counseling vs. ministry

i think there's a difference between "ministers" and "counselors."  most, if not all, ministers are counselors, but not all counselors are ministers.

depending on your point of view, yes, counseling IS a ministry, i.e., all uses of your gifts ultimately acting in service to God/dess.  but i feel more grounded in the concept of someone finding me when they're ready to begin a process, guiding them through, then letting them fly...wash, rinse, repeat.

i do not have a passion for "gathering a flock" and seeing them through the various stages of their lives.  my communal needs revolve more around friends, family and like-minded acquaintances.  it feeds my spirit to be able to draw those people from a variety of sources.

full throttle community-based work requires a different level and type of energy than one-on-one healing, conducting classes/workshops, and writing books.  as much as i respect those that do the former, i'm realizing that my strengths rest in the latter.  

this is not new...more like the reemergence of an old calling empowered by new information.

when i had to think about a "day job," counseling was the only non-creative field that interested me.  the bad news was i majored in psychology instead of social work; i didn't know that a MSW would have given me the foundation for the kind of work i really wanted to do.  my vision of a "social worker" was a paper pushing government employee infringing upon the lives of poor folks. not my cup of tea.

psychology didn't hit the spot, either.  i was not thrilled by statistics, research or the workings of the brain--although that stuff had its moments.  i've always had academic talent, but an academic career would have driven me insane.  i didn't want to write papers, think thoughts (exclusively), or have an alphabet behind my name--i wanted to help people.  

now that i've met several awesome MSWs doing great things, i'm more open to the possibilities.  considering my other training, i could even do my thing with a counseling certification.

this is the vision i want to hold on to.

one step closer to figuring out this thing called my life.

give thanks.

damage control

in tracing my pattern of self censorship and self denial, this script emerges, courtesy of my inner child:  

i want everyone to be ok. people feel bad things...things they won't tell me about. i want to ask, but i think that will upset them.  i'll figure it out on my own. i usually do, somehow. i want to be good so everyone can be ok. upsetting them isn't good.  why can't everyone be happy? 

my parents were not abusive or even obtuse; no one would have smacked me upside the head if i asked a question--even a difficult one.  but, apparently, feeling their discomfort would have been just as bad.

fortunately or unfortunately, empathy killed my curiosity like the threat of corporeal punishment did my peers'; i had the blessing-curse of being smart and sensitive enough to see things, but not brash enough to ask about them.  instead, i developed the maddening predisposition of remaining on (self-imposed) call, trying to keep the next "disaster" from striking.*  

almost 5 years ago, i wrote this to baby girl:

honeychild,

just because you can see it and feel it doesn't mean you have to fix it. your vision and empathy are gifts, but they aren't always going to serve you well in love--unless it's to show you which ones to steer clear of. and you can't necessarily pass on every gift you have to others, no matter how noble your intention.  

there is no time or energy to waste on folks who don't wanna be healed--whether it's because they're not ready, they're immobilized by their own pain, they feel that they don't deserve love...whatever. it doesn't matter. not even if they're facing death. you can't change their destiny or snap their ori into shape.

as far as relationships went, i did not repeat myself.  still, there's a need to remove this programming in a deeper, more indelible fashion.  as i've said before, i have a hard time forgiving myself, and this is one of those times i could chop my own head off.  stupid, stupid girl...look what you did to yourself... 

taking a deep breath, i put things in perspective:

i was a child, and i made myself the center of things, as children are wont to do. although i didn't think i was the "problem," i made everyone else's problems mine, looked out for everyone--even when i didn't know what was wrong--because i wanted everything to be all right.    

the lesson?

i incarnated with my own life to lead, and my own destiny to fulfill.  i choose to use my gifts in ways that benefit me and others, and part of benefiting myself is taking care of myself.  my parents did their job, and never asked for anything above my ability. as a little girl, i did what i thought was right, but now it's time to let go of that "responsibility," because it is a false, exhausting one.  whatever their--or anyone else's--struggles, God/dess has it under control.   

all will be well.    



