growth

Grab your humanity!!!!

So I’ve been watching, because I do that kind of thing, and the one thing that I’m noticing about a good chunk of the discussion is the lack of humanity. This primarily came up because there’s a bullet that likes to remind me that I dodged it. Every time I listen to this person open their “mouth” I find the absolute loss of empathy and humanity coming out of it. There’s an extent to which it saddens me, but that’s not my responsibility nor did I dig the hole that keeps getting deeper.

Then I reflect to the grander picture. Our society is a very, very fine balance; as any society is. Law attempts to be humane but there comes a point where Lady Justice has to put her blindfold on and decide based on what we’ve decided, as a society, is guilt or innocence. Being on either end of that spectrum doesn’t determine the presence or absence of humanity, but how we dole out the consequences does.

In our current climate we’ve subsisted on soundbites and half stories for decades, which for the folks my age was the whole premise behind Reality Bites. We love the tidbits, we love filling in the gaps and making new stories out of them, but we really hate having to own up to the fact that we jumped the gun. This leads us to the whole false narrative issues we’re starting to see play out in our media. Our need for “right now” not “wait and see”.

This is where I’m going to tell you – grab your fucking humanity. Put yourself in a mental situation that doesn’t include whatever bubble you were cushioned by growing up. Consider it a thought project safe space, if you need those. Imagine being in a situation that many people these days are finding themselves in – in our multi-ethnic society – that seeks a specific individuality that is based on a specific group ideal. How and what would you do in that situation? Do you have all the facts? Could you truly make a decision based on what you do know?

Our human experiences are all different. We may not be able to know exactly how someone else feels based on our individual environments, but we can relate and we can imagine to try and find that point. It really isn’t that difficult. It’s just easier to default to hate because it doesn’t require any real rational thought or discussion. When we do that, and when we approach from that direction – that is where we find the points we can make a change for the better. And I would really like to see us do better.

Out with the new, In with the old? Or is it a case of Old is the New new?

I’m watching the world right now, political warfare, mythical retaliation, and my brain trying to wrap my head around all of this.

The volcanoes erupting, particularly in Hawai’i due to corporate greed tapping into things that they refuse to admit even exist – Pele. It makes me think back to the tales in the Irish Book of Invasions, how various peoples immigrated to the land and how long they maintained sovereignty was determined by how well they took care of the land. Of course, that’s Ireland and the volcano in this case is home to a Goddess who would probably be more of a friend to the Morrigu. The more I read about what has been going on there the more I look to the land guardians who have been fighting the corporate takeover of the land. They have been offering their prayers to let Pele know that they are with her, even though their strength has been limited by governmental interference.

Watching them gives me hope. As it does in the States, where a rising tide of our First Nations is bringing more attention and gaining momentum to their charge to the land here. For us, it is a similar issue – power. Literal and figurative. What I see to be a further insult is the “environmental groups”, namely the outdoor companies that have a stated purpose in line with what the land guardians want but seem to want to ensure that they don’t partner together. To some, it’s called privilege, mainly of the white kind; I’d go a step further and say it’s mainly a “Westerner” privilege – of the Roman of old variety. This idea that humans are not caretakers of the land – charged with working in balance, but sovereign over the land to force the land to conform to us.

What I’m starting to think we’re seeing is us being put in our place, thanks to the more over-zealous segment of our population who follows that thought process. Mainly those who are under the ill-formed thought process that they control everything. But I do think we’re hitting a point where this will all be unveiled and the tales of old – Ragnarok, the Rapture, etc, are about to reveal what they meant.

I don’t view this as a bad thing, when taken into the bigger picture. Scary, sure. But in order to evolve, old structures have to be taken down – like in a forest. Trees have to fall, decompose and prepare the soil for what comes next. Fire has to clear out the under-brush so there’s room. Same goes for governments and society.

Evolution…

Things have been getting pretty hectic here since the beginning of the year. But in a good way. It’s been giving me time to reconnect with my roots, clear out the old junk that has been holding me back from jumping off the cliff, and make room for all the really awesome stuff that has been percolating in the background.

It’s been a good clearing, as I’m finding the ideas that I’ve been waiting for are finally starting to bubble to the surface. How I want the back yard to look, what I want the house to look like, what my office should be and finally….what my job will be! That part is the most exciting, because it finally allows me to bring every thing I do in life together into this one little bundle.

