I found this written on the whiteboard of a local (Albany, CA) high school circa 2003 or 2004.
How to live a Happy Stress free Life
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(another one, from another time)
I was driving the N. Virginia back roads. I'm stalking the battlefield I recently visited. A technique I've found myself doing is going back to places twice, but never from the same route or necessarily the exact same place.
It's misty. Been raining. There is the misty fog on the road. The pavement is black. Slick. Sleek. Inviting. The lights from my car do not penetrate very far into the darkness beyond the mist. I have the windows down. The mist and rain is flying into the car and my hair is flying around. I can feel the power in the air. The wind. The moisture. I drink it in.
I'm backtracking and I don't know it yet. I follow roads and turn onto new ones at the slightest flicker of direction. I find myself pulling into a parking area. It's very dark. The sky is that cloudy grey. The trees are black against the grey. I get out of the car. I hear the rain falling from the trees, yet it is not falling from the sky. The field is open and I hear creaking noises (almost like branches rubbing together but deeper) coming from it. I peer into it. I see flickers of light. I realize they are fireflies.
The strange creaking, the mist, the black outline of the trees, the flickers of lights. I walk out into the field to be surrounded by it.
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(Note: this was written almost a decade ago, before this blog existed)
Last night the Virginia back roads coaxed me away from my glowing liquid display and conditioned air into the moist pleasure of evening. I found myself on two lane roads. I didn't know where I was, how I got there, or how to get home. I followed the nudges of infinity. To turn here or there. I found myself at the end of a dead end road. The tarmac was crumbling into the overgrowth. There were two dirt tracks that went on behind a vehicle barrier. I parked the car. I was wearing my work clothes - business casual pants and shoes. The forest called to me. I was drawn to a path near the vehicle barrier.
I got out of the car. As I walked towards the path, I looked down and saw a spinal column set of vertibraes. I stopped. I was surprised, shocked, a slight wave of fear went through my body. I looked at the vertibraes. They were beautiful, bone white, they fit together perfectly. My eyes followed the line and I saw the skull still attached. I realized that it had been a deer.
As I looked at the spinal column, I thought about how crazy it is what I am doing. That it is crazy for a single woman, all alone, unfamiliar with the area to go randomly driving, stop someplace where she doesn't know she is, and walk into the forest. My brain is churning with how crazy it is. I know it sounds that way, but that doesn't stop me. The spinal column is a reminder of my death. That one day I will die. Perhaps it will be this night in this forest. And if that is the case, then I must go to it with courage, curiosity but no fear.
For a moment, my brain creates a view of the world where I am getting back into the car and driving away, and then I realize that I am walking into the forest. The air is calm, moist. It is just after sunset. The light filters through the trees. There are bugs humming in the air. There are fireflys flickers orbs of light here and there. It is magical and I feel the power. The light is that of my dreams, I call it the darklight.
At the end of the path I find a reservoir. The water is calm. There are a pair of fishermen out in a boat. I can hear their voices across the water. I sit by the edge on some rocks and become enveloped in the silence. In the dream of this place.
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"The battle is not here with your fellow men; but out there, in infinity" - Don Juan
"The only person worth competing with is myself." - moi
Competition. *Sigh.* I know it's suppose to motivate you to do your best, but when it comes to me, I just wanna walk away. I don't care about winning, I don't want to be the best, when it means that someone is the loser. We don't have the same skill set, levels or perceptions, perspectives, worldview. I'm interested in yours. Especially if you disagree with me or have a different perspective from mine. I'm already the best Heathervescent.
Competition can make one stretch. Competition can be the fuel for the midnight fires. Competition strips away the fat. Competition is full of pain (to get to 1st place or if you don't). Competition is divided. Collaboration is united. (If you have a very different perspective of competition, pls share with me.)
My favorite collaboration example is the work of Kaliya Hamlin and her work with user-centric identity. I've used many of her methods with the Geek Dinner and LA Barcamps with great success. If you've had a chance to participate in an event Kaliya has influenced, you'll see that it is just slightly different in the activities, but worlds apart in the intent and energy around the event.
At the WFS this past weekend I was disappointed with the use of competition in a couple sessions. Tom Frey announced his DaVinci Institute's Prize Competitions. Usually I love radical audacious ideas, but these rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't see anything in them about fixing the economy - or making the world better for people in the 8 prize competitions. I left the session distressed, confused at the non-practicality.
The next day, the morning session of the WFS Dev Seminar opened with a competition between groups with point scores and a "winner" to create the best scenario with specific data, variables, etc. Yuck! I know the people putting the session together weren't looking for that kind of reaction. They probably picked the competition metaphor to engage and excite people. I sat in the room, with sickness forming in my stomach, wondering if I had made a huge mistake pivoting my career and going into futures work.
I watched the groups form and work beginning. I sat watching, thinking, this is not that different from what Kaliya does. But why do I want to leave this room, whereas with her sessions I'm signing up to lead and participate? The difference is very slight framing and intent behind the structure.
In Kaliya's sessions, people are working together for a bigger goal, which includes competing businesses, products, architectures, philosophies. Much of this competition falls away when they come together for conversation. It's a group of people with the same long term goals: a vibrant ecosystem that supports many companies, technologies, products. The space is not about competing with each other, it's about working together to create the ecosystem so all can participate. There is no one winner at IIW, if you show up, you win.
Maybe that sounds all pollyanna, let's get along, we're all winners, yay! But consider that maybe some people don't care about winning at the expense of others.
But the zero-sum competition peppered the experience in the room at the WFS ProDev. I used the law of two feet and eventually left the seminar to check out the Surrealist Art Exhibit at the nearby Vancouver Art museum, which was phenomenal and mind-blowing. I got what I needed out of the session after all.
We're not gonna save the world competing with each other for million dollar prizes. But we could save it by working together.
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I knew it would be true. San Francisco_is_ a great city to come back to. But her streets, although burned in my neural pathways, are faint, forgotten except for muscle memory. My car, as extension of this muscle memory, surfs the pavement, my body leans in the curves, even as I strain to read the street signs. My objective, the ocean. Revisiting a place. A lookout. A memory. The divergence of life from ordinary to extraordinary.
I sit on these high stones. It's a gorgeous day. A cool breeze comes off the ocean. I watch the waves in their green and grey. White effervescence paints uneven horizontal lines on the sand and in the sea. I remember this same place, dark one night. I was cold after riding Lady Knight through the fog, chasing something ephemeral through the streets. A glimpse of something unknown. I caught it here. (Or perhaps, it lead me here to be caught.) In this space, I stood facing it. Facing my fear. Opening the crack, stepping through, and into a different world. A world of my own making.
Sometimes I reminisce of that world. The one I left behind. All around me, untouchable, unlivable. It was the choice I made. A choice to choose. Never undone, as much as I might forget or deny. I had forgotten. But the memory is fresh now, in my mind.
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The headlights barely make out twenty feet into the mist filled darkness on enchanted forest road. We've spent all day getting here. On airplanes, in cars, across the great water on a ferry filled with cars. We end up at a remodeled fishing cabin, waves lapping upon the rock beach.
The night is pitch black. The moisture sucks the light. Unlike my clear desert nights, full of sharpened stars. The moisture permeates everything. Seafoam green moss drips from bare trees, vibrant green moss grows up tree trunks and across forest floors.
I spend time in kitschy cabins. In one, a brass eagle, wings spread, escapes from a frame. In another a giant 3 feet diameter "frying pan" hangs near the wood burning stove. The kitchen is a challenge. At least 4 cooks prepare contributions for the group meal. Two of us rummage through the cabinets for a bowl big enough for an 18 person salad. None is to be found.
