Deep Gratitude

Two weeks ago, my new housemate, Divya and I claimed our new home by receiving the keys and filling the space with our multitudinous possessions.  I am deeply grateful for this change in space and location.  I'm more centrally located, I've got true artistic and sacred space and I've got a real kindred spirit to share it with.  While I'm still getting settled, I already feel a deeper peace.  I feel like my many dreams and goals are more attainable, my needs better nourished and fulfilled.  It's amazing what a physical space can do for one's mind, heart and body.  This place has real potential to become a home as the seasons pass (even though we don't have a bath tub!).  I can see myself setting roots, deep enough to be grounded, shallow enough to be transplanted to an even better place when the time comes (may it be graceful in coming).  While one can make the best of most any living situation, some places feed the soul more readily than others.  Whatever the reason, this place is one of those.  Despite being right on a somewhat busy street, in a city, this 1904 Victorian 4-plex, with all it's funky charm has a warmth within it that is at once intangible, subtle and deeply embracing.  Perhaps it's the woman who lived in my unit for 9 years who filled this house with such warmth, a woman who built beautiful garden beds along the side of the house, who according to legend passed to me by one of my neighbors was the "house mother".  Maybe the two women who were living here before us, added their own cozy imprints into the concrete, wood and plaster flesh of our new home.  And maybe the magic and intention Divya and I grounded into ourselves and the Earth have played a role in creating a new, yet longed for experience for me.  Certainly 104 years of human and animal presence has given this building a life of it's own.  I feel a pride, an ownership, a sense of dominion, a right to inhabit space, a nourishment and a welcoming in this new home.  It's beautiful.  It's a temple of love, life, truth, fertility, sensuality, passion, creativity, and nurturing.  It's a sanctuary from the bustle of the city, from the ups and downs of work and the otherwise disempowering chaos of civilization.  This home is someone I really want to get to know, someone I want to create a real relationship with.  I'm waiting to hear her name, so I can better hear her stories.  She is fertile ground for me, and I fully intend to take advantage of the blessings from such luscious nourishment!  My gratitude cannot be expressed with words alone, maybe with a little dash of dance and song, I'll manage to come close.  Deepest thanks to all (spirit and person alike) who helped bring me to my new friend, my new home.

Multiple Solitude? Alone-together?

Maybe it's not alone-together, it's more like isolated-and-lonely-together.  Stop and think about it.  When was the last time you actually LOOKED a stranger in the eyes, even when you really wanted to look?  No, you averted your eyes as soon as their gaze grazed you.  When was the last time someone offered to help you, to REALLY help you, when you were suffering, and I mean someone who wasn't your family member or really good friend?  No, they just stood there watching.  We're afraid of seeing one another, we're afraid of letting our guards down and of making the commitment to live life from the heart, to make real sacrifices for one another.  We are a world of beings playing out a disillusioned and moderate tragedy.  In love we temper ourselves, in politics we whine, in dreams we may fly, only to crash upon waking.  We cheapen our passions by consuming fantasies sold to us in an attempt to make us forget that we have the capacity to create so much of the world we live in.  Economics, nation states, religions; what a strange and convoluted, illusory real game of life, which man has so foolishly entangled himself in.  Even I play in this mummer's farce and I see beyond the veil of all this stupidity.  We really make things more difficult than they need to be.  We love a challenge, but would rather lay fallow and dead as we struggle.  Where is the fire of life?  Where is the passion of our hearts?  We second guess our every move, we over-analyze our choices, then idolize those who leap off the edge and land well, but it can't be us who jump.  We have no trust for others, because in our inability to accept our own role in the pain of our lives, we carry anger and blame and shame and all that crap which closes us off from real connections.  Authenticity is not a city we visit often.  We're suffocating under layers of player paint and the dung-masks of dogma.  Why do I shush myself when I was to sing-scream in the middle of the grocery store?  Why do I stop myself from dancing down the street while caressing the gentle hands of my fellow pedestrians?  I stop, I shush, because, no longer a child, my spirit has been suppressed by the dehydrated, blank, and catatonic despair of a population choked by the chains of the Meta-parent, the ultimate authority, be it God or Science or the State, that allows us to say, "It's not my fault!"  It is our fault!  We created this, we continue to create this, and we have the capacity to change it.  

