bird toy

bird toy.
sometimes useful, somewhat amusing, shiny thing.
left alone unless bored.
pecked at by the universe.
shit on.
life.
bird toy.

it doesn't pay to piss me off

i was given a christmas cactus as a gift.
at first blush, i was touched. how nice, i thought, such a spontaneous gesture.
only a day after receiving it, i was entertaining doubts.
the reason i was suspicious of the motivation behind said gift is that, of course, i immediately wanted to take pictures of it. ha.
photographically speaking, this is the plant from hell. it is a demon, existing solely to make mad those who seek to digitally reproduce it's form.
that would be me. and i'm already nuts enough.
i got pissed.
(i don't anger easily. when i do reach saturation point, just stand back. leave the room. hell, leave the country.)
add to that a major dose of polish stubbornness, and you have...

pictures! good ones!
took me two damn weeks, so i'm posting almost all of the ones that worked. i'm saving a few for the bad days, when nothing works, and i need a lift. i'm not just speaking photographically, either.

arlo's christmas carol

i'm old. so this is culturally significant for me.
i work on ahimsa, the yogic principle of non-violence.
so this is spiritually significant for me.
plus, it's funny.
arlo guthrie has been, and continues to be, one of the gentler people on the planet. he seems to have escaped the genetic disease, huntington's chorea, to which woody succumbed.
the first couple of lines had been running 'round my brain for a few days. i finally remembered enough to go looking.

short version: (embedding is disabled, here's the link)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQbyT0cUMNc

if you want to hear the whole thing: (and it's worth it!)

may your holidays, and the year to come, be filled with peace, of heart, mind, and spirit.
namaste.

this post brought to you by...

...tag, who posted, and once known as el tejon, who commented on tag's post today.
(not to mention my first husband, who contacted me this past weekend, after about 15 years.)

i'm supposed to be making fudge right now.

the question under discussion, at least in my head, is:
once heartbroken (or twice or 47 times), how do we move on in a way that serves us? how do we avoid the hardening of the heart into which we can fall so easily? what do we do with the hurt, anger, bitterness that we humans create so easily, and feel the need to justify? how do we let go of the pain, and let love in again?

It is sad not to love, but it is much sadder not to be able to love.
-Miguel de Unamuno

i could write reams about this. none of it would be new. so here's the reader's digest condensed version.

1. don't deny the hurt. don't hang onto it, either.
2. tell yourself the truth. don't let others tell you what you are, or should be, feeling.
3. know what part you contributed to the heartbreak. if you think you have no
part in it, think again.
4. resolve to do better the next time, for yourself and whoever you meet.
5. resolve that there will be a next time.
6. forgive the other person.
7. forgive yourself.
8. remember that you are healing. there will be very bad days, and not so bad days, and finally, good days.
9. resist the temptation to take on the role of victim.
10. finally, make no decisions based on the pain. those decisions, like "i'll never do this again", or "i'm not loveable" are pretty much always wrong.

i could write more of these pithy little comments. i might, later on.
there's so much more to this topic than can be addressed in one post.

we all have to make our own way through the muck and miasm of heartbreak.
this quote is the bottom line:

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.
-Albert Camus

the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step

the question then becomes, which path?

"Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, then it is of no use."
Carlos Castaneda
The Teachings of Don Juan

life, art, what's the difference?

i've struggled with the "issue" of creativity my entire life. i was told, early and often, by family and teachers, that i was not creative, and that i had no artistic talent. in any arena. the implication was that i would NEVER have any, talent being inborn, and i was shit out of luck. and so, it became something after which i yearned, longed for, lusted after. the lack of it also became something that defined me. that lack lodged in my brain and body.

since i couldn't create, i became an accomplished audience. that was not enough.

i know a bit about how brains work, and how brain organization and perception intertwine. i know that i think differently, and see (both literally and figuratively) differently, than most. i know that now. back in the day, not so much. it's damn near impossible to hold on to your sense of self when everyone is telling you that you're crazy, wrong, or just plain weird.

i started mucking out the augean stables of non-creative crap. well, that's a life's work, if you're not hercules!

all of this is a long way 'round to saying, the tectonic plates have shifted, expression has erupted. aftershocks continue. the effects are not confined to the usual artistic endeavors. it is spreading to every facet of life. life itself is becoming an artistic endeavor.

from oscar wilde:

life has been your art.
you have set yourself to music.
your days are your sonnets.