Suddenly, the three foot diameter frying pan appears in the kitchen. It's been removed from the peg on the wall. We clean it as best we can and proceed to fill it with lettuces, tomatoes, peppers, avocados and other veggies. It takes up a good third of the Thanksgiving sized dining table.
Outside, the grass is moist and cool. Fresh and clean. My skin soaks in the water. My soul soaks in the expansion. I can't help but think about the future. Watching the ripples in the water. Shades of grey in an overcast sky. Green-black mountain outlines. A black bobbing head.
Something inside me has changed. I've got new focuses for 2011. Echoes and voices I've suppressed - put off. Things must shift and change. And they are.
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We were joking around a few weeks ago, my colleagues and teachers. I was jesting that I was really getting in tune with my asshole self (after a series of completely fucked up non and mis-communications that painted me in the biggest asshole picture possible.) Instead of blaming someone else's lack of communication or understanding on the mis-hap, I just owned my assholeness. Someone quipped that you could see my teacher's discipline for exact body placement as bitchiness, which she duly owned and played up. If your foot is off 1 millimeter, believe me, you will hear about it. (Used to drive me crazy!)
After our conversation I got thinking. About a messed up hierarchy of enlightenment. Whereas after certain years of diligence you reach the asshole level. Then if you continue to work hard, you can reach the bitch level. And then if you dedicate your life and work really hard, you can finally reach the top level: Self-Righteousness.
I like to think of it as the backward walk to enlightenment. Hell, I've been enlightened for almost a decade or more and where has it gotten me? I still have to deal with all the same shitty people in the world. And now, I get to see with such clarity when I am a shitty individual myself. Whoo-wee! I'm an enlightened self-righteous bitchy asshole!
You'd better get out of my way and drive!
ps. Enlightenment is not something that is attained once and for all, but practiced and revealed.
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Free will is a concept easily understood, and of course everyone thinks they have it - cause "I am in charge" - but it's not always the case. That "I am in charge" often comes pre-programmed (and it's so subtle that we don't even realize it). When responding, reacting or behaving from that programmed "I am in charge" person - sorry to break it to you - but that's not free will - that's "pre-destined aka programmed" behavior that is just finishing out it's if/then statement.
How to have free will? It's simple:
1. Observe your programming (and biases) - you must understand your adversary before you can defeat it
2. Inventory your programming - what do you want to keep (it helps you) what do you want to drop (hold you back)
3. Create games and fun ways to unprogram/upgrade your programming
Note: you must have a new better program to replace the one you are removing.
See - simple in concept - years to "accomplish."
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Want to learn more on Lightworking? Then go here!
A million people die on this planet every week. One of those weeks will be mine. One will be yours. I realized that if I wanted to live consciously, I had to live in such a way that I was ready to die each and every day. If I don’t feel ready to die, I know I’m doing something wrong. Specifically, that wrongness is the act of pushing my dreams and desires into the future, thereby stealing power from the present and driving myself into a lower state of consciousness. If I consider that today may be my last day on earth, I can’t give in to fear. I have to summon my courage to push through that fear.
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I'd like to clarify a misunderstanding about the word ruthless. In the society we live in today this word has a negative connotation that is often misused. It's a subtle word that I continue to unveil its layered meaning in my meditations. In reviewing my writings on it here I like this description from Nick Walker
Ruthlessness, as I understand Castaneda's use of the term, isn't the same as callousness or bloodlust. It's the ability to draw a line, to stand firm, to do what has to be done no matter who it pisses off, to do the right thing even if it's not the polite thing.
Both darkworkers and lightworkers can be ruthless. It can look the same; however the motivations and reasons for using ruthlessness are very different. I have a specific recent example of this, but I'm not ready to share it yet.
The important thing to notice is the intention. What _is_ your intention? Is it for personal gain or the benefit of the whole? Yes, you can hide your true intention with icing from the other side. You can set up a situation where a lot of people benefit (masses or your cronies) - but if you're acting with your own personal gain in mind - that's your intention.
Here's a way I like to see it. If you're climbing the pyramid, you're willing to use people to get to the top - your goal. There is another alternative to climbing the pyramid - and that's raising the pyramid from the bottom. This is much harder because you must look at the pyramid as a whole - not individual bricks or levels.
Often it's hard to know your true intention and motivation. We are such tricky humans programmed by "the village" that unless we have unraveled our own programming we're running off someone else's script or worse, unaware we're even programmed.
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A few months ago I had a dream where I was cleaning out these long hollow pipes in my garage. There were a lot of them and they were stuffed with grease, lint, dead insect carcasses. Just the usual delightful stuff you find in your garage. I realized that the dream was telling me that it's time to clean out all the reminding bits of junk.
I've been surrounded by the dust and dirt of my own Karma and I'm getting dirty cleaning it out. It's frustrating sometimes.
All the while I have been inhaling several books. I finished Jonathan's Narcisa - Our Lady of Ashes (it's not publicly available yet). And then straight on to Dharma Punx by Noah Levine. Both talk about addiction, doing crazy shit and in the case of Levine's Dharma Punx, a path of service and redemption. That's Jonathan's story too. I remember talking with a friend about AA and being intrigued at the 12 steps and AA support. It sounded a lot like the stuff I have learned on my own spiritual path. In some ways I wish my path had taken me down and up into the AA realm. The work is hard stuff, but the path has already been laid out.
Anyway, so here I am in my own pile of shit, sorting and sifting, cleaning and attempting to replace mechanisms and processes that have built up over 30 years. I've done the processes before, but it's on bigger, smaller, trickier, twistier stuff.
Would I want it any other way? This is what I've chosen.
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I recently went to a workshop where the focus was on how to get your heart's desire and manifesting your dreams. I had leave after 30 minutes of it because I realized that I no longer needed to learn how to have my heart's desire. (I wrote my process for doing this in 2005.) Instead of sitting in a conference center for 2 days, writing down my dreams and how I might go about realizing them, I went out and did it.
That was the trip to Salvation Mountain.
That morning, before I went to the workshop, I stopped at drugstore to buy a toothbrush (I had forgotten to pack mine.) At the checkout counter were these packs of green M&Ms specially marketed for Valentines Day (which was over). I realized that here was the manifestation of one of my childhood dreams. You see, the green M&M's were always my favorite - and it was my dream to have a package of only green m&m's. Here it is - almost 30 years later - my dream come true. So I bought the package.
Checkmark: childhood dream come true.
Which made me start thinking - what happens when all your dreams come true? Is that life Bo-ring? Do you dream more dreams? What happens when you can have anything you dream? It sounds like a magical place to be. To conjure up whatever I want. And yet, that's the position I'm in right now. So what do I want? More bigger dreams? More harder challenges? More proving grounds?
There are always more dreams. For me at least. There will be challenges associated with those dreams. And I've just jumped my most recent hurdle (thank you to my ruthless ego). I've proved myself. I can make all my dreams a reality.
So what is beyond dreams? *** *******
---
ps. and don't go thinking that all these dreams will be destroyed. I have already had all my dreams destroyed. That was my first experience with dreams. It was destroyed dreams that would never come true. And then there was the time where all my dreams came true, but then my dreams changed.
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I am ruthlessly egotistical.
I can be. Because my ego is a mask - a false description of who I am.
My ego, she is disposable.
My ego, she has no problem acting the bitch for the greater good. She will sacrifice herself for moving forward. She has nothing to lose.
My ego, she is not myself. A form fitting mask. A character. Someone I have cultivated for years.
My ego, she is a tool for which I have great respect. She is fearlessly ruthless.
Thank you ego. For being the thundering lightening flashing head on the face of the wizard.
Thank you ego, for blustering your way back here. I have missed your ruthlessness. I had forgotten who you really were. You do great good even while others badmouth you. Do not falter. Do not change your ruthless egotism.
There are other times for patience, sweetness and cunning.