* abuse notwithstanding, i now realize much of this was a result of an osmotic connection to my father's PTSD.  as i've gotten older, the blanks have slowly filled in, and i can pinpoint my anxieties as a child to various reactions my father would have (and sometimes still has) and, maybe, my mother's coping mechanisms.  my early experiences of loss probably didn't help.
 

solstice

2013

the year of perfect nothingness.
the year of perfect emptiness.

this year, i choose to be nothing but my true, divinely connected Self.
this year, i empty myself of any over-active ego and open to Spirit.

i choose freedom.  i am free.
i choose joy. i am joyous.
i choose expansion. i am expansive.

i have everything i need to fulfill my destiny.

synergetic synthesis

a few years ago, i consciously began the process of synthesizing the parts of myself i'd either scattered far and wide, or pushed into obscurity.

many of us split ourselves this way, for various reasons.  for me, there were times when this scattering happened in the name of protection, but more often it was simply to fit in, feel normal {whatever that is}.

in a general sense, some folks become aware of these splits, then try to gather in the disparate parts.  others allow the soul-shards to wander--at best never fully actualizing their full potential; at worst, fearing and hating the manifestation of those aspects in others.  sometimes people will even project that hatred outward.

in any case, if you've been reading along for awhile, you know how often i've used this space to speak on the process of re-integrating my self back to myself.

during my morning prayers, i cried--tears of frustration, longing, mourning.  but those tears made way for an important realization: today, i'm probably more fully integrated than i've been since childhood. i still have moments when i wonder how i'll be received, but i no longer fear myself or my power.

i took a deep breath and stood securely in the knowing that people, places, and circumstances of my life  always adjust to reflect my state of being.  as long as i follow the patterns and heed the signs, things run smoothly.   there is no reason for this phase to be any different.

gotta keep moving...
[again]

today's thought

working towards synthesis is exhausting.

i forgive you.

i realized this morning that i've reached the point of forgiveness.

this is big.

i wasn't specifically aiming for it, but i felt it when it happened.

at first, i just needed keep breathing. that was difficult enough some days.

then there was processing the seething anger.  i was afraid that alone would consume me.

although it doesn't excuse shit, or change what happened, or erase the boundary lines, it is so liberating to know that...i forgive.

give thanks...

next.

i'm thinking of something.

it's going to require me to dig. really, really dig.

i know i'm being vague, but it's not quite time for details yet.

i log these things here because it gives me a benchmark & allows me to recall when a notion crystallized.

so...it's coming.

pissivity (2)

i liked you. actually, i still like you.

somehow, you warmed me from the inside out. i was emerging from a brittle, dull stretch of life and you gave me sweet water to sip.

i liked you.

then you dropped me.

i am not used to that feeling, nor is it easy for me to accept.

i know i'm mainly pissed 'cause i believed that you were my way out. when you didn't accept that role, i was disappointed and felt abandoned.

(i realize there was no way for you to see what i saw or feel what i felt, and it was too early to say so much. so there is no true "blame". just the curse of this sort of clairvoyance.)

the stalling of our physical relationship was...disconcerting, at best. i was deeply drawn to the possibility (inevitability?) of taking you as a lover, only to find we ran at vastly different speeds.

this is all familiar. i sense that you must have broken my heart once, or been an unrequited love.

i'm sure that i had to wind up back where i did for the good of us both. there was a sense that our coupling would have been analogous to going down a dead end street just to see how/where it ends.

on the other hand, i thought, "who are you to ignore me, supreme courtesan goddess queen?" it did not seem natural. it also stung a bit.

i don't know what roads you were on or have been down since, and i don't much care--since they had nothing to do with me. selfish, i know. but there's that lingering memory of when i'd have given the world for you and you ignored me. your memory is like a favorite photo framed by broken glass: beautiful, but nearly impossible to pick up for a closer look.

so, forgive me, but even as i still appreciate and like you as a person and wish you no ill will, part of me needs to say this:

fuck you.

i wanted to hand you a bit of heaven and you turned your back on it. that's fine; i don't need you. you only hurt yourself.

