Jeff and I started our Imbolc detox diet yesterday, which is just my luck since I was awake at 3 AM last night and couldn't fall back asleep for several hours. (Got some more Sherlock Holmes reading done, though.) Normally on a day following that, I'd rely heavily on something with caffeine in it... but I guess now I'm going to have to make due with watered-down green tea.
Can I just say... I really dislike when people talk about not having "spoons." The phrase originally came from an essay in which a woman was explaining to her friend (while they were having lunch together in a diner) what it was like to have Lupus, and she used the limited number of spoons on the table as a metaphor for how she had to manage her very limited energy resources just to get through a normal day. In the context of that story, it was a really good illustration of how hard it is to live with a largely "invisible" disease.
But most of the time when I see people using it, they just mean they're tired. Having to manage your time and energy is just something you have to do, no matter who you are. We all have to choose our priorities, and we all have to decide where our boundaries are and how long we're going to stay in a difficult, challenging or confrontational situation before we need to step back and regroup in our own space. This might be especially true for introverts, and I think it's really true for the time we spend online, since we can feel like we're alone even when we're interacting with people. So yeah, you can get tired, or realize you have other shit you need to do. You can even get blindsided by an emotionally-charged conversation in which you end up getting attacked for events that happened (and even some things that didn't happen) nearly two years ago and which, as far as you remember, were resolved pretty amicably at the time but now you find out someone has been nursing anger about it for years. But guess what? You still don't have Lupus.
I don't like how eager some people are to identify themselves as victims. This is one reason why I was never comfortable with calling myself a "witch," because I don't resonate with the archetype of the persecuted, misunderstood harlot-or-hag living on the edge of the village. I can show solidarity with people who are marginalized and work for social justice and inclusivity and equality... but I don't need to place myself in the position of being a victim. I feel like it's dishonest to identify as someone who is persecuted when I'm actually very privileged in many ways (and I felt that way back when I was working the night shift as a waitress in a shitty diner and living below the poverty line.... so yeah, if I'd ever had legitimate cause to identify with the marginalized it would have been then). And I don't feel comfortable using language that suggests my introvertedness or my need to manage my time and energy effectively is the same thing as having a debilitating disease. It'd be like me getting a bad head cold and saying, "Gosh, I feel like I have AIDS." Nope.
But I could even understand if it's just become easy shorthand for talking about time and energy management. What really bothers me is when it becomes an excuse to avoid dealing with the consequences of your actions. The original story is all about the careful planning that is demanded by having something like Lupus, how you can't take anything for granted but have to constantly think ahead about how you choices right now are going to affect your energy levels later on, and you have to make trade-offs that are worth making instead of squandering your energy and time on things that aren't really important.
But what I see happening sometimes instead is that someone will provoke a confrontation, and then use a "lack of spoons" as an excuse to disengage, to shut down conversation if anyone disagrees with them or challenges them. They'll flounce in, drop a drama-bomb and then play the victim if anybody dares to question that kind of behavior. They'll refuse to engage with anyone asking for something more substantial than their angrily defiant declaration that "I HAVE FEELS and it's your fault!"
You're out of spoons? Really? You certainly seemed to have plenty when you wrote that diatribe riddled with accusations and personal attacks.
Maybe you would have more spoons if you stopped chucking them at people like ninja throwing stars.
Showing posts with label energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label energy. Show all posts
Monday, January 28, 2013
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
In Which Ali Rambles About How She Was Never Loved Enough As A Child
I just had a realization, a minor revelation about the source of some of my anxiety about wanting to do so much and feeling like I never have enough time.
I am blessed to know a number of amazing, creative people.
Take Heather, for instance. I've never met her, I'm just a fan of her blog. In another life where our paths could have crossed in person, she seems like the kind of person I would have been friends with (or maybe not — who knows if we might have remained strangers — she often sounds as awkward and introverted as I am, which is another reason I like her writing). Today, Heather shared a post on her blog about committing to writing one poem for each day during the months of August and September, building on her experience in June and July when she created one index card's worth of art for each day.
My first thought was: Awesome! That sounds so inspiring! I want to do that!
My second thought was: How in hell can I make time to sit down and write a poem each day? I spend most of my time feeling tired and half-burnt-out from all the other self-assigned projects I've taken on, and I have more naturalist training coming up, and another season of FF&C starting in a week, and I can barely commit to fifteen minutes of prayer at the altar or thirty minutes of Tai Chi in the morning....
These are my third thoughts. When I realize that, instead of feeling frustrated that there are too many things I want to do, I should stop for a moment and thank the gods that I know so many inspiring people. People who make me say, "Awesome! I want to do that!" People who know how to live their lives with grace and guts, even when shit is hitting the fan and they feel like they can't keep it together, who still manage to be honest and strong and kick-ass.