finally, finally, it all comes down to recognizing, honoring, and acting on, what you know, in your heart, to be true.

winter

winter is, energetically speaking, the time during which we rest deeply, renew, replenish our reserves, go inward. this winter, more than any in the recent past, the urge to hibernate is strong in me. pulling myself out of a warm bed is torturous. i want to eat a lot, heavy, carb-laden foods. i want to nestle into my couch, with blanket, book, and red wine. i want to integrate, not just this past year, but the past 3. i want to write (that's new), to see what comes out, to hold it up to the light. i want to see what shines and what needs polishing. i want to listen to the peace within. and i want to become aware of the paths to be followed, in what direction i am nudged, pulled, or even, shoved.

this wasn't my first choice, or even my second.
this will do.

more bad poetry

i found this in the back of an old notebook of mine.
i think this would make a good, bad country/western song.

not the brightest thing
i've ever done,
falling in love
with a son of a gun.

you'd think by now
i'd learned not to.
then i roll over
and shit-it's you.

get out of my way,
out of my life.
go back to your horse
back to your wife

i gotta learn how,
gotta think this through.
can't live this way
it's too far from true.

this is only tangetially related, but damn...

soxual healing

i live in a place where i can wear sandals or flip-flops 8 months out of the year.
i come from a place where i needed to wear socks 8 months out of the year.
a disconnect, you say?
you're right.
i've been missing my socks.
so i thought i'd have a sock parade.


the first marathon i ran was the flying pig marathon, in cincinnati. after that, everyone, and i mean every-damn-one, gave me things with flying pigs on them. this is the sock version. what you can't see in this photo is that the pigs are wearing halos.



i hate to admit to playing sock favorites, but i will bear up under the humiliation and say, yes, these 2 are my favorites.

they have monkeys on them.








toe socks. my mother gave me these. she's such a cut-up.








these are my cosmic socks. they have stars, planets, and rockets on them. the coolest thing, which i didn't see until i took this picture, is that around the top, it says "universal love!" i ask you, who doesn't want to be walking around in universal love?

oh, i have lots more socks. wool up-to-the-knee socks for skiing, socks for running, your basic utilitarian socks that are monochromatic, skeleton socks for halloween (they were in the laundry). i even have a pair of socks marked "left" and "right." they are all part of my sock family.

and when it's cold, and dark, and you're a long way from home, it's good to have family around.

this one is x-rated. well, if you're a sock:

ghost heart

in your haunted-house heart,
ghosts live, and live well.
gorged on hurt and sorrow and loss,
fat with pain and the past,
they are your present.
their eyes are yours, you speak their words,
you hear only echoes.
they drift across your face at tender times.
we don't exist, the flesh-and-bloods,
until we stir the ghosts.

nothing to say

turn left at the joshua tree

all the folks with whom i would usually have thanksgiving are out of town this year. so, in a fit of emotional equilibrium, i decided i'd better do something other than sit at home and suck the mop.

thanksgiving morning, i packed up my camping gear and headed to the mojave, hoping that most folks would be at someone's house, either having a good time or making each other miserable. in either case, i had a shot at getting the campsite i can reach in my low-ground-clearance, definitely not off-roadable car.

and it worked!

i was there by 9:30am, and all set up by 10:30am. there was one camper near me, no big deal. i had a fire ring, a flat spot for my tent, and a gorgeous juniper tree above. i was thankful. and then i was hiking.

i wish i was more eloquent with the written word. i am, most assuredly, a talking woman. i learn better, think more creatively, connect ideas more rapidly, in conversation. (and no, talking to myself doesn't count, most of the time.) i would very much like to be able to describe what happens when i'm out in the desert, by myself. the noise in my head stills. my thoughts slow. my vision is sharpened. the only sound is that of my footfalls. occasionally, a bird will chime in an opinion. my entire physiology calms. i can breathe. i feel whole. silence heals.

so i walked and walked. i discovered 2 other campsites that i think i can safely get to in my car, farther from the road. i took some photos. i sucked up as much silence as i could contain.

as i'm sure you've noticed, it gets dark early these days. so at 4:00, i built a fire. good thing, since the temperature dropped quickly out there. i got to do my second favorite thing when camping, play with fire! it had been pretty windy all day, and it didn't slow down much in the evening. the fire burned hot and fast, and i sat as close as i could get without melting the soles of my shoes. (i've done that in the past.) as the fire burned down, the lantern came on. i love lanterns. another form of fire, with a different sound and a different glow. by 6:30, i was in the tent, in my sleeping bag. the wrong sleeping bag, as it turned out. that's a post unto itself.