still, given my charms, it hurts that someone so beautiful and honeyed did not fall under my spell. you bruised my ego, which is only truly considerable in matters of love/loving. i don't expect to get everything i want, but i sure do get a lot of it.

no one asked you for undying love or loyalty. i just wanted to share something with you, and you told me no.

there's no need to explain; no explanation would suffice. you, my little challenge, resisted the irresistible, thereby simultaneously earning my wrath and my respect. congratulations, and thanks for the lesson.

gratefully, in this (life)time, there will be no jealous fits, catfights or enraged, drunken phone calls.

still, only true worshippers are allowed in my house. curiosity seekers need not cross my threshold.

you can go the fuck away now.

lights, camera, action (breakdown pt. 2)

i've been thinking along these lines again...

all last week, before the cold grabbed me, i'd been feeling like i really needed to cry, let loose. but it's extremely difficult for me to release without a catalyst. crying often requires a logical progression of carefully controlled environmental factors.

i tricked myself into all this a long time ago. as a good little girl who didn't want to get anyone into trouble, i got exceptionally good at hiding my pain.

i had rules:

• if you must cry, only cry when you know you're utterly alone.
• if you're caught, say it's about something else.
• talk to the dolls, your angels, and god.
• breathe deeply. inhale the tears.
• in a pinch, push it all down into your stomach (note: remember not to eat for a few hours after this trick)

all that sort of thing.

not only did i get good at hiding my feelings from other people, i became proficient at hiding them from myself. i learned that it could be hard to hide the tears when i couldn't stop the ugly thoughts rushing through my mind. sometimes i had to get up early. or stay up late. i didn't have time.

mostly, i just put my fingers in my ears and refused to listen. and more of that stomach-pushing.

occasionally i took it out on a boyfriend or lover, or cloaked it in a dream like haze to take the edge off. the most benign option: find a way to fictionalize it and write it out.

these were my survival tactics and, as such, have been difficult to relinquish.

the very idea of letting go, showing weakness--even when i'm alone--can terrify me.

some part of me is stuck in time, holding back that huge dam of black water that threatens to overtake and kill me if i let it out.

but i know better.
the water's been drained, purified, redirected, released.
the pain is not what it was.
i am not who i was.

lately, these kinds of revelations are coming in waves. i know it's part of a push to revert me back to my true(st) self, but even that's laced with fear. it's a self i don't quite remember.

i cannot begin to explain how difficult it is to consciously remember what i was "before". i used to think my cloudy memories were simply a manifestation of how i process information. now i wonder if it's really a symptom of the neutralization of so many powerful, life-altering feelings.

hm.

apparently, when i was younger, i used to say i wanted to grow up to be an actress.

it'd be interesting to see what i could do on a stage with all this real-life training...

singlehood chronicles # 4

so now the evil little thoughts have started to seep in...

"oh god...what happens if he decides he doesn't like me??"
"i can't keep going with this...i might get hurt!"
"he might say 'no'..."
"this feels too nice..."

*record scratch*

hold up.

this is not me.

since my healing began 13 years ago, i have been blessed with the ability to be near fearless in love, lust, and everything in between.

however, spending most of my 20s in an almost incessant cycle of karma breaking and lesson learning gave me a pretty decent case of amnesia.

i'd almost forgotten that risks are good...and important.

besides, my heart could very well be approaching unbreakable status. one gift of my struggle has been a near seamless internalization of reason-season-lifetime.

i am secure in my love of spirit and love of self. that, by extension, makes me secure in all things.

i can love without labels, give without remorse, and spread honey and glitter with abandon. i can share this wonderment with whomever i choose.

and so what if i happen to shed a few tears along the way? being human, it's easy to forget what i (deeply) know.

what's key is that i come back to this place, every time. because i've done the work. because i know.

thus, i was able to soothe myself: "honey, if he doesn't want you, then he's not the one. for every 'no' he could possibly say to you, you'll hear 'yes' in a hundred different ways. and it feels good because it's supposed to."