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From Edge Questions, Donald Hoffman writes about how he changed his mind about perception:
Veridical Perception
I have changed my mind about the nature of perception. I thought that a goal of perception is to estimate properties of an objective physical world, and that perception is useful precisely to the extent that its estimates are veridical. After all, incorrect perceptions beget incorrect actions, and incorrect actions beget fewer offspring than correct actions. Hence, on evolutionary grounds, veridical perceptions should proliferate.
Although the image at the eye, for instance, contains insufficient information by itself to recover the true state of the world, natural selection has built into the visual system the correct prior assumptions about the world, and about how it projects onto our retinas, so that our visual estimates are, in general, veridical. And we can verify that this is the case, by deducing those prior assumptions from psychological experiments, and comparing them with the world. Vision scientists are now succeeding in this enterprise. But we need not wait for their final report to conclude with confidence that perception is veridical. All we need is the obvious rhetorical question: Of what possible use is non-veridical perception?
I now think that perception is useful because it is not veridical. The argument that evolution favors veridical perceptions is wrong, both theoretically and empirically. It is wrong in theory, because natural selection hinges on reproductive fitness, not on truth, and the two are not the same: Reproductive fitness in a particular niche might, for instance, be enhanced by reducing expenditures of time and energy in perception; true perceptions, in consequence, might be less fit than niche-specific shortcuts. It is wrong empirically: mimicry, camouflage, mating errors and supernormal stimuli are ubiquitous in nature, and all are predicated on non-veridical perceptions. The cockroach, we suspect, sees little of the truth, but is quite fit, though easily fooled, with its niche-specific perceptual hacks. Moreover, computational simulations based on evolutionary game theory, in which virtual animals that perceive the truth compete with others that sacrifice truth for speed and energy-efficiency, find that true perception generally goes extinct.
It used to be hard to imagine how perceptions could possibly be useful if they were not true. Now, thanks to technology, we have a metaphor that makes it clear — the windows interface of the personal computer. This interface sports colorful geometric icons on a two-dimensional screen. The colors, shapes and positions of the icons on the screen are not true depictions of what they represent inside the computer. And that is why the interface is useful. It hides the complexity of the diodes, resistors, voltages and magnetic fields inside the computer. It allows us to effectively interact with the truth because it hides the truth.
It
has not been easy for me to change my mind about the nature
of perception. The culprit, I think, is natural selection.
I have been shaped by it to take my perceptions seriously.
After all, those of our predecessors who did not, for instance,
take their tiger or viper or cliff perceptions seriously had
less chance of becoming our ancestors. It is apparently a small
step, though not a logical one, from taking perception seriously to taking it literally.
Unfortunately our ancestors faced no
selective pressures that would prevent them from conflating
the serious with the literal: One who takes the cliff both
seriously and literally avoids harms just as much as one who
takes the cliff seriously but not literally. Hence our collective
history of believing in flat earth, geocentric cosmology, and
veridical perception. I should very much like to join Samuel
Johnson in rejecting the claim that perception is not veridical,
by kicking a stone and exclaiming "I refute it thus." But even
as my foot ached from the ill-advised kick, I would still harbor
the skeptical thought, "Yes, you should have taken that
rock more seriously, but should you take it literally?"
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I just got back from seeing the Cohen's Bro new movie - No Country for Old Men. I always think the Cohen bro movies are different from what they turn out to be. I had no idea what this one was about, what story would it tell, what was the style. I knew nothing, my mind was zen blank as the lights dimmed and the screen came to life.
A story unfurled. Wide beautiful shots of desert scrubland. A desert I didn't recognize. It was Texas. Some scenes reminded me of my desert trips, minus the dead bloated bodies and drug deals gone awry. (I did once dream of that life, in a country on a border far far from North America.) As the story continued, wide shots, spare dialog, characters that were not Hollywood beautiful, perfect, but interesting and a delight to look at, to watch unfold. Who was this like? What was this like? Fellini came to mind.
Scenes took place. Guns and mayhem, and surprise and ingenuity. And then there were post action come across the scenes, which reminded me of the Bashar and the last 4 chapters in Book 5 of the Dune Series. (I remember you Bashar. I remember you from that summer in Des Moines, when I was 19 and had not yet read Hyperion and learned of the Shrike. You are not just the Bashar Teg, but inspiration for other characters in stories, myths that I love.)
Until the final credits this was just another movie, until, until, I saw it was based on a Cormac McCarthy novel. Then everything fell into place. I should have know. The movie perfectly caught the difficulty, challenge and utter sensual delight of a Cormac McC novel. They are hard, rough, bitter fruits - nuanced and faceted. I went home and picked pages to read aloud from Blood Meridian. I remembered the story. I remembered who gave it to me. (Alfonso, your other name.) And I remember what I learned from that time. The love of the desert and compete and utter ruthlessness.
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Sometimes I think back to my golden ticket. The life I sacrificed to have, to be the person I am today. I do not look back at that possibility wishing I could return to it. Or to relive it. I knew what I was doing when I cashed it in, took my golden ticket and got on this path. I knew in the future the full implications of the golden ticket would be revealed. In the present unfolding my golden ticket becomes stronger and the sacrifice to create the golden ticket more powerful.
Sometimes I get caught though. I'm human. I forget about the bigger picture, my bigger goals, my dreams I dare not tell anyone. The secret thoughts, solutions I remind myself in cypher through my writing, my metaphors often forgotten, lost to myself, until a specific moment. I get caught in the ebb and flow of this world. And then I remember my golden ticket: gold flecked with dreams of a lifetime and love forever.
When I remember it I am filled with joy and lightness. The radiance has not dampened. It reminds me that each day matters more than the previous and with this time, it's my duty, my responsibility to be the best I can and make the best that I think best.
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"Abandon certainty! That's life's deepest command. We're a probe into the unknown, into the uncertain. If certainty is knowing absolutely an absolute future, then that's only death disguised! .... men must do this always, choosing uncertain instead of the certain."
- The Preacher, COD
"Seeking to know nothing of it. Knowing was a barrier which prevented learning."
- Leto II, COD
The battle is not with your fellow men, but out there with infinity.
- from my memory
These books, these stories, these roadmaps. These veiled fiction filled with fragments of history, technique and secret genius from centuries past. The men and women dead, exotic renaming. Myths twisted, double helix teachings re-purposed and packaged into a bestseller.
Almost caught in the rat race web dream - the fight of this world: black vs white, good vs bad, woman vs woman, man vs man, company vs company. It's a battle no-one wins. But many fight it, many win and much ground is gained.
I remember seeing Cory Doctorow at the height of the winning edge. It's hard to describe it. It's wasn't a man receiving an award - although that's what it was. It was full validation of the work he was doing. Good work. Work in the realm of good vs evil. Black vs white. He was fighting the good fight. The fight for values, for freedom, for a lot of things. But a fight for/against one side of a dualistic world. It was clear to me in that moment, that the dualism he fought for did - does indeed exist.
Yet, is a subset of a cohesive universe where good and evil, black and white are equal.
--
This reminds me of the amazing conversation I had with Jason Calacanis last Friday at StartupLA. We're on the UCLA campus. The sun had just set, the sky was my favorite swirling of red/orange and the full moon rose behind us as we talked. On the surface his stories may have been shocking, but there were many wise techniques described in his stories.
Here are some snippets, taken completely out of context, but perhaps you can get his drift.
I was most impressed by his ruthless in business. "Business is not about being nice." I loved his stories about hiring the "enemy." He would find great people, pay them well and give them equity in the brand. "You pick great people, treat them well, if they're not a good fit, fire them immediately." That's a no-brainer.