I’ve always known that I’m that person who will always be a step behind, but it’s never really bothered me that much because I’ve found that I always arrive when I need to do so. Guess that makes me a little wizard in the Tolkien vein. 😀

As things progress, I might talk about it more here, even though I do want to keep things a bit separate. Maybe I’ll hit a stride where I finally don’t care again and can fully open up. But it’s hard to explain how awesome it is, when that part that you thought was dead inside – buried in thick concrete and hidden for all time – to crackle back to life. To hear the muse that you had pushed aside, to become something that someone else wanted you to be, to forgive you enough and trust enough that she’d begin talking to you. And to finally hear the gods of old start to sing their songs with you. The awakening that we all search for, cry out for, and seek every single day.

But then begin to realize that it’s a process of a lot of small circumstances and details that add up.

Hrm…

So, with my world in absolute chaos due to tricksters making evolution happen, it dawned on me that I’m having a creativity drought. It was thrown at me yesterday as one of my gymnasts let out a huge groan followed by a very loud “Oh MY god!!!” as I tried to wrangle her teammates into setting up our stations. Granted, my usual passion in what I do has been tempered by the adult realities of life and I find myself regressing back into a few points in my life where I felt my fires either being snuffed out or just quelled to smoke by a dump of cold water.

But in my time off, my creativity has been seriously stifled. I remember days where I could churn out poems, most of which made no sense, doodled new animals to life, or imagined symphonies that would make the masters weep. But here I am, grasping at what others have created, in hopes that it will kick my muse back to life. Be the lightening that rekindles the flames. But always, I come back to the person(s) that would rather let someone suffocate, just to see those lips turn black. Those who I ultimately don’t know whether I should pity or ignore. The killjoys.

She is right. And that’s what those people do, they make you question everything. Feel worthless in your talents. All so that you eventually wither away and die. The Echo to Narcissus.

Sinking in…

Today I’ve been the social butterfly, meeting in the morning to decompress, get to know a new friend and mentor, and brainstorm the impending creation of my own coaching style and philosophy. Lots of words and thoughts throwing around in my brain. Emails sent trying to outline more and get support to make it all happen. Anxiety about the excitement and space it opens up for me to grow and learn as a person. Then finding the comfort of the full length sweater that I wanted to get months ago on clearance – in my size.

It’s amazing how simple that kind of comfort can be. Allowing me the space to gather some of my thoughts, articulate them and send more of them out. In putting together my application for summer camp, I find that I actually have to tell someone why they should pick me over people I don’t know and possibly have never met. I always hated these essays, not because they make me talk myself up, but because they make me try to convince others that I am more deserving and special than others who are writing them. I consider that a recipe for disaster, because it creates this expectation. Not that I can’t live up to one, but that I prefer to let my actions speak louder than my words. I’m human, I screw up occasionally (and sometimes more than that), and I waltz through other challenges like champion.

I still need to sit down and do my taxes. The city where my business resides has the most asinine rules for renewing licensure. It’s like the folks in charge failed to read the US Constitution to find that natural born citizens have to relinquish their citizenship. But again, I have to prove I’m a citizen. Despite everything being digitized, they can’t maintain records to know that I’ve already proven I am. Not only that, I need to find where I hid my login and password. Headaches. At least my actual taxes will be easier, just a matter of sitting down and organizing them.

Things, things, things.

Going semi-public…

As my business starts to take off more, I’ve found I actually need to create a public profile for FB. I’ve always much preferred to be as anonymous as possible, and to keep everything out of the light. Well, seems it’s that time and I’m having the most difficult time of it. I’ve never been one to stand up and go “look at me!” and here I am pretty much requesting it.

The most difficult thing is trying to define how the profile should be classified. Public figure, entrepreneur (I hate that word), fictional character, teacher, coach, motivational speaker….Seriously, too limiting and too much BS. I’m just human, and I do things that seem to help people out. Can’t say I’m anything overly special. Yet here I am, watching my center expand in its offering and watching my role in my community grow. It’s weird. Good in an uncomfortable way because it means I’m headed in the right direction. But I really don’t like the idea of going that far out of my comfort zone for all of this.