burying my savior complex

after journaling for awhile, i tried to write a letter to a dear friend of mine who happens to be very ill.

i wrote it longhand--he loves it when i write him actual letters. it was about four pages long--eight if you count the fact that i used both sides of the paper.

i looked it over.
added some things.
signed it.

reread it again.

then i ripped it up.

this sounds too much like a !@#$&*^ guilt trip with some desperate pleas thrown in, i thought. i'm begging this fool to talk to me.

it felt a little too much like what i'd tried to do with honey: make it all better. put myself up on some altar to be sacrificed for someone else's healing just because i have a little extra energy to spare.

and it's never because it makes me feel "better than" or special or anything like that. it's just because...well, that's what love is, right?

no. that's what trauma burned into my consciousness, but no, that's not really what love is.

after i ripped up the letter, i went back to journaling and asked myself, why did something i intended as a statement of love and support turn out sounding like a plea for validation?

i decided that my inner child tends towards internalizing everyone's pain; she falls into the trap of thinking it's her fault that everyone's bleeding, and she has to make it right.

*sidebar*

honeychild, just because you can see it and feel it doesn't mean you have to fix it. your vision and empathy are gifts, but they aren't always going to serve you well in love--unless it's to show you which ones to steer clear of. and you can't necessarily pass on every gift you have to others, no matter how noble your intention.

there is no time or energy to waste on folks who don't wanna be healed--whether it's because they're not ready, they're immobilzed by their own pain, they feel that they don't deserve love...whatever. it doesn't matter. not even if they're facing death. you can't change their destiny or snap their ori into shape.

*end sidebar*

it's past time to seek and find love through a woman's eyes, fully, and that means rejecting broken trinkets and embracing true partners, mates, and kindred spirits.

i recalled my latest mantra: i do not have to diffuse my love externally, however plentiful it may be, to experience balance.

that doesn't mean i wouldn't be there if he needed me, if he actually asked me to be there. i would. in a heartbeat.

it doesn't mean that i have to stop loving him. it's silly to think i could.

whatever he's decided to do, for whatever reason(s) he's decided to do it, there's nothing i can do.

he knows who i am, where i am, and how to reach me.

until then, i'll keep him in prayer...

in search of a powerful eroticism

i reread audre lorde's (iba t'orun) "the uses of the erotic" on the train the other day, and it made my heart hurt a little.

during a conversation with c., i realized (again) how complacent and sedated i've become; how i have betrayed my wild woman, allowing parts of her to hibernate or suffer from dehydration for far too long.

first, mama audre tells us:

There are many kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives.

We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused, and devalued within western society. On the one hand, the superficially erotic has been encouraged as a sign of female inferiority; on the other hand, women have been made to suffer and to feel both contemptible and suspect by virtue of its existence.

furthermore...

As women, we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge. We have been warned against it all our lives by the male world, which values this depth of feeling enough to keep women around in order to exercise it in the service of men, but which fears this same depth too much to examine the possibilities of it within themselves. So women are maintained at a distant/inferior position to be psychically milked, much the same way ants maintain colonies of aphids to provide a life-giving substance for their masters.

But the erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative force to the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb to the belief that sensation is enough.

precisely. sensation is not enough. my hunger goes much deeper than that.

one of the first steps towards my satisfaction was obtaining fulfilling employment. all praise to my ori, egbe and the orisa, i have done that.

but it's only the first movement. in many ways, i'm still starving.

The erotic is a measure between our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self-respect we can require no less of ourselves.

indeed. it has touched me, fully and deeply--and not just in love.

It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our
society is to encourage excellence. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.

This internal requirement toward excellence which we learn from the erotic must not be misconstrued as demanding the impossible from ourselves nor from others. Such a demand incapacitates everyone in the process. For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavors bring us closest to that fullness.

hallelujah.

The aim of each thing which we do is to make our lives and the lives of our children richer and more possible. Within the celebration of the erotic in all our endeavors, my work becomes a conscious decision - a longed-for bed which I enter gratefully and from which I rise up empowered.