I think most of the audience listened to his war stories with shocked silence. From the moment he started talking about crushing the enemy, I was enthralled. And although I'm not sure I agree with crushing the competition attitude, I tried it on Saturday, when I lead the 3+ hour conversation entitled "How to crush Silicon Valley?"
In those three hours we went many very interesting places. Places we would not have explored without the audacious intent of "crushing" SV. Bottom line: it's not about crushing SV (why would I want to do that anyway?) it's about leveraging LA's many many assets. Lots more on this topic soon.
BTW - I love you NorCal. I'm not in this to crush you.
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Is not what I enjoy practicing. I like to go fast and get things done. Action, Activate. But often there is a traffic light, stop sign or maybe even a huge ass traffic jam. I'm in the middle of one of these traffic jams. I'm trying to zen out, the traffic is not moving. I'm trying to change lanes. I know there's an exit up there somewhere, but right now, I'm stuck and stuck with patience. Maybe it's time to clean the car, since we don't seem to be moving.
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You see what you want to see. If you don't like what you are seeing, change what you want to see. Or maybe you are seeing a reflection of yourself. If you don't like that, maybe it's time to change yourself.
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Ruthlessness = no pity
No ego
No self-importance
Self pity is just ego
Ruthlessness is no pity
Ruthlessness is no ego
Ego is self importance
Ego is self pity
Ruthlessness hidden by egotism is a tricky ball of string to unravel.
But I have here a skein. Taken me 14 years to unravel.
I know what I will weave with it.
And I will create it for you.
Because generosity is another side of my ruthlessness.
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Note: This is a 1 hour long video. Unless you are interested in historical Gurdjieff stuff, you might want to skip it. For me, it reminds me of a few years in Berkeley - a pause on my road to freedom.
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“Tricksters are boundary crossers; they destabilize structures,” Hansen explains. Many, if not all, cultures have trickster characters in their histories. For the Greeks it was Hermes. At least one characteristic of the trickster archetype should be obvious, a propensity for deceit. Tricksters, by definition, violate taboos and break social norms. They often have extravagant, unusual sexual tastes. Tricksters are also marginalized by society; however, to consider them unwilling recipients of discrimination is not altogether fair. Tricksters themselves often do not desire to be a part of the establishment, yet they are often, by their own anti-establishment views, fully embedded in the rich edifice of culture. The most significant generalization that can be made of all tricksters is that they are associated with disorder. The archetype of the trickster has tangible effects in many societies.
- Michael Shermer, Skeptics Society Newsletter
In questioning the boundaries, the trickster not only destabilizes the structure, but also makes it stronger. The above paragraph has a lot of generalizations about trickster characteristics, focusing primarily on the chaosness of tricksterness. But that is only one side to the yin/yang of the Trickster. The trickster's role is to stir the pot so patterns and order can be pulled, created, defined, discovered. The first step to creating order, is to manage the chaos. But that first step is so close to the chaos, it's hard to see the difference.
How do I know? Because my sacred hunting grounds are the knife edge between chaos and order, between the known and the unknown. You must have guts of steel to venture into chaos, balls and courage to capture your prey, cunning ruthlessness to cross the line, and it never ever goes by the book (there is no book).
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I am not an atheist. But I don't believe in a god that has been defined by any religion. From before I can remember, I've believed in this force, energy, that moves and is part of everything in the universe. I'm part of it - or rather it makes up part of me. I am a tool of the divine. Just as nature is and this computer as well. Everything we interact with - came from this earth - from a RAW form.
I've always felt this connection. I'm a tool. I've been used by it. And others have been used to show me something, communicate with me.
There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Shakespeare
I don't want to know everything in the world - I mean, I do, but I want to discover it. Be delighted by it. And enjoy the surprise. I will not live a bored life.
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If your practice is good, you may become proud of it. What you do is good, but something more is added to it. Pride is extra. Right effort is to get rid of something extra.
- Shunryu Suzuki
It's also about impeccability.
A warrior know that he cannot change, and yet he makes it his business to try to change, nevertheless. The warrior is never disappointed when he fails to change. that the only advantage a warrior has over the average man.
- CC
Well, that means I still have a long way on the warrior's path. I still get mad when I don't change, when I don't know what going to happen before it happens, when I'm not superhuman limited to this body. The good news in this, is that I still have a lot of time to work on myself.
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You think whipping a car around was all I learned this weekend? Oh no. I'm enlightened by clouds of burning rubber. First off, Bobby Orr is the bomb! If you have any desire to learn some serious driving skills (and I'm not talking speed racing - I'm talking moving your car around skills - then go to him.)
I actually got to work with the guy, his name was Bobby Orr, and he was a Nascar driver, he teaches a lot of stunt guys, he has like five world records for stunts," Scott said. "He also teaches the Department of Defense. He works for the Department of Defense teaching soldiers how to maneuver their cars before they go to Iraq. (Source)
We pulled into the Camarillo Airport at 7:30 Saturday morning. I'm bleary because I haven't had any coffee yet and hoping there is coffee there. We arrive to a classroom in a trailer. There is no coffee. I salvage some sparkling water from my car.
After about an hour discussion about tire pressure we're given directions to get out on the tarmac and start the hands on section. I'm the only woman in the class, other than an instructor's assistant. First things first, we each get in a car and proceed to drive the slalom course - to observe our bad habits to break! Bad habits like arms flying, palming the wheel and looking at the cones.
Over the next two days, Bobby took us 4 street drives and turned us into possible professional stunters. I say possible because you can't possible become a profession stunt driver after 2 days of learning, you must practice a lot more to be able to put a car in the box. But I learned more than the core skills of flipping a 180 or sliding into a parking space at 90 degrees or doing a reverse 180 (totally cool, squealing tires and all!). He taught/reminded me
Hardcore Enlightenment. I left the weekend exhausted, covered in sweat, dirt and rubber. I left knowing awesome skills. I left remembering lessons applicable to every facet of my life. I left with pain and burst blisters and a little more enlightened and the ability to kick ass in novel and exciting ways.
Thank you guru stunt driver Bobby Orr!
ps. Sorry about blowing the three tires. xo
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How did I miss the Invisible Pink Unicorns? (All this time I have been talking about invisible pink elephants...) Unicorns on wikipedia. And more invisible pink unicorns?
The Invisible Pink Unicorn logo represents atheism.
It is a fusion between the mathematical void symbol and the stylized representation of an unicorn.
The void symbol (empty set Ø) is an allusion to nothingness and in this case meaning "no faith" or "no god". The unicorn is a reference to a kind of story that atheists often tell to make their point.
Very delightful - but I am far far far from being an atheist. In fact, I had a delightful conversation with two Christian missionarys when I was in Sedona. The part that freaked me out the most (but really didn't freak me out that much) was that I could completely understand and agree with most of what they were saying. In fact, I live my life pretty much exactly the way they live their life. The big exception, I don't think Jesus is the only bridge. The other exception, I have no interest in going to heaven (or hell for that matter) I have my eye set on something .... else. The other exception, I don't quote from the bible (although I was quite interested in what they were quoted and totally understood the point of the quotes).
I do believe that I speak a different "religion", "spiritual" language. The problem is, I can speak many languages... but people don't all speak my language. That's ok, because I have a direct link/line to "G-d" which I call something different.
My favorite part of the conversation was when we were talking about good and evil and they were telling me how deceptive Satan was and I said, exactly, the whole concept of good and evil is a deception (because well it is). It is a method to distract us and get us to play on sides against each other - when really we're all one big thing. The deception is that there is no good and evil (and yet, there is most definitely good and evil).