There’s also the factor of announcing things that I view as “just being”. In a society that values labels over everything I don’t like the idea of having to list all my labels. They’re just a factor of my life and my work. While I respect the duality/multi-facetness of pretty much everything, I also view that duality/multi-facet as being just an aspect of the whole. You can sit and separate everything out into its parts, till it ceases to be anything but a bunch of parts laying around. No one wants to look at the whole picture anymore. They want to deconstruct and judge, diminish, extoll, whatever, based on a single part. I don’t like the idea of being out there and being just parts. And I’ve been so out of the idea of writing and being a wordsmith these last 15 years, that I don’t know how to fully convey the entirety without sacrificing it for the parts. It’s one of the reason I had my descent into hermitdom in the first place. It’s quiet and on no one’s terms. It just is.

Who knows….

I have no clue where I’m going to go with this entry, maybe no where. I feel the need to retreat from this world, or at least this country. I’m proud that we’re finally waking up and the catalyst to do so was the result of the curtain being removed from around the land of Oz. And as always, there is a but here…

It saddens me, in all of this, to watch voices be silenced because of disagreement – even if they are of an opinion I disagree with. I’ve pretty much hit the point where I don’t feel I can even talk to most people, rationally, about anything these days. So I sit in silence, occasionally giving a thumbs up, going about my business, and keeping my head down. It’s not worth it anymore and I’d rather spend my time obsessing over philosophy and the trends of nature. But this is a trend. Chaos must precede order, death must come to make room for life. Just as the wildfires and floods cleanse the land for the smaller trees and flora that need the ash and space to grow, so too must the world of man exist in similar fashion.

There’s an extent to which I look forward to the cleansing this brings to the socio-political world, but it’s a question of who to trust in the aftermath and whether or not they are what they seem. There’s a lot of fog around me these days, physically and metaphysically. These days, it makes me wonder if it’s a sign of things to come and whether the idea of being a secluded mystic is more the path for me than being in public. And the more I contemplate the idea, the more life seems to work for me. It also seems to be the direction the universe is sending me.

2016…

3 Hawks circled our house this morning. With the rain subsiding, all the smaller birds returned, including a previously unseen red-mohawked woodpecker (no, he work a speckled suit, not a blue one). I also smudged the house, and am still smudging it. We had hoped to spend today finishing up the things we started yesterday, unfortunately Pastry is sick. Possibly from inhaling some of the drywall from yesterday’s demolition.

I feel confident on this next year, not necessarily that it will be stagnant, but that it will be busy – good busy. I think that most of last year was pretty much dedicated to wiping out a lot of old stuff. Old relationships that were unserving, job situations that weren’t beneficial, and some other stuff. There is stuff that I wish wasn’t ending, but such is the way of nature. I’m hoping that this is moving towards my “moment” where life finally smacks me upside the head and I finally listen to it and suddenly the river starts to flow.

We also need to start taking time out to be social. Whether old friends or new ones, though I’m leaning towards new friends. I’ve never really had a social circle, just a few friends that I’d go do stuff with. It’s easier in HS and college when you’re all kinda in the same place. Adulting is a bit different, with schedules and distance and all that stuff. Makes that whole being social thing kinda hard. But I do like the idea of meeting new people, even if it’s the result of people I already know.

I’m also contemplating re-starting a pagan discussion group. There’s not a Borders to host it at, but I’m sure something can be figured out if the interest is there. Just ideas that I’ve been tossing around.

Whittling

Spent the day not working on the condo. But that’s ok, we’ll go by tomorrow and I’ll spend some time on Monday, too. We’ve needed to stay at the house and start to unpack. Things need to find their places.

I’m finding amusement in the things that I’m determining are important to buy. Yes, it’s things, but things like plants, bird feeders, chairs for outdoors. I’m not focused so much on the inside as I think there are only a few things we honestly need there, but we need more outdoor stuff. I’m seeing where I can set-up my retaining walls, where the grove circle might go (got it narrowed down to 3 places), which things need to be removed.

Slowly, finding more direction. Still wandering a bit with the work stuffs, but it will get settled. I’m being pulled in a different direction, so right now the goal is to set the office up so that the massage will be my part-time job and the gym will be my main job. Taking a bigger role there, as we’re picking out next year’s team and setting up a 5-6 year old team. Going to spend next week reconfiguring the website for the office to get rid of 2 of our memberships. I have to go in another direction. I also need to bring in folks that can potentially take over the lease. Waffling on whether or not I want it set up in a manner for me to have 2 offices, but as with meditation, that thought just floats in and floats away. No attachment to it, yet. The signs haven’t been there, they’ve been elsewhere.