i fell asleep reading, and dreamed odd dreams. i woke periodically, thinking i was in a straight jacket-it was the sleeping bag.

this morning it took me an hour to talk myself out into the cold. once i was out of the tent, the path was obvious. go hike. so i did.

there were more people about today, more campers, more hikers. even with that, if it hadn't been for that damn sleeping bag, i would have stayed another night. or 3. so i packed up, slowly, and drove home. slowly.

go ahead, try this at home-if you're crazy

i totally gacked this from a livejournal friend.
if i rode a bike, i would have to try something like this.
fortunately, i just stand on my head!
watch:

i was born in the wrong era

and here's why.
i love this music, and i especially love to dance.
(i love most kinds of music and dance, but for some reason, this grabs me.)

this is just for fun!

watch this:


and this:

(forgot this one):


then, later, came this:

dem bones, dem bones

as i mentioned in the "nathen" post, we went to the neon boneyard.
i'd wanted to see it for some time, and nathen really wanted to see it, so off we went.
this was a guided tour, no wandering away from the group allowed, or they would throw you out. i'm neither a professional, nor particularly accomplished at photography, and i'm too damn slow to get the shots i see. so these photos are, well, just ok. so it goes. and here goes.

i'm not doing any description of the photos. there are stories and histories for each of them, but that's not my gig.









nathen was busy absorbing through the ears. i was busy absorbing through the eyes. this guy was eating the sky.

and this girl is swinging along.

there are more pictures, but i can't get them downloaded right now. so this post is going to be a work in progress.
check back soon!

nathen has left. dammit.

for the last almost 2 weeks, i've had a young friend from back east staying with me. it has been a delight and an education.

meet nathen.

(he's not really scowling, just not awake yet.)

nathen is 21 (i said young !), damn smart, talented, courageous, and funny. he's a musician, street performer, and actor. he learns faster than the speed of light-not just technical stuff, but emotional stuff too. which is good, since the man has been through more wretched crap in his short life than many of us go through in 3 times that many years. i've known him since he was 15 or 16 (i think). we both worked for several years as instructors for the same autistic boy (whom we both love dearly). and for some reason, nathen and i clicked. we have similar musical tastes (eclectic and wide-ranging), we learned to dance at the same time and with the same person, we both don't like nuts in things, or fruit in non-fruit dishes. we share curiosity about damn near everything, and wickedly irreverent attitudes about damn near everything.

nathen got here by bike. that's BICYCLE, not motorcycle. from philadelphia. with a couple of train/bus passages, but mostly by bike. i regret not getting a picture of his bike, 'cause it is formidable. steel frame, kinda beat up now, he paid $50 for it, used. a low-budget trip, spanning over 4 months by the time he's done, and chock-full of adventures!

las vegas wasn't originally on his itinerary. due to some not-so-fun adventures in san francisco, he ended up with a bunch of time and no place to be before his next stop, so i won!

and we did have some fun. we didn't get to do as much as i would have liked. my work day is chopped up into weird chunks. nathen, being the amazingly self-sufficient being that he is, did a bunch on his own. on his bike. (i tried to warn him about drivers here, but he didn't truly believe me until he motored around some.)

however... we did get to the neon boneyard, which was on nathen's list of 2, maybe 3, things he wanted to do in vegas. i took a ton of pictures, he learned a ton about vegas (thanks to a very well-informed tour guide), and a good time was had by both.

i'll do another post about the boneyard sometime, mostly pictures.

at one point this week, it was beginning to look like nathen wasn't ever going to get out of vegas. rides fell through, the bus and train wouldn't take his bike. he needs to be in arkansas by monday or tuesday. arrrggghhhh! finally, another ride appeared, details were arranged, rearranged, and then rearranged again.

he left this morning. i miss him already. i don't know if he knows how timely his visit was. he was a face from home, at a time when i was feeling bereft of connection. he told me stories of outrageous events, people, conversations. i told him i better see a book out of this-he's got enough material! he also spewed crumbs wherever he walked. don't know if i'll miss that!

see ya, hon. come back sometime, and we'll do all the stuff we didn't get to this time. safe journey.

a mere shadow

living in the shadows,
hidden from the sun,
tears slide down my face,
i watch the minutes run.