Anyway, talking with them crystallized my possible explanation of this paradox (at least in my mind). Back to the circle with a dot in the center. Or, when you peel all the layers of the onion- where is the onion? (ps, it's the layers)
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Recapitulation is an exercise to recall, review, release, and recharge energy. It rids a person of assumptions and preconceptions. Recapitulation is remembering or more precisely, reviving events and experiences. [Source]
I've alluded many times to Douglas Hofstader's new book, I am a Strange Loop. One of the reasons this book fascinates me so much, is that much of Hofstader's descriptions, describe almost exactly knowledge I learned through other sources.
But first, I'll come clean. I studied and practiced the teachings of mystic G.I. Gurdjieff actively for 5 years and in a school for at least 3 of those. (Much of what I know of Wilbur's Integral Theory reminds me of those Gurdjieff lessons.) Then I flowed into Aikido and practiced martial movements and paratheatrical rituals. One fine Berkeley day, I was coming back from aikido class and on a whim, I stopped in the temporary Berkeley Library. I frequent bookstore more than libraries. I had no idea what to look for. Them I remembered someone told me about some teachings of don juan. It was the last person I talked to at college. I had no idea who the author was, so I started looking up titles. I couldn't find that particular book, but I found the section that included other books by the same author. I picked two at random and took them on vacation with me. The author turned out to be Carlos Castaneda, and the first book I read, was The Fire from Within. (Shamanism was not new to me. Another fluke library stop, more than 10 years previous got 13 year old Heather obsessed with Lynn V Andrews. I accepted these stories as the myths and fairytales I had read.) I read the stories with a skeptics disbelief - the activities in his books are truly impossible, but I found myself agreeing more and more on the explanation and belief structure. It was so similar to my own, I realized that I was holding in my hands a book I would write had this book not been written. Rather than get angry (like I did at Taoism 10 years previous) I wanted to learn more. I gave myself a year to experience these impossible things. That year was the first of many years of practice and studying personal freedom - true freedom.
So what does this have to do with Hofstader?
Much of the more difficult concepts I learn (and try to explain) about true freedom Hofstader has explained with the ease of mathematical terms, analogies and stories. He easily explains Plato's cave - much more eloquently than Plato did. Here's an excerpt he uses to explain our warehouse (of symbols) and I can use it to show the importance of recapitulation.
(book excerpt after the jump)
Continue reading "Recapitulation - why - a Hofstader story" »
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A friend sent me a link to a galley page by Jonathon Earl Bowser. I don't usually go for this type of imagry, but one caught my eye. Gee, I wonder why??? Source.
Now, if she only had purple hair....
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I was having an IM conversation with a friend this morning where she reminded me of one of the four virtues: Ruthlessness. Since I could only remember 2 of the 4: sweetness and ruthlessness, I wanted to remember the other two. I could have looked to my books, which was what I did at first, but lacking finding the volume I wanted in 1 minute, I returned to my computer and googled the two words. The very first item that came up - was a post on the subject from my old Aikido teacher, Nick Walker. Reminded they are
He's got a good overview of them:
Patience and sweetness are almost universally regarded as virtues, even by those who don't possess them, while cunning and ruthlessness are generally not regarded as virtuous traits. This is because so much evil is perpetrated by those who possess cunning and ruthlessness but are deficient in patience and sweetness. Ruthlessness, as I understand Castaneda's use of the term, isn't the same as callousness or bloodlust. It's the ability to draw a line, to stand firm, to do what has to be done no matter who it pisses off, to do the right thing even if it's not the polite thing. Gandhi and Martin Luther King were masters of combining ruthlessness, patience, and sweetness.
Cunning, as near as I've been able to figure out, is largely the ability to make clear-headed tactical decisions, including decisions as to how and in what measure to apply the other three virtues in a given situation.
Cunning is indeed one of the trickiest virtues. And that is part of the meta-phor. (Oh I love that one!) It's akin to trickery - which might seem like betrayal, and it is, and yet not. Cunning is the mobius strip. It is the trickery of the spirit. It's controlled folly. A Godel reflection on PM aka a strange loop (I can't help Hofstader jumping in after reading 3 chapters on proofs, godel, and PM aka Principia Mathematica). Cunning uses you as a puppet, or tool and with full awareness of the use and still being used. And cunning is using things and situations for your use to explain, create synchronicity, magic or any number of other illuminations.
But all these virtual have many layers. And I have been on both sides, meting out and receiving blows from each of them time and time again. And each provides a deeper layer of the onion. Today, was the ruthless reminder. And it did not go unnoticed. Thank you!
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<disclaimer for my mom: Don't Freak Out.>
Those of you who have seen me in a more morbid moment - or have known me for a long time, know how I feel about suicide. I'd do it in a moment, and I ponder the possibilities more than a casual observer might guess. I have come to terms with my desire to end my life, and yet, I continue despite, or perhaps maybe because of that desire.
I've recently come up with two solutions to the suicide question. The first, is my simple desire manifested through the use of technology. Don't get me wrong, the only reason I haven't done this yet is because I have too much to do on this earth and wow - it's such a cool place, with so much to learn and explore. But much of the time I share it with total idiots and that makes me very sad and wish I did not exist at all. Other times I want to remove myself from the equation - just stop existing. This happens a fair amount with work. People just piss me off, they make stupid decisions, they don't see the right/impeccable/most efficient way to achieve what they want to achieve. It's very frustrating. More so when there is a boss or client or someone you work for.
So, how could I commit suicide today? or someday soon? (without limiting my actual learning possibility in this world?) Two possibilities:
1. Have a clone of myself made, and then kill myself. Hey, I could even watch and tell myself what it is like.
or 2. (which is what I've been thinking about most recently)
2. Go with the assumption that I have already killed myself. That I am already dead. Act in my life as I would if I was going to commit suicide or had already. I could even stage my own funeral like in Satyricon. The for some purposes (but not necessarily practical ones) I'd be dead. Note: isn't this basically the same thing Monks do. I remember Paramahansa Yogananda talking about some ritual of burning in the fire, which was ritualistically the same thing.
But more importantly, would be my mental repositioning.
1. If I consider myself already dead, then every day I live is a magical gift. Instead of trudging closer towards death, I have tricked death, and gained an additional day through my cleverness. This is an excellent mindset on it's own. But generally difficult to cultivate. (And would I have to commit suicide over and over to maintain this mindset?)
2. Just because you are dead, doesn't mean experience is over. Like birth, death opens a great door and far greater transportation. So long suckers.
3. The death of Heather as you know her (as I know her). That includes all incarnations of Heather, the vescent one, hbomb, the sister, the daughter, the lover, the friend, and my myriad other identities. There are many reasons to do this, none of which can be written.
I can't imagine the person I'd be (well, I can, and it's frighting - in an awesome way) if I committed suicide. To die and continue to walk the earth. It would be akin to taking the sword out of the sword kozy. It would be lighting the fuse. It would cut the onion.
Maybe it's finally time.
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I use business and science metaphors, techniques and processes to create and map my spiritual growth and understanding. I've been recently pondering about bell and "S" curves. I'm constantly learning and trying to "get to the next level" while understanding and explaining myself and my world. I come across plateau's, places where I feel like I'm not "moving forward". And I'm desperately afraid of hitting the downward slope of the bell curve. (Does the Bell curve even apply to spiritual growth?! Maybe not.)
When it comes to enlightenment, I am not interested in the long tail. There are plenty of long tail religions, practices, cults, extinct and yet uninvented. I'm not interested in discovering, hypothesizing, explaining and proofing a Theory of Everything. (Luckily for me, Ken Wilbur has taken on that monumental task.)
My objective is track/create and then map the path. A path. From here to where I will go. To track the Bell curves, in fact, to hack the bell curves. To find the turning point, plateau, and then head up again... a Kurtweilian S curve. A stairway to Heaven. (An S curve includes the first half of a bell curve.) It's not a hard task and yet a very complicated subtle manoeuvre.