Of course, women so empowered are dangerous. So we are taught to separate the erotic from most vital areas of our lives other than sex. And the lack of concern for the erotic root and satisfactions of our work is felt in our disaffection from so much of what we do. For instance, how often do we truly love our work even at its most difficult?

i feel like i would be terribly dangerous if i were so empowered. seeing women like dark daughta making the attempt is a blessing. she and others encourage me to find my own way towards freedom, past the fragmentation and the lies i tell myself to fit in and make it through the weeks.

i am learning that it isn't just my creativity that's fallen away from the nucleus of who i am--parts of my sensuality, sexuality, even parts of my spirituality feel incomplete.

i don't just have writing blocks these days, i have prayer ones as well. what can i say to my shrines when i can barely speak to my ori? what once seemed so simple has become a chore.

As women, we need to examine the ways in which our world can be truly different. I am speaking here of the necessity for reassessing the quality of all the aspects of our lives and of our work, and of how we move toward and through them.

The very word erotic comes from the Greek word eros, the personification of love in all its aspects - born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.

somehow i have been cut off from the source.

i'm wondering what part the last month has played in this drama, how much i've dealt with and how much i haven't.

...but that'd be another blog altogether.

Beyond the superficial, the considered phrase, "It feels right to me," acknowledges the strength of the erotic into a true knowledge, for what that means is the first and most powerful guiding light toward any understanding. And understanding is a handmaiden which can only wait upon, or clarify, that knowledge, deeply born. The erotic is the nurturer or nursemaid of all our deepest knowledge.

this is going at the bottom of the blog as my newest quote. maybe posted above the goddesspace. a new mantra.

The erotic functions for me in several ways, and the first is in providing the power which comes from sharing deeply any pursuit with another person. The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.

...and this is why i like DD, despite her insistence that many of us (whoever the "we" happen to be who stumble upon her musings) won't.

i don't need to nitpick with her about the different ways in which we see the world. i respond to her as my heart and mind dictate, and she responds to me in kind. in that, we don't bicker, but find common ground. when we disagree, we don't polarize one another--we teach each other.

that's the way it's supposed to be.

mama audre had so much to contribute in the way of the conscious acknowledgement and acceptance of difference...it breaks my heart that we didn't have her for just a few more years.

Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy, in the way my body stretches to music and opens into response, harkening to its deepest rhythms so every level upon which I sense also opens to the erotically satisfying experience whether it is dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, or examining an idea.

That self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which I know myself to be capable of feeling, a reminder of my capacity for feeling. And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible, and does not have to be called marriage, nor god, nor an afterlife.

This is one reason why the erotic is so feared, and so often relegated to the bedroom alone, when it is recognized at all. For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives. And this is a grave responsibility, projected from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.

this is why my relationship with him was and still is so important; we lived and breathed this essay before i even knew it existed. we still do.

now that our love is shifting and transforming into another form of being, i'm wondering how it will still be capable of feeding me, how my current situation may need to shape shift.

how fear has factored in to my desires and loves.
the walls are getting thin.

During World War II, we bought sealed plastic packets of white, uncolored margarine, with a tiny, intense pellet of yellow coloring perched like a topaz just inside the clear skin of the bag. We would leave the margarine out for a while to soften, and then we would pinch the little pellet to break it inside the bag, releasing the rich yellowness into the soft pale mass of margarine. Then taking it carefully between our fingers, we would knead it gently back and forth, over and over, until the color had spread throughout the whole pound bag of margarine, thoroughly coloring it.

I find the erotic such a kernel within myself. When released from its intense and constrained pellet, it flows through and colors my life with a kind of energy that heightens and sensitizes and strengthens all my experience.

mmm hmmmm...

We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings. But, once recognized, those which do not enhance our future lose their power and can be altered. The fear of our deepest cravings keeps them suspect and indiscriminately powerful, for to suppress any truth is to give it strength beyond endurance. The fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, externally defined, and leads us to accept many facets of our own oppression as women.