So some of my desire to do all these awesome things is to show support and appreciation for the work of these other brilliant, strong, creative people. Because I never really got that kind of support. I wanted to be a writer from early on because my first grade teacher made a passing comment about how she liked my stories. I don't remember anyone ever giving me that kind of compliment before, but I remember my parents' pride in hearing it. For a while, I wanted to be a nature writer and study science (I was very specific, the way kids sometimes get, I wanted to be a marine mammalogist) — I kept a naturalist journal where I made detailed sketches and took notes on all the local flora and fauna down at the creek near my house.... until the day when I found a newborn rabbit that had been dug up from its burrow by a neighborhood dog, and I brought it home with me in a shoebox and was ready to stay up and nurse it all night, but my parents said no, they would take care of it... and in the morning, I woke up to find its body cold and stiff curled up in the box where they'd left it on the back porch.
So I wrote poetry. Dark, morose poetry. My freshman year of high school, I wrote a poem every day. I filled notebooks and notebooks with really bad poems. I slouched in the back of geometry class and wrote poems in backwards handwriting, from right to left. My mom bought me a novel written by a girl who was only eighteen — and I thought, this is the expectation, then. I have to be good enough to write a best-selling novel by the time I'm eighteen. I didn't. I write and I write and I write... but my parents never read anything I write anyway. My senior year, I organized a school-wide arts festival, the largest in the school's history, complete with art gallery, fashion show, live music and poetry readings. My mother filmed hours of other people performing.... but the camcorder battery died within the first 30 seconds of when I finally got up to read. I still haven't been able to write a book manuscript. I have a publisher who said he'd love to publish anything I wrote, just send a manuscript his way whenever I'm ready..... and I still haven't been able to write a book.
What's my excuse? I don't know. I want to do everything, but somehow time gets away from me and I waste hours not getting anything done. Every time I see someone doing something amazing and creative, I want to read their work or take the time to really deeply consider what they've said. I've spent three days — three days — taking notes on a book that's only 150 pages long, so that we could do an hour-long FF&C episode on it. Why? Because four years ago I criticized something else this author wrote, and he came back at me asking for a detailed review of exactly what I thought was wrong with the book.... and I never got around to giving it to him. I didn't tell him to fuck off, I didn't point out that a critical review of a book did not obligate me to pick apart his every argument for logical fallacies, I didn't point out that the critical review I did give the book had plenty of specifics in it already.... Instead, I have spent four years feeling like I owe him a detailed critique, promising myself that someday I really am going to go back and read that book a second time and go through it bit by bit..... and now that I'm reviewing another of his books, I'm leaving no stone unturned, no argument left unexplored. Nevermind that, at this rate, we'll never record the episode, and that even if/when we do, he'll probably never listen to it, and even if he did, his response (like those of listeners) will probably be that I went way overboard and "over-analyzed" what was a very short book and my expectations for it were too high and so therefore my review isn't important..... Why do I do it? I don't know. Because I would want someone to give that much thought and put that much effort into a critique of my work. Because I believe if someone puts the time and effort into creating something, they deserve the same attention and effort in return.
And because giving this much thought to it has deepened my understanding of my own ideas. Yes, that too. But ideas that never have a chance to catch their breath or find their own expression because I feel like I'm constantly in a race to find a better way to express them, or constantly trying to weigh them against the ideas of others, to refine them and deepen them. I am a perfectionist, not just of things but of ideas themselves.
I realize that I feel deeply sad about some of this. People are eager to think little of you. My recent blog post about being "deity dumped" received numerous enthusiastic responses from people full of advice — much of it kindly meant. But an even more recent post, exploring an aspect of my practice in crafted, delicate language, a piece I was proud of writing and that I felt was much better from both a technical and an emotional perspective.... received almost no comment. When I admit that I think the work I do is valuable, and that I work hard to be respectful and to listen deeply to others, I'm told I am arrogant and holier-than-thou.
I feel the strong desire to stop. Jeff, and even my parents, have remarked about how different my attitude towards ebooks is now than it was a few years ago. I used to hate them. I used to think that they would ruin the genre and jeopardize serious reading (not to mention libraries and public access to information and the ability to pass down books through the generations as sacred objects of power). Now, I really enjoy the convenience of wanting a book and being able to download it within seconds. What they don't seem to get is that I am thinking like a consumer now, instead of a writer. I gave up. I no longer think that anyone would read the kind of book I would want to write. I no longer believe that, no matter what I did, my parents would be proud of me or ever really hear me.
So I spend a lot of my time trying to really hear others, to really listen. There are so many people doing so many amazing, wonderful things. I could spend all of my time running around amazed and saying "Wow!" and never get anything done. Even now, the podcast is practically little more than that — me sharing the latest crazy-awesome news and thoughts from other people.
But I find myself burnt out and tired. I find myself wondering why I still feel so stressed out and busy all the time, when all of the deadlines are self-imposed and nobody would really notice or care if I dropped offline for good and never posted another update or recorded another podcast episode or wrote another line. I could just stop. I could give up and watch television all day, and no one would think any worse of me. Plenty of people would be downright jealous. Lots of people dream of being able to eek by on their spouse's single income and not have to work for somebody else at a job they hate.