What is a grown up person?  Is there such a thing as an adult, really?  I wonder, because it seems that we humans so badly need to create stories that keep us as children.  Not the children of loving parents who encourage us to dream and breathe and grow, but of parents who tyrannically control our every move and keep us from becoming beautifully independent, wise souls.  Why, as we age, do we let our lives become dross, colorless, and defeated?  Why do we so mindlessly devour the bland food of our romanceless culture decade after decade?  Why do we continue to rise only to our lowest of dreams?  Our world will stone, tar and feather, hang, or burn a person who lives an authentic life, and then make them heroes in their death.  What kind of necromantic story are we writing for ourselves?  If we cannot live in the ecstasy that the full spectrum of our capabilities as humans offers, what the hell is the point of bothering to exist? 

As we grow, as we age, we should find ourselves more alive, better able to express ourselves, more capable of manifesting our dreams, more inspired and clear.  We can only become such wise elders if we spiral through life's ups and downs, without allowing ourselves to stagnate and fester in one place for too long.  Our society, unfortunately, encourages this bogginess, and does not like it when we free ourselves from the sinkholes of despair.  When we know our own power, we cannot be controlled.

I demand a life of PASSION!  I take my life back from the mass boredom of everyday life and from the stranglehold of "power over".  I invite you to join me in creating a life you can truly love.  I invite you to join me in healing our multiple solitude, by remembering to play and gaze into the eyes of strangers.  I invite you to join me in trusting and giving generously and forgiving imperfections.  I invite you to join me in following our hearts and in shedding the garments of the false "authorities" found in government, religion, families, and other social institutions that have been built upon the fear of real freedom.  I invite you to join me in reclaiming the real magic of life and death and remembering the expansiveness of every last cell of our wildest dreams!

So Be It!

Mellodrama Makes Me Pretty

Oops!  I sorta overreacted.  I'm going to find a home with my friend after all.  I held a mirror to myself and found that I've seen this part of me before.  I sometimes don't want to make the effort or to fight for things, so instead, I run the other way.  Alone... well... I can't do everything alone.  I don't really like feeling so alone.  What was that my friend just told me about?  Yes... "multiple solitude".  The idea that we are alone-together.  I keep thinking that embracing that is easier, but it hurts too much.  I'm surprised more people aren't aware of the hurt it causes.  I NEED other people... but I still need my "singular solitude".

Rooms of My Own

Alone, alone, alone.  I am choosing now, to go it alone.  I'm alone in my romantic life, by choice. Now, I'm striking out on my own in my home life as well.  I was going to find a nice place with a friend of mine, but then I began to realize that I suck at living with other people.  I'm too sensitive to other people's energy, I'm too controlling over my environment, I just don't play nice in co-habitation situations.  If I move in with other people now, I'll most certainly follow my current pattern of moving every 6 months to 1.5 years.  I can't stand the thought of that habit continuing ad infinatum.  Every time I move, everything in my life gets rattled; work, relationships, and most importantly, creative projects.  Since I've seriously dedicated myself to my creative work, I can't risk another interruption like the one I'm currently grappling with. I'm being ruthless, and I have to be.  I have to make good on the priority I've set for myself, and that priority is my art.  For me to pursue my art, I need the appropriate space.  I've realized in the last few years that "appropriate space" doesn't only apply to the amount of space.  It also applies to the energy of the space, and my relationship with it.  I need a home and a creative space that is undeniably mine.  I need to have dominion over the space that I occupy.  I need to feel free and safe to express myself within (and without) it's walls.  I need to KNOW that my presence is wanted and welcome. I need to be nurtured, respected, and supported in the spaces that I occupy.  What I've lacked in the past was a house that felt like a home.  I always felt a transience, a borrowing, a lack of grounding in the places I've lived.  Even in my last place, which was my own apartment, I knew I would only be there for a short while.  It was yet another stop on my search for a hearth that would feed my heart, my body, and my creative fires.  Thankfully, I'm more clear about what I need in order to support my goals this time around.  I hope that I can find a home that serves as a foundation for my more risky flights of fancy.  It's looking a little sparse out there right now, but I keep faith that the perfect new home and hearth will emerge, lit and warm, ready to embrace every little flawed and perfect piece of me.