6 months? already? damn.

last night i was shuffling things around, books, papers, and emotions, when i came across a date of significance. i did the math-well, actually, arithmetic. i discovered, to my amazement and delight, that it's been 6 months that one fine gentleman and i have been, as they used to say, keeping company.

and what company it has been! surprising, intense, sensual, curious, laugh-filled, passionate, sometimes downright mind-boggling, sometimes just goofy. all turning into a deep caring for, and respect for each other. full-spectrum, i'd say. lots of light.

we share enough common interests and experiences to be comfortable, have enough dissimilar pursuits to keep the conversation lively, and enough utterly divergent opinions to keep us exploring, analyzing, and, of course, laughing. we are intelligently inquisitive. we have fun!

out of this, in such a short time, we've both had some experiences that have profoundly altered our perceptions of the world, ourselves, our work. i've had abilities awakened, creative aspects of my life, that had been so thoroughly shut down i thought they didn't exist. for that i am eternally grateful.

it hasn't all been cake and tea, of course. we've done some obstacle placing, some run-and-hide. the wounded aspects of ourselves have tripped us up more than once, with the concomitant face-plants. we've caused each other pain, and, i hope, eased the pain. this is the way of things relational. so far, we keep going. the music plays, and the dance continues.

unlike my orange friend, i have no crystal ball. i don't know what's next. i do know there's more to be explored. my intent is to remain present, and NOT do anything really stupid!

so to you, pumpkin man, i say-
thank you for the last 6 months. with open heart, i curiously await the next song, and the next dance.

this is the bad poetry i promised

(with apologies to every poet who ever lived, anywhere, at anytime.)

i wrote this quite a while ago, and had, blessedly, forgotten about it. now it's back. sorry,


thoughts arise, and die again
with distressing ease.
they come and go like taxis,
erections, or a sneeze.
and yet we give them value,
permanence and place,
a vain attempt to make a world
that never changes pace.
when things tilt, we tighten up,
we fume and spit and seethe.
we rarely do the easy thing-
relax, let go, and BREATHE.

SO glad to have gotten that out of my system.

how low can you go?

i hadn't intended this to be my first yoga post, but, hey, so it goes.
background:
i've been practicing yoga for quite a while. 20+years, the last 10 seriously. for the last 3-5 years, i've been studying iyengar yoga. this form, created by b.k.s. iyengar, focuses on precise alignment, and holding the poses longer than other forms. it is NOT flow and glow yoga. it is rigorous and demanding, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. all yoga is that way, really, if done right.

foreground:
this weekend, i had the pleasure of attending a workshop given by neeta datta, a senior iyengar teacher. i've been to several of her workshops before, and the effect has been, every time, profound. she embodies yoga, and i'm not talking about asana (postures). i'm talking about the philosophy of yoga, and how you live your life.
this is how my weekend went.
friday:
go to yoga teacher training (didn't i mention this? later), leave in the middle to go teach a class, return for the last part. go home for a few hours, back to the iyengar center for the evening part of the workshop.
learn more in 2.5 hours than i've learned in the last 6 months.
saturday:
back to the workshop, for 4.5 hours. learn another 6 months worth, stagger home to an epsom salts bath, and red wine. (so i'm not a fully evolved yogini-sue me.) ponder what i've seen, heard, and done, what i've learned, what i've not yet integrated. wonder just how sore i'm going to be on sunday.
sunday:
yep, sore, not as bad i had expected. tired, tho, very tired. not so much physically, but mentally.

i get a great amount out of these workshops because i am intensely focused on what's being taught. there is just so much information being offered, on so many levels. when neeta corrects another's pose, and i can see what's happening, there's a whole other layer to learn.

i love yoga. if you ask me about yoga, i'll do my best to be brief. i will probably fail. i could do yoga 8 hours a day, as long i had time left for some other fun things, like food, photography, reading, and sex (not necessarily in that order.) the philosophy of yoga makes perfect sense to me. it's a very well thought out, time-tested way to live a good life, and if you're so inclined, reach samadhi.

so if you've ever been even mildly interested in trying yoga, do it. your life will thank you.