But this ramble has gotten way out of hand. What I wanted to say was, maybe I can find another way to honor the creativity and inspiration I find in other people: to say thank you and celebrate them, without feeling the pressure of needing to pour all of my attention into that and leave no time for my own work. Maybe some kind of simple ritual, similar to the offerings I make in the mornings to my gods, ancestors and spirits of the land. A ritual that will help me to set boundaries while still showing support and gratitude. I want to think about this more....
I am blessed to know a number of amazing, creative people.
Take Heather, for instance. I've never met her, I'm just a fan of her blog. In another life where our paths could have crossed in person, she seems like the kind of person I would have been friends with (or maybe not — who knows if we might have remained strangers — she often sounds as awkward and introverted as I am, which is another reason I like her writing). Today, Heather shared a post on her blog about committing to writing one poem for each day during the months of August and September, building on her experience in June and July when she created one index card's worth of art for each day.
My first thought was: Awesome! That sounds so inspiring! I want to do that!
My second thought was: How in hell can I make time to sit down and write a poem each day? I spend most of my time feeling tired and half-burnt-out from all the other self-assigned projects I've taken on, and I have more naturalist training coming up, and another season of FF&C starting in a week, and I can barely commit to fifteen minutes of prayer at the altar or thirty minutes of Tai Chi in the morning....
These are my third thoughts. When I realize that, instead of feeling frustrated that there are too many things I want to do, I should stop for a moment and thank the gods that I know so many inspiring people. People who make me say, "Awesome! I want to do that!" People who know how to live their lives with grace and guts, even when shit is hitting the fan and they feel like they can't keep it together, who still manage to be honest and strong and kick-ass.
So some of my desire to do all these awesome things is to show support and appreciation for the work of these other brilliant, strong, creative people. Because I never really got that kind of support. I wanted to be a writer from early on because my first grade teacher made a passing comment about how she liked my stories. I don't remember anyone ever giving me that kind of compliment before, but I remember my parents' pride in hearing it. For a while, I wanted to be a nature writer and study science (I was very specific, the way kids sometimes get, I wanted to be a marine mammalogist) — I kept a naturalist journal where I made detailed sketches and took notes on all the local flora and fauna down at the creek near my house.... until the day when I found a newborn rabbit that had been dug up from its burrow by a neighborhood dog, and I brought it home with me in a shoebox and was ready to stay up and nurse it all night, but my parents said no, they would take care of it... and in the morning, I woke up to find its body cold and stiff curled up in the box where they'd left it on the back porch.
So I wrote poetry. Dark, morose poetry. My freshman year of high school, I wrote a poem every day. I filled notebooks and notebooks with really bad poems. I slouched in the back of geometry class and wrote poems in backwards handwriting, from right to left. My mom bought me a novel written by a girl who was only eighteen — and I thought, this is the expectation, then. I have to be good enough to write a best-selling novel by the time I'm eighteen. I didn't. I write and I write and I write... but my parents never read anything I write anyway. My senior year, I organized a school-wide arts festival, the largest in the school's history, complete with art gallery, fashion show, live music and poetry readings. My mother filmed hours of other people performing.... but the camcorder battery died within the first 30 seconds of when I finally got up to read. I still haven't been able to write a book manuscript. I have a publisher who said he'd love to publish anything I wrote, just send a manuscript his way whenever I'm ready..... and I still haven't been able to write a book.
What's my excuse? I don't know. I want to do everything, but somehow time gets away from me and I waste hours not getting anything done. Every time I see someone doing something amazing and creative, I want to read their work or take the time to really deeply consider what they've said. I've spent three days — three days — taking notes on a book that's only 150 pages long, so that we could do an hour-long FF&C episode on it. Why? Because four years ago I criticized something else this author wrote, and he came back at me asking for a detailed review of exactly what I thought was wrong with the book.... and I never got around to giving it to him. I didn't tell him to fuck off, I didn't point out that a critical review of a book did not obligate me to pick apart his every argument for logical fallacies, I didn't point out that the critical review I did give the book had plenty of specifics in it already.... Instead, I have spent four years feeling like I owe him a detailed critique, promising myself that someday I really am going to go back and read that book a second time and go through it bit by bit..... and now that I'm reviewing another of his books, I'm leaving no stone unturned, no argument left unexplored. Nevermind that, at this rate, we'll never record the episode, and that even if/when we do, he'll probably never listen to it, and even if he did, his response (like those of listeners) will probably be that I went way overboard and "over-analyzed" what was a very short book and my expectations for it were too high and so therefore my review isn't important..... Why do I do it? I don't know. Because I would want someone to give that much thought and put that much effort into a critique of my work. Because I believe if someone puts the time and effort into creating something, they deserve the same attention and effort in return.
And because giving this much thought to it has deepened my understanding of my own ideas. Yes, that too. But ideas that never have a chance to catch their breath or find their own expression because I feel like I'm constantly in a race to find a better way to express them, or constantly trying to weigh them against the ideas of others, to refine them and deepen them. I am a perfectionist, not just of things but of ideas themselves.