...But when we begin to live from within outward, in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense. For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering, and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like the only alternative in our society. Our acts against oppression become integral with self, motivated and empowered from within.

In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.

i believe that this is the message mama gena intended when she, essentially, watered down and commercialized this lesson for her school of womanly arts.

it's definitely a wonderful beginning--if that's the level you need to be reached on--but i hope that the actual classes touch on something deeper and more critically minded than what glitters on the surface.

back to the essay:

And yes, there is a hierarchy. There is a difference between painting a black fence and writing a poem, but only one of quantity. And there is, for me, no difference between writing a good poem and moving into sunlight against the body of a woman I love.

This brings me to the last consideration of the erotic. To share the power of each other's feelings is different from using another's feelings as we would use a Kleenex. When we look the other way from our experience, erotic or otherwise, we use rather than share the feelings of those others who participate in the experience with us. And use without consent of the used is abuse.

In order to be utilized, our erotic feelings must be recognized. The need for sharing deep feeling is a human need. But within the european-american tradition, this need is satisfied by certain proscribed erotic comings-together. These occasions are almost always characterized by a simultaneous looking away, a pretense of calling them something else, whether a religion, a fit, mob violence, or even playing doctor. And this misnaming of the need and the deed give rise to that distortion which results in pornography and obscenity - the abuse of feeling.

deep.

The erotic cannot be felt secondhand. As a Black lesbian feminist, I have a particular feeling, knowledge, and understanding for those sisters with whom I have danced hard, played, or even fought. This deep participation has often been the forerunner for joint concerted actions not possible before.

But this erotic charge is not easily shared by women who continue to operate under an exclusively european-american male tradition. I know it was not available to me when I was trying to adapt my consciousness to this mode of living and sensation.

...and it's still not available, mama audre, not even for a heterosexual black woman--whatever scraps of privilege that offers me.

i am built for this kind of life.
it is always on the tip of my tongue.
the rhythm of it guides my heart...
whether i'm loving someone
writing
designing sacred space...

it's there. it's waiting. it's mine.

but i still have plenty of work to do before the erotic is fully fused to my life.

maybe that should be my new prayer...

catharsis #1

trying to figure out how to get out of this funk...

part of it has to do with railing against the boredom.

i need to get back on my prayer schedule.

monday's a full moon. time to get some obstacles out of the way.

an extended fast is in order. i've been avoiding any kind of cleansing because i've convinced myself that i don't have the energy/power to keep it up. that's a lie.

the once-a-week fasting went really well for awhile, but stress and annoyance got me off track. i've been sporadic (at best) for weeks.

i've also gotten sloppy about keeping up the other end of the bargain: sticking to vegan/natural foods when i break the daytime fast. now i just go home and pig out. not ideal.

i need to be clear, but i understand that part of me doesn't want to deal with the energy of clarity. i think i've been afraid of what i'll discover, need, want, or realize if i stay on that level too long.

it's something of a misguided protective mechanism; it's extremely difficult for me to resign myself to sitting here day in and day out when i'm functioning optimally. better to sedate myself with cookies and sit here half awake. the illusion of physical hunger keeps me focused on something other than my goals. i've probably always been a little too resistant to change for my own good.

been thinking more about bodywork lately, but that's another sort of heartbreak. i still feel like i'll make a living at it. one day. but that doesn't change the fact that i need money i don't have to get started.

i can't decide if i would rather go into debt to get licensed and hustle from there, or if i should just get my ducks in a row now so i'll be free & clear later.