the big questions

i have of late been mourning, not so much loss, but change: the passing of summer, the dimunition of light, the coming and going of friends, the shifting of relationships, the ever increasing wrinkles. this has led me to muse on our human tendency to cling to what is, to deny the transitory nature of all things, even, and perhaps especially, in the face of massive upheaval.
(warning: this rambles a bit.)

we desperately cling to things, things that comfort us, shield us, that delude us into feeling secure. we do this on a daily basis, believing that because we have this house, this job, this spouse, this religion, that we are safe. we wrap ourselves in the cotton batting of belief systems, patterns of thought and behavior, thinking to buffer the world's blows, and stave off change. we weave illusions around ourselves, and believe them to be real.

well, bullshit, it doesn't work.
the illusions shatter, the possessions go away, the body decays,and then what do we do? have we had sufficient practice in the truth to be able to continue on? do we have intimate knowledge of that which is indestructible in ourselves, enough to persevere? or do we shatter?

and just what are we supposed to be safe from? what scares us so?

now, wiser folks than myself have been asking these same questions for thousands of years. many of them have created some nifty techniques for the investigation of same. i've used a bunch of them. they do work. i am NOT claiming any great cosmic knowledge here, just that i've played a bit in this field, and continue to do so.

now my guess is that pretty much everyone perusing this blog has been through some, as we used to say in the 60's, heavy shit. heaven knows i have. there's a lot of heavy weather blowing about these days too.

so here's the question: how do you deal with upheaval? tragedy? loss? betrayal? abandonment? what have you found that sustains, not just survival, but growth, in these times? what moves you forward? what keeps you flexible, open, receptive, when the urge is to withdraw, get rigid, shut down? and perhaps most importantly, can you learn through it all?

obviously, there's more to this. more questions than answers, as usual. let's see where this leads us.

prickly love

well, this trip confirmed it. i'm in love.

in the spring of '08, i drove to ventura, california for a brain gym training, which took me through the mojave national preserve for the first time. the desert grabbed my heart, with no plans to surrender it.

time passed, with no further contact, and the thrill of new love abated. i put it in the box marked "oh well", and moved on.

about a month or so ago, having had it's praises sung to me again, i drove back to the preserve, to take another look.
and wham! in love all over again.
we made plans to meet again, the desert and i, and soon.

i spent one night there, camped out under more stars than i've seen in a very long time. i remembered camping skills and knowledge long unused, under the kind and gracious tutelage of one more experienced. i also remembered, too damn late, that i need more padding under me than most do, when sleeping on the ground. damn but my ass hurt.

on halloween weekend, i got to spend 2 nights there. this was truly a treat better than candy, and i like candy! treats included:
-hikes, where we found 3-4 deflated mylar balloons, in disparate locations, for different occasions. huh? why?
-reading, or more accurately, being read to, when the reader could quell the laughter spasms that threatened to asphyxiate him! it was a very funny book, one that now i don't have to read!
-writing, a draft of this that bears no resemblance to the final posting. as i was staring at the mountains in the distance, i found myself musing about time and space, and that since they're the same thing, perhaps i was seeing into the future? you betcha.
-a smoldering campfire that stunk up the tent all night, and yes, it was a treat to me. not everyone shared my opinion. this was the same campfire that regularly shifted to blow smoke at us during dinner-that i could have lived without.
-and some of the best, and longest nights' sleep i've had in a very long time.

the moon was 99% full, and hugely bright, the only light needed during the middle-of-the-night pee walk, bright enough to keep me awake, shining through the tent skin.

oh yes, the wildlife. 2 ravens, apparently hoping we were dead and available, sorely disappointed. we tried to explain to them that we were old and stringy, mostly bones, and not very tasty. they were not convinced.
a jackrabbit, bounding off to parts unknown. a real treat, that, since they're scarce on the ground these days.
and a horned toad-tiny,tiny, in a place and at a time of year when they're not usually seen.
and since it was halloween, of course there was a bat.

i have to throw this in. i really like being naked outdoors. skinnydipping has always been a favorite activity. now i like skinnydipping in the sun, and the moonlight. and no, there are no pictures. be grateful.

all this leads up to this: in the month of october, i've had 2 of the best times i've had in the last 3 years, excluding yoga and dancing stuff. these times involved a lot of dust and sweat, sleeping on the ground, eating things that came out of cans, getting my ass scrubbed by bushes while peeing, watching for snakes, and other things too numerous to mention.

now THIS is my idea of a good time.