I realize that I feel deeply sad about some of this. People are eager to think little of you. My recent blog post about being "deity dumped" received numerous enthusiastic responses from people full of advice — much of it kindly meant. But an even more recent post, exploring an aspect of my practice in crafted, delicate language, a piece I was proud of writing and that I felt was much better from both a technical and an emotional perspective.... received almost no comment. When I admit that I think the work I do is valuable, and that I work hard to be respectful and to listen deeply to others, I'm told I am arrogant and holier-than-thou.
I feel the strong desire to stop. Jeff, and even my parents, have remarked about how different my attitude towards ebooks is now than it was a few years ago. I used to hate them. I used to think that they would ruin the genre and jeopardize serious reading (not to mention libraries and public access to information and the ability to pass down books through the generations as sacred objects of power). Now, I really enjoy the convenience of wanting a book and being able to download it within seconds. What they don't seem to get is that I am thinking like a consumer now, instead of a writer. I gave up. I no longer think that anyone would read the kind of book I would want to write. I no longer believe that, no matter what I did, my parents would be proud of me or ever really hear me.
So I spend a lot of my time trying to really hear others, to really listen. There are so many people doing so many amazing, wonderful things. I could spend all of my time running around amazed and saying "Wow!" and never get anything done. Even now, the podcast is practically little more than that — me sharing the latest crazy-awesome news and thoughts from other people.
But I find myself burnt out and tired. I find myself wondering why I still feel so stressed out and busy all the time, when all of the deadlines are self-imposed and nobody would really notice or care if I dropped offline for good and never posted another update or recorded another podcast episode or wrote another line. I could just stop. I could give up and watch television all day, and no one would think any worse of me. Plenty of people would be downright jealous. Lots of people dream of being able to eek by on their spouse's single income and not have to work for somebody else at a job they hate.
But this ramble has gotten way out of hand. What I wanted to say was, maybe I can find another way to honor the creativity and inspiration I find in other people: to say thank you and celebrate them, without feeling the pressure of needing to pour all of my attention into that and leave no time for my own work. Maybe some kind of simple ritual, similar to the offerings I make in the mornings to my gods, ancestors and spirits of the land. A ritual that will help me to set boundaries while still showing support and gratitude. I want to think about this more....
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Post-Ritual Drag (And Moontide Blues)
It's becoming increasingly obvious to me that one area I need to focus on in my spiritual practice is working to regulate my energy. This is probably a combination of easing up on myself when I'm working too hard, and finding both mundane and magical ways of maintaining my energy levels through low periods.
And I do mean periods. I had been hoping to perform last night's protection ritual earlier in the week, riding the tide of the just-past-full moon, but I was slammed by my usual 2-to-3-day phase of intense pain and complete exhaustion that occurs every month. Every month. Recently, I had hoped perhaps I could somehow manage to avoid it. I've been eating better and exercising more routinely, and my energy levels have not just been higher, but downright awesome. Last month's moodtides laid me low, but it was in the wake of the custody hearing and a week with my parents, so I naturally attributed the energy lag to the stress, and within a day or two I was back on my feet. This month, I was disappointed and frustrated to find that all that awesome energy and vitality I'd been feeling for the last few weeks suddenly fled as quickly as usual, leaving me a sack of meat, fat and bones barely able to raise myself up in bed, let alone change out of pajamas and get my shit together.
For anyone (all two of you) reading this and wondering: it is extremely frustrating and embarrassing to have a regularly scheduled illness every month that slams you in the stomach like clockwork, especially when you're as intense and serious-minded as I am, and especially in a culture in which Successful, Serious People are supposed to be On the Ball all the time. Promises that birth control would help mitigate symptoms turned out to be empty promises, just compounding my usual fatigue and pain with morning sickness.
Yesterday, my energy was finally climbing back up to usual levels, and so Jeff and I dove into ritual. This morning, my energy was pretty good (I wrote that blog post, didn't I? yes I did, while walking on the treadmill).
Now, Jeff is on his way home, biking seven miles like a boss, and I feel like I can barely keep my eyes open. Physical sensations include: a headache that stretches across my temples, tension in my neck, eyes that feel tired and dry, muscles that feel flabby and somewhat tingly, feet that feel cold (my whole body generally feels cold), and an overall feeling of my old bag of flesh and bones being too heavy to shift around properly and hold steady. This is par for the course after a period, but it feels as though the effects were prolonged this month because of the energy work I did last night.
So..... items for the to-do list:
• Work on evening out my energy levels through the month so that, for the sake of slightly calmer highs, I don't find myself at such disruptively and frustratingly low lows.
• Work on post-ritual energy reboot to keep me grounded and healthy.
I really am not a witch. I really dislike being a female body sometimes, and my euphemistic moontides have been a bitch for most of my life. This is not oh-isn't-it-magical-and-special-to-be-a-woman time. Puberty was not a blessing. Menopause just might be. But let's take things one step at a time. I celebrate the sun. That's why I'm a Druid. But my fiery goddess has put me on hold for a little while and counseled me to get my act together and find a better balance, because otherwise she's fed up with me and my burn out.
So. Sorta-moon goddess, you're up. Let's do this thing. You aid women in labor, and this monthly round of gut-punching pain and bloodloss feels close enough to me. Let's say you and me work this out.