Disappointment

The Whiskers of Green Faeries!

It's amazing what a little booze can do to relax social inhibitions.  I watched my resentments, negative energies, and anger melt away as I shared far too many drinks with my current housemates recently.  It could have gone a completely different course, but it thankfully allowed me to remember their humanity and my own.  It started with whiskey and chocolate and oozed it's way to cool sips of spicy absinthe.  I was able to remember that sometimes the things that rub and irritate and chafe in life are really very small when you step outside yourself and see the beauty in all the crap.  Ultimately, we're all relieved that I'm moving out, because of the small things that have added up to create itches that are awful tedious to scratch, but I'm happy to know that it doesn't leave us with unfading pits and scars.  In the hours that we lost ourselves to the "Whiskers of the Green Faerie", we rebuilt our webs of connection, which all of us so deeply desire.  Though I woke up the next day, feeling a little beaten up, I was happy to know that while I leave a house, I keep the fire of friends and heart, to lighten the hearth of my new abode.  

Ten of Swords Revisited

Hindsight is always 20/20.  

Well, yes, I should have known, but again, yet again, I didn't want to KNOW.  

The Ten of Swords, the Knight of Swords, have come and gone.  These cards, among others, signified the deceit, betrayal, lies, intrigue, and the ensuing disappointment I've recently been entangled in.  I was blind to the truth before me.  

One of the skills of great magicians is the ability to see WHAT IS.  It's not easy, because what we fear and what we desire so often combine to create fantastic illusions in the mind.  If we're not able or willing to push through these illusions, we cannot see the TRUTH, even if it's right there, plain as pudding.  We live in a society that favors intellect over intuition, so it's dually hard to respond and act on the intuitive messages and reflexes we receive daily.  The intellect wants control.  It wants to compartmentalize, rationalize, and demystify everything in it's path.  The problem is, when there isn't enough blatantly clear information, the mind too easily fills missing links with flimsy justifications.  Oftentimes, the missing links are more accurately filled with the visceral knowings of intuition.  This is great when one has learned to trust such sensations and can discern between irrational fears and actual knowings.  

I'm learning that I have a long way to go until I am able to trust my intuition.  There is so much I have to learn in order to strike a healthy balance between my intellect and my intuition.  I suppose, I thought I was much further along than I really am.  It is through this experience (about which I am being intentionally vague, to spare myself the humiliation) that I receive a lesson on the beautiful dangers of desire, desperation, need, fantasy, dreams, and romance.  I want to remain a dreamer and a romantic, able to trust in the wonders of the world, but I also need to know how to keep such ideals from running me into the brambles.  

On the other side of these swords (since they always cut both ways), I have found myself in the position to take a different approach.  This is why in my last post, I made a commitment and dedication to my Muse and to my practice as an artist.  I believe, despite lost hopes, I have found a new energy behind these things for which I am so passionate.  My art is something that is real, it's a relationship I've spent a lifetime building, which in recent years was laid to waste in many ways.  It has a solid foundation, but a lot of damage that needs my full attention at the moment.  There's a lot of restoration and redesigning that needs to take place.  Other things that I dream of and desire for my life, don't seem to be manifesting at the moment, and it's important that I open my eyes to WHAT IS, and accept it.  At this point, it's wisest for me to put my faith, trust and energy into something that I can count on.  I can count on the fulfillment that acting on my creative dreams will bring.  Maybe I won't gain the level of success that I dream of, but at least I'll be able to say I did every thing that I could, that I showed up, that I went for it, that I did my best.  Knowing this allows the deep pain in my heart to ease up and gives me enough lift to keep seeing the rainbow behind the clouds.