I'll tell you the secret of the manoeuvre and how to do it. When you reach the top of the highest point of the bell curve, jump. Abandon your grounding, focus on your goal and leap. (Innovate!) The net need not appear, but you can visualize it, if it makes you feel better. Your jump will fail, if you do not abandon the weight of the knowledge you just received. (Transcend.) Use the knowledge as a boost - a springboard, and catch the upswing, the rising thermals.
Congratulations, you've crossed the chasm. You've hacked the metaphorical bell curve. You're on your way to walking.
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It's a rainy morning in Hollywood. Not typical of this town. Typical of the one I left yesterday - San Francisco.
When walking on Ocean Beach last Sunday, I asked myself, why am I here? why am I back in San Francisco? Of course there was the trick. The logical reason that got me to town - Web 2.0. (Ironic because I probably know more about the ins and outs and personally know the people who have their name on "web 2.0" patents. I most definitely don't need to learn about web 2.0). Like I said, it was the trick that brought me into the city. It was not the real reason I was here.
It wasn't to steal the fire. (I have already stolen it.)
It wasn't to fall in love (with the city, with an old boyfriend, with any number of things)
It wasn't to live in the past - to remember
It was step 6 - to the people and especially the place
While other people might/have dissed SF because LA is soooo much awesome/cooler/etc!!11!! My respect and memory of the city does not need comparisons. I liken it to having lunch with an x-boyfriend and seeing how great he looks. Hearing how successful he is and happy he is with his life. Feeling happy that he is happy and most of all happy that I took the road I did. Happy with my life in LA. Happy that San Francisco still holds his own.
There is no need for comparisons. Because it is incomparable.
What I found, what I felt, and what I tried to express was my gratitude. My delight. My wonder. I drove familiar streets. I ate at favorite places. I had changed. I saw the city differently and yet in the same mobius view, the way I saw it before. Memories tugged at me. Street corners, restaurants, exit signs. I tipped my hat to them, thanking them for being there, making me, who, what I am. Myself and everyone else.
And for that, to San Francisco, I can not thank enough. I lived in the Bay Area from 1996-2004. I was in my early 20's. The Internet excitement was getting to a boil. I went from company to company, a buffet of learning. Technologies, processes, techniques. I filled my plate for 8 years full of processes, techniques, technology and colleagues. I learned from the best. I learned from the inventors. I learned from the city. From his twisty roads, bridges, mountains, trees, ocean and bay - magical hidden everywhere, in front of your face.
Thank you San Francisco. I loved the time I lived in your boundaries. I loved all the possibilities you presented. I loved the challenges you threw to me. I loved circling your bay on a daily basis. I loved the people who collected in your city. I loved much more than I can list (especially those mission burritos). Keep living, building, exploring, creating and providing the place for technical possibilities. I won't forget you. And know, you have a friend, a place to say in Hollywood. Just say the word.
<3,
-Heather
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It's how I do my stuff.
Do-ocracy is a summary term for consensus management on a non-authoritarian, classical anarchist model emphasizing voluntary involvement and actual results, where those with an actual involvement make the decisions.
The practice is also fairly common whenever volunteers are working towards a project together. The lack of a formal command structure or compensation for the work means that each person works on what interests them creating a format of a Do-ocracy.
from wikipedia. Or as Nike put it "Just Do it"
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There were many possibilities on how I would live my life. Yesterday I visited a shadow self. High mountains, low desert. Pine trees, hiking trails, twisty road curving up and across mountain faces. I love the rural setting. I loved living out away from people. The nearest neighbors 3 miles down the road. I loved going into my backyard and disappearing for hours on deer trails, exploring abandoned homesteads with cisterns and pantry caves. I love the hot moist smell of the desert and the clear cold nights. The complete connection to the earth. My love for the rural places is my love for this planet. For the animals, for nature not over run with human manifestations. Places where nature trumped human endeavors and I watched entropy encroach first hand, applauding.
I took to the open roads. My love of automobiles comes directly from my love of the land. I could cover more land with the help of my gas powered motor. I kept the windows open and had a long passionate kiss with the earth through the protective barrier of pavement and rubber.
Yesterday we took the same journey. S, Romeo and I piled into the convertible and headed out to Snake Jagger's Art Show in Indian Wells. We took the straight shot zigzagging through traffic, windmills, big rigs. I gazed longingly at the mountains to the south. The rough jagged edges poking up into the sky, unknowingly intending my return. Three hours later, I was carving the curves up the pavement, keeping pace with two state troopers obviously enjoying the drive. The rise from the flats of Palm Desert to the crest of the southern mountains is intense. You cover something like 5000 feet in 15-20 minutes. The land is gorgeous filled with scrub, washes, mountain faces, rocks, rock piles, pine trees - my words can not do it justice, let alone describe it at sunset.
We stopped for Prime Rib at a local cafe and that's when I met my shadow self. A person I could have been. A quantum possibility, lived out by someone else. The dream to live surrounded by more land than people. And I realized, that for every "yes" I've said in my life, to every adventure I've embarked upon and challenge I've met, every metaphorical mountain I've leap off, there is a shadow self, the part of me that took another road, the one that didn't leap, the one that said, No.
Someone so close to who I am, and yet, utterly different.
I see them from time to time. Sometimes they are satisfied, like yesterday, sometimes they rage against the issues I've resolved. Every interaction, meeting or observation of these shadows of myself, incites me to push myself further into the places that not only _I_ dream of - but into the places of my shadows dream.
Because, if they are living out an alternate possibility of my life, then I am most certainly living out an alternate possibility of theirs.
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I am holding a mad tea party in the middle of a tornado - won't you join me?
As the world spins around and throws various unbalancing situations, people, interactions in addition to exhilarating, positive possibilities, projects and travel, I invite you to take a moment. Step out of the whirlwind and join me in the center. The eye, the center silo, that vertical shaft between earth and sky, heaven and earth.
Here's a cup of tea. Look at how beautifully everything spins. Now think about what you want, to do next, to have, to experience, what-ever. Now dip your fingers into the wind. If it's quite strong, let's move to another section of the whirlwind. There, that's a bit calmer. I can even dip my whole hand into the wind and hold my tea with the other one. Now, I am thinking of the thing I need. I feel something in my hand - it's just that thing! I pull it out of the tornado and now it's here.
Wait - some crazy kite just came buzzing in, knocking over the tea cups and generally causing some mayhem. Don't get sucked into the tornado! It's ok. It's very calm in here. It will quieten down or be swept back into the swirl and spit out onto the plains. What a bit of excitement for a moment, hmmm?
I'm holding a mad tea party. To join me, you must enter the tornado and find the quiet place, the eye, the zero point. Here, I am in the center of things. Everything I can possibly want, need is within hands reach.
Won't you join me?
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I slept dreaming of other lives. Waking up at my friend's house in Austin to childish giggles and laughs. I rolled out of bed and showered for the first in several days, purple running down my back and into the white basin. Coffee, fretting over my packing, calling the cab. Waiting, waiting, late, waiting. The plan was to stop by the airport, drop off my luggage for my 5pm flight and head downtown to catch a couple movies before heading back to LA.
Cab arrived. I piled my luggage in the back. It was heavy. Made fast friends with the cab driver who was from Nigeria. He tried to hit on me (as usual) and I started talking about the boyfriend. He wasn't really my type. My friend Suz had more in common. I prefer the quiet geek type with secret superpowers. During the drive to the airport, I told him I would need another cab back to the airport later in the day. He offered to pick me up. This could be sketchy, right? But he was a sincerely nice guy. MBA, considering Law degree. Used to work at a semi-conductor company in Austin until it relocated to Korea. Maybe this was a sign from the universe. So far, I had not had one second of trouble finding a cab when I needed one, despite the explosion of SXSWers. I took this as yet another boon from the universe - the tricky part was finding a cab on time who would be able to rush me from the movie to the airport in time to catch my flight - and here I was - sitting in his cab. He dropped me off, and we made arrangements for him to pick me up later.