First things first:
• I'm going to make a list of activities that help me regenerate and re-energize, and see if I can get some healthy habits going. Same goes for foods.
• I'm going to make a list of activities and foods that deplete my energy and resources, and try to do better at avoiding them.
• I'm going to turn my morning meditations towards more deliberate energy work.
• I'm going to keep doing Tai Chi like a motherfucking KLINGON.
• I'm going to ask for help. Even if it kills me.
And I do mean periods. I had been hoping to perform last night's protection ritual earlier in the week, riding the tide of the just-past-full moon, but I was slammed by my usual 2-to-3-day phase of intense pain and complete exhaustion that occurs every month. Every month. Recently, I had hoped perhaps I could somehow manage to avoid it. I've been eating better and exercising more routinely, and my energy levels have not just been higher, but downright awesome. Last month's moodtides laid me low, but it was in the wake of the custody hearing and a week with my parents, so I naturally attributed the energy lag to the stress, and within a day or two I was back on my feet. This month, I was disappointed and frustrated to find that all that awesome energy and vitality I'd been feeling for the last few weeks suddenly fled as quickly as usual, leaving me a sack of meat, fat and bones barely able to raise myself up in bed, let alone change out of pajamas and get my shit together.
For anyone (all two of you) reading this and wondering: it is extremely frustrating and embarrassing to have a regularly scheduled illness every month that slams you in the stomach like clockwork, especially when you're as intense and serious-minded as I am, and especially in a culture in which Successful, Serious People are supposed to be On the Ball all the time. Promises that birth control would help mitigate symptoms turned out to be empty promises, just compounding my usual fatigue and pain with morning sickness.
Yesterday, my energy was finally climbing back up to usual levels, and so Jeff and I dove into ritual. This morning, my energy was pretty good (I wrote that blog post, didn't I? yes I did, while walking on the treadmill).
Now, Jeff is on his way home, biking seven miles like a boss, and I feel like I can barely keep my eyes open. Physical sensations include: a headache that stretches across my temples, tension in my neck, eyes that feel tired and dry, muscles that feel flabby and somewhat tingly, feet that feel cold (my whole body generally feels cold), and an overall feeling of my old bag of flesh and bones being too heavy to shift around properly and hold steady. This is par for the course after a period, but it feels as though the effects were prolonged this month because of the energy work I did last night.
So..... items for the to-do list:
• Work on evening out my energy levels through the month so that, for the sake of slightly calmer highs, I don't find myself at such disruptively and frustratingly low lows.
• Work on post-ritual energy reboot to keep me grounded and healthy.
I really am not a witch. I really dislike being a female body sometimes, and my euphemistic moontides have been a bitch for most of my life. This is not oh-isn't-it-magical-and-special-to-be-a-woman time. Puberty was not a blessing. Menopause just might be. But let's take things one step at a time. I celebrate the sun. That's why I'm a Druid. But my fiery goddess has put me on hold for a little while and counseled me to get my act together and find a better balance, because otherwise she's fed up with me and my burn out.
So. Sorta-moon goddess, you're up. Let's do this thing. You aid women in labor, and this monthly round of gut-punching pain and bloodloss feels close enough to me. Let's say you and me work this out.
First things first:
• I'm going to make a list of activities that help me regenerate and re-energize, and see if I can get some healthy habits going. Same goes for foods.
• I'm going to make a list of activities and foods that deplete my energy and resources, and try to do better at avoiding them.
• I'm going to turn my morning meditations towards more deliberate energy work.
• I'm going to keep doing Tai Chi like a motherfucking KLINGON.
• I'm going to ask for help. Even if it kills me.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Storyteller Spread Day 6: Sword
I'm on Day 6 of using Dianne Sylvan's Storyteller spread, today pulling the card for the sixth position, representing The Sword.
The Sword represents a skill, asset or strength that the hero discovers during her completion of the Task set forth by the elder (in Card 4). It signifies a potentially overlooked issue that will have an important impact on the outcome of the quest and the hero's ability to face the Dragon (in Card 7).
The primary card I drew for this position was Temperance (XIV), the first major arcana card in a primary position in the spread. This card represents balance and harmony between opposites - a dynamic relationship that creates tension and movement and ultimately an incorporation of the two into a healthy integrity. While either opposite can become destructive and overwhelming when isolated on its own, together they form a whole that is larger than either one alone, that "includes and transcends" without subsuming or quashing either.
Though the meaning of Temperance leapt out at me immediately, I'm not sure exactly how it fits into the larger journey - though it does seem like balancing opposites that are in tension with each other has been the theme for the past couple drawings. Card 4, the Page of Pentacles, had major arcana cards as its two supporting cards, each facing inward to support the primary card, and each representing one of the aspects of the Page of Pentacles in a refined and heightened form (the Fool, the energy and youth and eagerness of the Page, and the Hierophant, the earthiness and structure of the Pentacles, each expressed as spiritual urges). Card 5, the Nine of Pentacles, seemed to suggest a "middle way," marrying the spiritual and the material world, creating a dynamic communion between free-spirited creativity and serious self-discipline; its two supporting cards, the Four of Wands and the Knight of Swords, faced outward away from each other, suggesting distractions along the path pulling in opposite directions, towards frivolous freedom and fleeting energy on the one hand and an overemphasis on the intellect and "being right" on the other. So it seems that the Temperance card is illustrating how important it will be for me to find a healthy, dynamic balance between opposites that might otherwise threaten to pull me off track in various directions - and yet, it also seems to say that if I can discover that balance, I will also be able to create a spaciousness within which I can center and find respite and poise when I need it.