...well, maybe that's not so difficult. free and clear sounds much better to me. i'm not a good hustler.

i need to move my body. i have to find a way to fit yoga back into my schedule/budget. find a dance class. been saying it for months now, but i really need to make it a priority. i'm certain that my lack of movement is contributing to this feeling of stagnation. moving my body and keeping my energy aligned will whip my mental and spiritual faculties into shape.

there's so much more to this...

i have to become unafraid of opening the floodgates.

repression leads to extremes of implosion and explosion--modes i want to avoid.

i need a way to scream, cry, release. i haven't given myself space to do that. sometimes i don't know if i remember how to.

there has to be a way to vent frustration and progress at the same time.

a moment in psychobabble

this morning while i was in a *yawn* meeting, i decided to write out a list of emotions. i thought it would help me feel a little less haywire. strangely enough, it did. so here goes:

what i'm feeling right now
fatigue, love*, restlessness, faith
anger, resilience, frustration, joy*
happiness, shifting/change*, annoyance, boredom
burnout, patience, decisiveness, effects/passage of time
arid, aggression, fractured, spirit
moody, openness*, power*, blockage
fear, bliss*, impatience, softness
blindness, acceptance, pain


what i need to feel
healing, power, hope, joy
health, bliss, relaxation, compassion
peace, connectivity, accomplishment, abundance
stimulation, love, inspiration, passion
openness, movement, eagerness, change/adaptation
release, beauty, progress, inspiration

*where things are matching up

i'm not sure what i want to do with this information yet. maybe just bringing it into consciousness is enough for the moment.

when divinity meets humanity

i am rebelling against the spiritual lessons of my current relationship.

i'm coming to realize that it is attempting to ground me, to firmly reestablish my connection to the earth and all her concerns.

over the eons, i have spent quite a bit of time as a very free woman. i've spent more lives as a courtesan and/or priestess than i ever have as a wife and mother.

the snatches of motherhood i've gleaned from my dreams and visions have been very, very pleasant. i think my lingering love and respect for children comes from those times.

marriage has been somewhat stifling, confining. often, i seem to have found ways to wiggle out of or around that.

since i was a child, i've known that i wanted to spend this life with one person. as a teenager and young adult, i developed into a serial monogamist.

i've been blessed with several very ethereal, spirit-based relationships. the kind that take you off the planet and out of your body. of course, i was still confronted with the usual, human issues, but they were more easily dealt with (at least on my end) because emotionally and spiritually i was being so deeply touched. what's a traumatic childhood or two when your souls can touch?

then came this.

i recognized early that honey was someone i could look to in a pinch, a great friend. someone i genuinely liked and respected as a human being, someone i could talk to and have fun with.

over time, though, his fear of opening to spirit and lack of emotional development had me seriously doubting the viability of our union.

that said, my spiritual life has been opened greatly by my training over the last few months. that takes some of the pressure off my relationship, but it's still a disappointment because it's such a large part of who i am.

i have a deep need to be loved in the way i know how to love. love breaks down my barriers, it doesn't put them up. i show up with my current and past selves--a sort of ghost-dance that allows me to know you as you are and were.

if you don't know yourself, if you're still lost in the forest of childhood scrapes and bruises, if the smallest details of how to express your love/adoration/bliss are confounding to you, we're gonna have problems. you gotta show me you're part medicine man, demonstrate command of your shamanic essence.

psychologically, i completely understand his issues, and i sympathize with them. they are by no means unusual or insurmountable, and i know he does the best he can.

but as a lover and a woman, i don't have much patience for the "human" stuff. dealing with mortals is a tiresome, painstaking enterprise.

yet, there are countless myths where the divine falls in love with the profane.

of course, the human tends to fk up.
and i'm just as human as he is, trust me.

i've left three times already. incident #4 seems really close some days.

i recognize that some of my impatience is ego-driven (e.g., "he is SO not on my level...")

however, the divine love wants to see this through. i have to try to teach him as he's teaching me.

the challenge? he's trying to show me something i don't always want to see, and he needs to be taught something i've become angry and resentful that he (1) doesn't already have and (2) is still developing the tools to learn. i'm the type of teacher who's quick to ask, how dare you come to my door unprepared?

i can see that the ancestors want me to have an anchor 'cause i probably won't have the privilege of getting to languish lovingly on top of a mountain, running with my wildcats and listening to the birds. not daily, anyway.

i love the city too much.
i want to be actively helping my people.

i know he'll work hard to pay the bills.
i know he's a good father.
i know he's a good person.

but we gotta work on that magic part.