Then I went to check in my luggage. This was much more difficult than I had planned. I should have known, with my liter of Tito's Vodka and the bullet belt in my carry on. Then there was the 4 hour pre-flight check in limit. And no lockers. I had to think on my feet and be creative. I rebooked on a flight that would leave in less than an hour. Twenty minutes later, my luggage was on it's way to TSA's security check. I had my boarding pass in hand. 30 minutes. Could I get downtown in 30 minutes? I had nothing to lose. I decided to give it a try.
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A friend and I went to Panamint Valley last weekend and had an adventure - beyond the truck breakdown adventure. We went with a specific intent to make contact with one of the apprentices of Carlos Castanda: Nuri Alexander. I had never met Nuri, although my colleague had. I didn't have a connection with her, nor do I practice guru/teacher adulation. I've come to realize that we're all human beings here.
So we were not searching for a guru or a disciple of a guru. We decided to do this mission because we wanted to see what would happen, what we would find. _If_ we _could_ contact her. _If_ we could find the place she jumped from. And _if_ we succeeded, ask her some questions. We had focused intent, we did not want to fail, yet we understood the difficulty of our task at hand.
I was completely willing to accept not finding anything - just another adventure in Death Valley. But what we did end up experiencing is what anyone would expect when they throw themselves into an adventure with abandon, passion, energy and intention.
You can read about it in this post on Daily Mantra - which is where I try to do my metaphysical writing these days.
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"We live in a predatory universe. In order to evolve we need antagonism. Evolution without antagonism, meaning without something always trying to eliminate us, or fight us, or stop us; forcing us to get stronger, better and smarter and evolve, there is no evolution.
And evolution is the very movement of life. Evolution is life. So without antagonism, there is no life."
- Felix Wolf via Ryan S
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My recent trip to the desert was as soft and cushioned as a feather bed. We rolled in just as the sun had set and the desert was as quiet as I have ever not heard. Not a sound. Not one bird, not one bee buzzing. The only sound I heard, was one that I made myself.
I decided to check out the ancient petroglyph cave. The ground was covered with droppings again. The last time I was in the cave, I washed the floor with a bottle of Verve Cliquot champagne and a scrub brush. I stood in the cave, looking at the facing rock. The two holes that swallows usually fly in and out of. Completely silent. No sound. No movement.
Gradually I heard a buzzing. The sound reverberated in my ears and grew louder, taking on a heavy quality. It resonated in the cave. I couldn't tell where the sound was coming from and I could physically feel the vibration. As the sound got louder and reverberated more I re-cognized it as the sound of an airplane. But it had already done it's damage on my perception.
I collected dead cholla and other firewood. A pot of boiling water for hot tea. The ephedra bush that I once drank tea from. A straight stick for roasting marshmallows. Dinner consisted of tea and roasted marshmallows. I even shared the sticky white sweetness with the desert mice. We've got a great video of one carting off a marshmallow. I'll upload it shortly.
The sky gradually got darker and needles of light appeared. The cloud cover softened and the wind blew it away to show the galaxy of stars. I sat on rocks as the fire burned into embers and watched the Milky Way, catching a shooting star or two. I slept like a baby into the bright hours of morning, head buried in my sleeping bag.
Lazy morning awake. A walk about to the other side of the canyon and we found a great treasure sparkling in the bright sun. The blue sky was Hollywood unreal. Fluffy clouds for as far as the eye could see, sitting on the flat edge of atmosphere. It was surreal with the inclined desert plain.
Although it had been almost a year and a half since I returned to this location, it was in some ways, just a moment. An instant. Nothing had changed much. Although I have changed. Gained more power. I am more seasoned. The silence and quietude of the desert was much welcome to me. So quiet my ears didn't know what to do. So quiet that immediately my standard frame of reference was broken and I was acting from a totally different world view.
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I was just posting a comment on my friend, colleague and co-conspirator Carmen de Jesus's blog about stepping out of the dojo. I share some of her fears about the plateau. Usually I take the current level I am at and just make it harder - more and increasingly difficult challenges and limiting parameters.
But I'm tired of practicing. I've been practicing for years on so many varied tracks. 2006 is the year of kicking ass. And you can't kick ass if you're pulling punches for your uke. Even when sword is in hand, it's the wooden one, clanking away at your opponent's sword, staff or hands. Nothing really on the table.
Well... that's all changed. Everything in my life has moved to a different level. One in which, yes, like Carmen I feel secure - but the security is my honed skillset. The world provides the actual challenges to use my skills. I can't necessarily create these opportunities, just be aware when one comes my way.
I wish I could write about one activity I recently did that really proved to me that I am far from the Dojo. That I'm out in the thick of life - doing what I do best - doing what I love - and that in doing the activity, I am energized. Manifesting a character of myself I always wanted to be. It was simple in some ways and used all the skills and items I had collected in my past years.
But I can't speak of it. Not now, and maybe never. But that's ok. Because I know what I did and I saw the results. And I gain confidence and power from the experience.
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My bathtub is a haven for spiders who have a death wish. More often than not, when I slide the curtain across in the morning there is a spider in there waiting for the hot water. They come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes I don't notice until their bodies are floating in the boiling water. Sometimes I scoop them out and put them in the trash, or on the floor. I have trouble killing spiders, even black widows who scurry out from buckets in the yard.
When I was 16, I would name the spiders that would find their way in my room and make a web up in one of the tall corners. (My bedroom had a very high slanted ceiling.) I would look at the spider before I went to bed and then when I woke up in the morning. One morning, I looked up and there was no spider. (The spiders I might add, were small black ones - probably your garden spider variety, not black widows.) I lifted my sleep head and looked at my pillow. I had had the distinct feeling that the spider was close to me. There on my white flannel pillowcase was the black spider. It would have been right in the nest of my blonde hair. This did not freak me out in the least. Nor did I flick the spider off my pillow. Instead, the sleepiness of my mind plopped my head back on the pillow and went to sleep in the sunlight. Later when I woke up, the spider was back in its web.
After that experience, it makes it really hard for me to kill spiders. So what to do with those in my bathtub? I'm keeping my mind open for solutions. But the real solution is to have the spiders not end up there.
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The past few days I have spent in a hospital room with my dying grandmother. She is the one person in this universe who I am the closest to and because of our connection some very interesting things have occurred. I have been dreaming of her, even before I took a flight to the Midwestlast Tuesday. In my dreams, I saw her in a hospital room, I saw myself in the room with her. And I now have experienced being in that room with her in the linear time we call reality.
I arrived on Tuesday evening and went straight to the hospital from the airport. Everything was as I had dreampt it. I sat down and held her hand. She looked as I had seen her in my dreams. She expressed some things and I immediately recognized them. I knew exactly what she was experiencing and what she was trying to communicate.
I was a bit shell shocked and went home to sleep. That night I had many dreams, dreams from my grandmother’s side of the mirror. In the morning I was left with tiny fragments of the dream, however in the course of the day, the fragments became pieces of a broken mirror.
As I spent time with my grandmother; talking, listening to music, feeding her, taking care of her, I had an interesting déjà vu feeling. I felt like I was living the same experience, but from another point of view, from another person. In my dreams, I was my grandmother. I knew the difficulty of focusing, trying to communicate, the pain, the release of pain. I was her in my dreams and heather during the daytime. It’s not that I knew the future when I awoke, my activities during the day triggered my dream memories and the mirror fragments slowly reformed. The difficulty of coughing, eating, giving up eating, being moved, the pain, giving up on living, but not knowing how to die. The enjoyment of music, listening to someone reading, the frustration when not being understood, frustration of body unable to respond.