The two supporting cards I pulled seem to reinforce this lesson of balancing opposites: the Ace of Wands and the Nine of Wands. Both within the same suits, and once again both cards facing in towards each other and towards the central, primary card - the ace and the nine seem to illustrate opposing energies each being brought in to serve a single purpose. On the one hand, you have the gift of new initiatives, new energy and new activity as represented by the Ace; on the other hand, you have the Nine with its suggestion of completion and, in this case, an emphasis on vigilance and continued discipline in order to keep one's strength and purpose clear. This spread seems to suggest to me, over all, that a successful balance of energies means both being open to new possibilities and initiatives, while also being on guard and careful about how to move forward. Constantly taking on new projects can lead to burn out and frivolousness, but being too careful can lead to stagnation and boredom - so a balance between the two is necessary. Both openness, and vigilance. Sounds a great deal like the concept of attention and attending that I have meditated on before, the open attentiveness of attending to (and upon) the world around us - which itself stretches us and challenges us in new ways. The fact that these two cards are of the same suit and are facing towards one another and towards the central primary card of Temperance seems to me to say that these opposites are things that can be integrated and held in relationship with one another.
Since much of this meditative work has focused on the direction my career seems to be heading, I think this is once again emphasizing the importance of balance between discipline and creativity, organization and joyful enthusiasm, that I'll need to find to make this work enjoyable and successful. This is true both for the podcast and the volunteer naturalist work. It's a lesson that is so important for people who are self-employed or work from home, I think, because it's so easy to fall out of balance when you're not subject to anyone else's oversight - either driving yourself too hard, or cutting yourself too much slack. Today is a good example. I began the day feeling somewhat exhausted, but my energy seemed to gather towards the afternoon and I felt in a good mood - but for some reason, after dinner I began to feel increasingly dissatisfied and anxious, though for no clear or particular reason.... though I think largely it had to do with me slightly freaking out - again - over how much work two podcast shows a week might turn out to be, and worries over not being able to find a good rhythm and balance to the work. It seems like this card is counseling me to relax a bit and trust in my ability to find that balance, so long as I keep the importance of balance in mind - and perhaps make sure that I make time to ground, center and attend regularly. Obviously, balancing my physical needs with my spiritual and emotional needs is going to be an issue, too, and perhaps regular spiritual meditation in the mornings will play an important role in maintaining balance and keeping my energy and optimism up. After all, the major arcana card does suggest that this is something going on at a deeper level than mere "mundane" reality but also involve the realm of the soul/spirit. The image of the card pretty closely reflects the actual Three Realms meditation that I perform regularly, and I did notice when trying to enter a deeper meditative state to reflect on the card that it was difficult for me to hold my concentration. I got a brief glimpse of the swirling sphere of opposites, and a vague sense of the angel Temperance handing me an actual sword that had a double-edge that shone in two reflected colors and vibrated in a way that create a beautiful song (like a singing bowl, almost). The vibration seemed to come from holding the sword still and perfectly balanced before me, almost like a torch or sword of light.
So balancing the spiritual and the physical may just be the important but overlooked issue that will play the biggest part in how this whole journey plays out and how I eventually face the Dragon to come.
The Sword represents a skill, asset or strength that the hero discovers during her completion of the Task set forth by the elder (in Card 4). It signifies a potentially overlooked issue that will have an important impact on the outcome of the quest and the hero's ability to face the Dragon (in Card 7).
The primary card I drew for this position was Temperance (XIV), the first major arcana card in a primary position in the spread. This card represents balance and harmony between opposites - a dynamic relationship that creates tension and movement and ultimately an incorporation of the two into a healthy integrity. While either opposite can become destructive and overwhelming when isolated on its own, together they form a whole that is larger than either one alone, that "includes and transcends" without subsuming or quashing either.
Though the meaning of Temperance leapt out at me immediately, I'm not sure exactly how it fits into the larger journey - though it does seem like balancing opposites that are in tension with each other has been the theme for the past couple drawings. Card 4, the Page of Pentacles, had major arcana cards as its two supporting cards, each facing inward to support the primary card, and each representing one of the aspects of the Page of Pentacles in a refined and heightened form (the Fool, the energy and youth and eagerness of the Page, and the Hierophant, the earthiness and structure of the Pentacles, each expressed as spiritual urges). Card 5, the Nine of Pentacles, seemed to suggest a "middle way," marrying the spiritual and the material world, creating a dynamic communion between free-spirited creativity and serious self-discipline; its two supporting cards, the Four of Wands and the Knight of Swords, faced outward away from each other, suggesting distractions along the path pulling in opposite directions, towards frivolous freedom and fleeting energy on the one hand and an overemphasis on the intellect and "being right" on the other. So it seems that the Temperance card is illustrating how important it will be for me to find a healthy, dynamic balance between opposites that might otherwise threaten to pull me off track in various directions - and yet, it also seems to say that if I can discover that balance, I will also be able to create a spaciousness within which I can center and find respite and poise when I need it.