Speaking of signs…I’m getting better at being more aware of them. Not always sure as to which direction they are intending to point me, but I figure at this point I can treat it like breadcrumbs. Find the ones that strike me in the right manner and keep walking till I find another one and continue on that path. And that’s leading me further and further away from Atlanta. It really is something to think about, I just need to figure out how I’m going to pursue that avenue. I feel I’ve been niched into one place with my work, and I’ve strayed away from the type of work that I got into the field to do in the first place. I’m too separated from my spirituality with it.

Stopping to smell the flowers…

Which is kind of unavoidable as my deck is blooming (at least one flowering plant is, the other 6 or so are still works in progress).

I’ve been wandering around of late, spending more time reading Fallen Leaves by Will Durant. He’s one of my favourite lyrical historians so it’s interesting to hear his own thoughts on what he’s witnessed. A good bit echoes my grandmums’ opinions – my father’s mum never understood the need for women’s suffrage. She always thought we had better things to do than worry about men’s quarrels that would do the world no good. Some of his opinions I obviously disagree with, particularly when it comes to gender roles. But that’s beside the point. I get where he’s coming from in it, because we’ve lost our way and we’re trying to find it. The only issue is that in losing our way, we’ve found other routes and “trinkets” that now need integrating.

Which brings me to a thought I’ve been pondering – yoga. One of the blogs I’ve been reading and absorbing is written by a woman who grew up in the culture that has grown out of the Vedic teachings. I can’t fully sum up her opinions in a manner that will do her any justice here, but in my words – Americans are good at messing up good things in the name of improvement. We’ve pretty much perfected the process, mastered possibly.

At any rate, I’ve been taking inventory of my inclusion in the American yoga community and I’ve really started distancing myself. Sure, I’d love to feel the energy of a yoga rave or the community created at Wanderlust, but every time I look at the things going on I find it akin to the newly converted – who never get over that new conversion smell. It’s like all these people who are throwing themselves out there and holding themselves up as this awesome product to be sold. Spouting $0.05 wisdom as if they have opened a fortune cookie every minute or so. I don’t doubt their dedication to their practice or the fact that they’d probably still be doing what they’re doing if the audience was smaller. It’s the display.

It’s why so many people love Pope Francis, he comes off as authentic in who he presents himself as being. And I think that’s where I fall off the bandwagon. I don’t pretend to know sanskrit, and have had several of my clients correct my pronunciation of it (which is fine, as they got 2 years of it in school the same way we get our 2 years of some foreign or dead language in ours). I recognize the vibrational aspect of the language and how it relates to our bodies. I even recognize the easy description that it provides for the postures and actions – if you know the language. But none of that is any use for a casual student who is just starting out on their journey and learning to incorporate the whole concept into their life. Same goes for my gymnastics students…

As I told one of my clients, gymnastics was the sport that gave me more life lessons than any other sport I participated in. For all events, it’s a balance between strength and flexibility, grace and athleticism, and above all humility. My students are beginners, mostly. They fall often and lack the strength that the events truly require. But that’s life. You start out with one skill and build on it. You fall down, get back up. If getting back up is difficult you find a new way to get back up. If your body isn’t built for one skill, you modify it. If strength is the issue, you keep at it till your body is strong enough. Every day you are pushing one limit or another and finding that you can step past yesterday. That fear? You find it’s gone or learn that fear is what holds you back, but also pushes you further.

But the humility. You learn that on day 1. You learn that there are things you naturally just can’t do, that someone else can. You have days where you can do nothing but fall. Over and over. Your balance is off, you’re tired, you can’t concentrate. The drama that you thought you left at the door suddenly found its way in. Life. You’re good at one event but another one is just a giant brick wall that you can’t see around. Society. The petty teammate who wants nothing more than to see you fail. The coach who is yelling at you out of love. The gym moms… Your friends who don’t understand why you can’t play hooky. The guy that’s interested in you but you don’t even notice the hints (even though you’re interested, too). All those other things you want to do, but aren’t important right now. Sacrifice.