine...stiff and rigid with the tension of the day, sitting in over air-conditioned cybrary, can i soften and melt into the liquid humid air? why is my jaw tense, my shoulders frozen forward? am i remembering to breathe? i often find i am holding it. fear? 


"When traumatic events are cumulative, the pattern is engraved into our nervous systems, thus becoming the nucleus of all our strategies and compensations. Memory, encapsulated in ice, now perfectly preserved. Memory will govern from its frozen throne, particularly maintained in the entrapment of breath. After all, the message is do not move, remain invisible, the enemy is close by!" ~from Life on Land by Emilie Conrad


this habit of holding in my breath...it's young, as in old, meaning been around since i was young and now it's old, outmoded, outdated, and hard to break. keep coming back. inhale, exhale. besides the fear and intimidation in the family dynamics of childhood, a very potent memory is my mom warning me with a horror story about someone accidentally swallowing a bee that flew into their coke can and getting stung multiple times from the inside. i decided to defend myself from these deadly bee stings  by stopping, standing still, holding my breath for as long as i could so as to go undetected. those phantom stings that had me trapped in fear were much worse than any actual sting, i'm sure. still haven't been stung yet i can be very relaxed and conversant with a bee these days. 


i am so glad to stay out here on this land. the two horses are amazing. i went out to say hello, pony and horse, and the older came over, warm big body touching mine...waiting for me to climb on? or touch? or feed? or just say hello. i wanted to know and not knowing took me over in an embrace. she seemed to like it. how healing to have this 8 and 1/2 pound heart beating near mine. it calmed my anxious disappointment. sinking in, the frustration, the loneliness, letting it enter me and feed me, then overwhelm me with its lovingness. teaching Nia with that stirred up energy in me was a perfect practice, and i allowed it to shape the class focus: allowing, feeling, and expressing and releasing the emotions...but i was also moving into head space during the dance, which came out as a glitchy twitchy confused choreography that my student (only 1!) didn't notice. as long as i keep moving i guess it doesn't matter if i know the steps are technically "wrong." the ending was an elixir for the heart, sounding and squirming as if embryonic, lying on back, sides, stomach, nurturing the self. dramatizing hurt feelings with whiny wailing sounds interrupted by laughter at my ever-romantic lalaland of a life i live in my head. semi-confirmed by the enneagram. my absurd tendency to fall in love with an idea and live it out in my daydreams rather than risk the lived reality of it. relationships in my head are safer, less vulnerable than in the flesh.

i picked up this book as bedtime reading at my housesitting gig: Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery and it has me riveted. i was sure, sure from reading the book that my type is a number 4: the Individualist...until i got to the final type covered, number 1: the reformer....uh oh. i read the pages with dread...still reading.


i attended a workshop in february on the enneagram personality system and what the trainer said that day about 4 resonated but i wasn't positive. and now reading the detailed description of each type in the book i am unsure between the 4 and 1. i remember the trainer describing her experience being convinced she was a 3 for many years until realizing with great horror that she was actually an 8...i think this may what be happening. i want to be a 4 (more romantic) and it's painful to recognize so much cruelty of the one in me. a lot of my dad in me, is another way to say it. of course, there is a spectrum for all types and self-awareness brings out the healthiest aspects of each, none is all good or bad. 


the enneagram is so powerful and much more instructive than some of the other systems i've encountered because it isn't just a description of the psyche but offers insight into the subconscious drive that motivates our habits, actions, reactions and can help us become aware of unhealthy patterns that arise from core beliefs associated with our type. As the workshop blurb put it: "The Enneagram Personality System offers a map of nine personality types, their perspectives and blind spots and the direction for individual growth and transformation. Life is a journey to the divine heart and we have different paths and specific barriers depending on our personality type."  In other words, Enneagram illuminates what is hidden in us--not focusing on our preferences but the motivation behind them of which we may not be conscious.


found some info about a tritype. this offers that instead of just being 1 core type we have one dominant and 2 subtypes one from each center (heart, head, gut). in that case i could be a 1-4-_ or a 4-1-_ not sure which gut type...none of them ring true. maybe the 5.


the fact that i am expending time and energy trying to solve the mystery of me is BIG evidence that i am, indeed, a 4: 

Type 4: the Romantic (different authors use different names to categorize)
World View: Something's missing. Others have it. I'm different from them because I don't.
Basic Desire: to understand self
Basic Fear: of being defective






 and then there's

Type 1: the Reformer

World View: The world is an imperfect  place. I work toward improvements 

Basic Desire: to be right 

Basic Fear: of being condemned

here it is 4 that feels right
see: http://www.9types.com/
  


thanks for indulging in 4's self-absorption