The two supporting cards I pulled seem to reinforce this lesson of balancing opposites: the Ace of Wands and the Nine of Wands. Both within the same suits, and once again both cards facing in towards each other and towards the central, primary card - the ace and the nine seem to illustrate opposing energies each being brought in to serve a single purpose. On the one hand, you have the gift of new initiatives, new energy and new activity as represented by the Ace; on the other hand, you have the Nine with its suggestion of completion and, in this case, an emphasis on vigilance and continued discipline in order to keep one's strength and purpose clear. This spread seems to suggest to me, over all, that a successful balance of energies means both being open to new possibilities and initiatives, while also being on guard and careful about how to move forward. Constantly taking on new projects can lead to burn out and frivolousness, but being too careful can lead to stagnation and boredom - so a balance between the two is necessary. Both openness, and vigilance. Sounds a great deal like the concept of attention and attending that I have meditated on before, the open attentiveness of attending to (and upon) the world around us - which itself stretches us and challenges us in new ways. The fact that these two cards are of the same suit and are facing towards one another and towards the central primary card of Temperance seems to me to say that these opposites are things that can be integrated and held in relationship with one another.
Since much of this meditative work has focused on the direction my career seems to be heading, I think this is once again emphasizing the importance of balance between discipline and creativity, organization and joyful enthusiasm, that I'll need to find to make this work enjoyable and successful. This is true both for the podcast and the volunteer naturalist work. It's a lesson that is so important for people who are self-employed or work from home, I think, because it's so easy to fall out of balance when you're not subject to anyone else's oversight - either driving yourself too hard, or cutting yourself too much slack. Today is a good example. I began the day feeling somewhat exhausted, but my energy seemed to gather towards the afternoon and I felt in a good mood - but for some reason, after dinner I began to feel increasingly dissatisfied and anxious, though for no clear or particular reason.... though I think largely it had to do with me slightly freaking out - again - over how much work two podcast shows a week might turn out to be, and worries over not being able to find a good rhythm and balance to the work. It seems like this card is counseling me to relax a bit and trust in my ability to find that balance, so long as I keep the importance of balance in mind - and perhaps make sure that I make time to ground, center and attend regularly. Obviously, balancing my physical needs with my spiritual and emotional needs is going to be an issue, too, and perhaps regular spiritual meditation in the mornings will play an important role in maintaining balance and keeping my energy and optimism up. After all, the major arcana card does suggest that this is something going on at a deeper level than mere "mundane" reality but also involve the realm of the soul/spirit. The image of the card pretty closely reflects the actual Three Realms meditation that I perform regularly, and I did notice when trying to enter a deeper meditative state to reflect on the card that it was difficult for me to hold my concentration. I got a brief glimpse of the swirling sphere of opposites, and a vague sense of the angel Temperance handing me an actual sword that had a double-edge that shone in two reflected colors and vibrated in a way that create a beautiful song (like a singing bowl, almost). The vibration seemed to come from holding the sword still and perfectly balanced before me, almost like a torch or sword of light.
So balancing the spiritual and the physical may just be the important but overlooked issue that will play the biggest part in how this whole journey plays out and how I eventually face the Dragon to come.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Diary - Depression
I am, as they say, in a bad way. I am not happy.
Which is not to say that I don't have moments of happiness - I do. There is still plenty of laughter and enjoyment in my life. There's an Ani DiFranco song (to quote from my personal canon) that goes:
i think i could accept all these dark colors
as just part of some bigger color scheme
if it wasn't for that drippy string quartet of sadness
underscoring each smiling scene
And that's pretty much it. Not a drippy string quartet of sadness, exactly, but the creeping tense eerie straining hum that transforms a normal shot of life as you'd expect into the quiet-before-the-storm in a horror movie. There is a constant stress underlying every moment, and I am sick to death of all of it.