Then there was the glimpse of respite. The crack opened with light: unknown, and the fear and recoil into the difficulty of pain, color, the world, the known. The light was such a respite, a calm, coolness from the fiery heat of my life. But still the fear and the preference in the known. And then the …moment... when death arrives or comes or I go into the light. And the calming feeling of, why was I afraid?, why didn’t I go sooner and trust? and the compete acceptance of everything I was as I flew into the crack and something completely new expanded and ... and I have no words for what I saw.
I know not how to express what I saw, but I experienced my grandmother’s upcoming death in my dreaming. I experienced it viscerally, physically as she will experience it in the next few days. It is a distinct reminder that we are all beings about to die. And I thank the universe, my grandmother and my energy for this wonderful view.
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When I studied Aikido, I was always more comfortable with Tenkan. It was the clever turning away in response to an attack. Irimi gave me the willies. It was entering fully into the situation. Death or partial destruction always seemed in front of me. But I was always intrigued with irimi. It was my preferred movement, but I didn't feel I had the power to throw these huge guys who were my ukes. When I got over my vision of these huge guys I had a fleeting moment and would successfully catch the feeling of irimi and throw my partner. Not because I could overpower them, but because I had successfully felt the feeling.
Irimi is not only an entering, it is a jump, it is a warrior's stand, fully and completely, grasping at the ethereal knowledge, gaining strength, power, chi, ki. It's a jump into the unknown - it's a jump into presence - moment by moment - fully surround awareness.
It was this feeling that I loved. This entering into the moment with everything that I am - all the power, the knowledge, the raw, the flaw, just me, heather, in the moment. Alive.
I feel that way about many things in my life. Instead of turning away and rolling with the waves, blending and adjusting, I am entering. Fully who I am. Slicing the moment with my arm and entering - the moment holds in the air and is timeless, and in that moment, anything is possible.
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earlier this year I posted my goals for 2005. I entitled the post "out with the tiger, in with the spider". I don't know if my dear readers understood what I meant. It is a remark that reminds me of a scene in my life. Simply, a spider letting itself down from my chandelier on it's one thread. Stopping on the mint green tablecloth and walking to the edge only to let itself down onto the floor and walk across the floor in the same direction.
Another time I was participating in a ritual theatre group run by Antero Alli, called Paratheatrical Ritual Work. It was interesting. We went through this series of warm-up to turn on the body. Then we did various authentic improv interactions within an esoteric setting. Interacting with ourselves, our preconceptions of themes, emotions, feelings, and sometimes with others or objects. One such ritual I will not forget. The room had been taped off into a sunburst with four sections with a 5th place that two of the sections opened on. This was what you could call the Void. From the void was section 1, then section 2, then section 3 and finally 4 which then lead back into the void as well as section 1. When you crossed that line from void into section 1, that was birth: into this world with any and all conceptions. You passed through section 1 and as you went into section 2, puberty strikes, Section 2 to 3 transition was into ripe middle age, section 3 into 4: into later years and advanced age, and as you returned to the void, you experienced your death. Each person in the group entered and we started to progress through the sections. I felt very light, I could not get identified with each of the sections fully. I felt them and experienced them as authentically as I could, but I still felt I was missing. And as I went from each section to the other, it was the transition that most interested me. It was the line I crossed (an actual line was taped on the floor). I was interested in the role of the line and once you went across, could you go back. I became obsessed with the transitions and lines on the floor. I had to really slow myself down and authentically feel what each of the sections were because I could not wait to be finished with them. As I finished the cycle... and was about to step back into the void, my foot was instead drawn to be placed on the line separating section 4 from section 1. And I made my next pass around the sections walking on the lines. Watching my colleagues authentically act their experiences in the full blown section. I saw a relationship bloom and saw the pain when one was ready to move on and had to tear away from the other. I saw mothering. I saw lovers. I saw families. I saw friends that went together their entire life. I saw people trying to cheat the cycle and attempt to return. My participation changed - I was no longer an active participant in the sections. I was the spider on the webs. I was the watcher. I was the keeper of the sections. There were laws that I upheld. I refused to let someone return to a previous section. I made someone break their promise of return with the placement of my palm on his forehead. I did not feel power in this. I knew of his promise. I had made no decision to let pass or refrain. But at the moment he attempted to cross, I was there, and my hand also. I watched while all participants completed the sections and then I danced. I danced on the webs. It was so beautiful. I cleaned the threads. I prepared them for their next dance.
A quick search via google bring me:
It's the Trickster who points out the flaws in our carefully managed societies. He rebels against authority, pokes fun at the overly serious, creates complex schemes and generally plays with the Laws of the Universe. He constantly questions the rules, and causes us to question these same rules. The Trickster appears when a way of thinking becomes outmoded, when old ways need to be changed.
The Trickster is a creator, a joker, a truth teller, a story teller, a transformer. We are most accessible to the gifts of the Trickster when we ourselves are at, or near, boundaries - when we are experiencing transition states. As an archetype, the Trickster, the boundary dweller, finds expression through human imagination and experience.
Quite interesting, hmmm?
In my business life I define my role as the glue that dries clear. This is perhaps another way of saying, I'm the one that builds the web that catches the pieces. As the pieces come together the hold by way of their own gravity and the web falls away. And thus my role as gentle rebel falls away and like Cain, I walk the earth in search of the next boundary to blow. (In the meantime my own worldview is re-molded and shaped and shattered and changed).
So 2005 - the year of being authentic to myself. Myself as the trickster rebel fool. Dancing with the laws of the Universe, bending them, twisting them into a new revelations for the Universe. Universal wild card.
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It was a clear dark night under the stars. Wind blew through Jasmine scented garden. I strayed from the crowd up to the balcony. Looked below at the suits talking, conversing, wine flowing. Why am I not there? Why do I reject the group? Is my rejection so they don't reject me? These are human beings. They are alive. They are surprising. They are unknown. Maybe I am fearful of what I will find, what I will expose. I get tired of who I am. I watch the wind in the palms. I look up to see many many stars. Orion's Belt, clusters, the blackness of the ocean. It's a breath of air. I wonder where this wind will take me.
--
""I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of being around
people who are merely my peers. I want to be around people who
challenge and push me and shatter and expand and fuck my worldview up. Because
there is nothing too precious to lose, except the time to begin it." (Heather writes)
Heather: Be
careful of what you wish for. You will
surely get it.
The only person who is around to shatter, push and expand
you is yourself. That's
number one. And if you are in a hurry,
you will surely find out quickly enough that this path takes a
lifetime and there are no short cuts."
Shelly is right. However there are indeed shortcuts. Shortcuts to long routes along the way. Troutdale is one such shortcut. If you know the shortcuts are there, they will be available when you need them. Do not use them often, for they may change and no longer serve you.
I suppose a shortcut could be akin to my third staircase. And I often carry it around in my third pocket.
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Rereading old posts, I came across these fabulous directions for living from myself, from December 2003. They ring true today and I ponder them for the next year.
.....
acquiesce. (Which secretly means to act.) [So, how do I know how to act?]
I know how to act by being in tune with INTENT (the big intent of the universe, eagle, tonal, etc) and my intent (personal). I try to keep a detached view (sometimes very very hard). I practice various magical passes. I practice seeing. I look for agreements. I practice dreaming. All these tools provide an individual piece like compass, map, next resting area on map, that helps me know what to do (acquiesce) in my "everyday" life.
My life has been very difficult recently. There have been huge changes happening. The changes happened (I made them) because I finally had the energy, guts, and surrender to acquiesce.
Acquiescing can be done in small shifts and sometimes in very swift crushing movements.
.....
They key word up there is surrender. Surrender to acquiescence.
Surrender to your life. Surrender to live it passionately and with awareness.
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