Part of it is Emily. She is hellish. I am continually astounded by how awful she is, how heartless and cruel and manipulative, how intent she is on punishing Jeff for moving away. It would be enough if she would just content herself with legal machinations to keep him from seeing the kids, or even from being able to Skype them regularly (both of which she's doing to the best of her ability). But on top of that, she sends emails that are obviously and explicitly meant to suggest that somehow it is Jeff's fault, that he should feel guilty because she is incapable of organizing her life or controlling her schedule, that someone his refusal to capitulate to her every whim is a failure on his part. She says she's "very surprised" that he hasn't called the kids in the past week, but then when he tries to arrange for time to talk to them she says their schedules are just too busy and the most she can do is a regimented hour-long conversation during which she sets a timer to allow each of them only fifteen minutes. That she doesn't even have the competency or control to actually enforce these idiotic plans just makes it worse! We have to deal with her constant self-justifications and cruelty towards Jeff while all along knowing that she has very little control over her own life. She is utterly unreliable even when it comes to her own stupid demands. I almost wish she would enforce such a regiment - since it's much more likely that she will instead fall into a habit of signing onto Skype later and later, finding excuses why she can't stick to the pre-arranged schedule, until we'll end up with a situation like when she first agreed to bring the kids over on Saturday mornings, and soon began to sleep in and not get them to us until lunch time. At that point, Jeff just had to start driving out to pick them up himself. With a Skype call, that's just not an option, there is no way he can compensate for her failure. Her weakness and learned helplessness just makes the times when she lashes out all the more frustrating, because you know that it is from her own weakness and incompetency that she draws on that secret fear that she projects towards everyone else. She does not know how to be a functional human being. The only way she knows how to get her way is to become a dead weight that everyone else must carry, a dead weight spewing insane accusations and guilt like a vile phlegm that covers everything.
I am so tired of carrying that dead weight around. Jeff and I want the best for the kids, but we also want the best for us. I want him to be the good, loving, involved father that he so wants to be and that he always has been - but I can't see any way of staying involved with the kids lives without also being forced to have dealings with their parasitic, selfish, manipulative mother. There is no reason why being a father should be a miserable duty that precludes personal happiness. There is no reason why being a stepmother has to be that way, either. I am not upset that it is hard - I knew it would be difficult, as learning how to adapt to and handle complex family relationships always are. But I'm angry and frustrated that there seems to be absolutely nothing we can do to stay in touch with the kids that Emily won't use as a means to abuse and punish Jeff. She is, in the most literal sense of the metaphor, like a fucking antiChrist. Instead of a loving, merciful bridge to the divine Father, she is the vindictive, hateful gulf that we have to cross as our only way of connecting with the kids. Having to go through her is almost worse than not being able to see the kids at all. The whole relationship gets twisted and warped, bent to her selfishness, dragged down by the gravity of her dead weight.
And I'm angry - at myself, and at Jeff and me together - for not being strong enough to do something about it. I'm angry that we even have to deal with this at all, that we don't have the financial resources to fight it, that the lawyers we hired to be on our side just drained us of all our money but accomplished exactly nothing for us except wasting our time. I'm angry that there seems to be no good solution, that a single dead-weight woman could so effectively ruin Jeff's relationship with his kids, that we can't just scream her into submission and make her see just how terrible a person she is. But she probably knows, in any case. I can't imagine all this guilt-tripping and manipulation is because she actually likes herself.
I don't want to indulge in the part of me that is angry and wants nothing more to be violent towards her, to reduce her to dust and sniveling worms. I'm not going to deny that part of me, but I know that it won't do any good. I suppose part of me wants the power to do such a thing simply because it would give me the opportunity to be merciful. I want so much for us to be the better people - but what is that, what would that mean in this case? I can't see how it's right for us to accept all of her conditions and demands and then allow her incompetence to slowly erode away our time with the kids and our relationship with them. How will that help anyone? But then, fighting the good fight, leaving us miserable, frustrated, exhausted in every sense of the word, staining our relationship with the kids with the constant strain and stress of it all? How is that any good? What is the good thing to do here, the merciful thing? How can you be merciful and kind to a parasite, someone who has made herself a parasite by her own choice because she is too afraid and weak to be anything else? And how do you protect the kids and their dream of family? How do you salvage that ideal and preserve the heart of it, to sustain their hope and optimism in a scenario like this? How can you come out and tell them everything their mother is doing out of her own selfishness and smallness, without destroying the mother archetype for them, or the father archetype for that matter? (On the other hand, how could it be any worse than the way Emily is warping and twisting that archetype into one of supremely powerful helplessness, the manipulative passivity that she models for them on a daily basis?)
When you are out of options about how to move forward on the mundane plane, that's when you turn to magic. Rereading Dion Fortune's novel Moon Magic recently, that's what I was reminded of. Work things out on what she calls the "Inner Plane" - work things out on the level of imagination, thought, intention, will, inspiration, the place where we connect most directly and most deeply with the gods and with Spirit and with the Song of the World - and they will work themselves out on the physical level. I always believed that love will work its own way out. I want to believe that. But I am at a loss as to what to do magically to help this situation. I'm not sure what kind of work can be done. Calling on Emily's higher self or whathaveyou.... Doing some kind of banishing or binding..... I don't know what work needs to be done. I'm unclear about where the problem lies, and unclear about our intentions and how we can or should shape them.
I don't know what work needs to be done on myself, either, for that matter. To make me stronger, calmer, better able to handle the strain of this work. I want to believe this is like the crucible where I am being melted down to be refined, shaped into a sharper instrument, a better vessel for Spirit. But instead, it just feels like a coffin, a tomb, with the pressure of earth - all the material weight of the world and its fucked up practicality - bearing down on me so that I can hardly breathe. I need to find a creative way to overcome this, to push through this. Or maybe not push, even, but simply to get through it somehow.
I've been doing a lot of crying recently. Weirdly, that seems to help. Just allowing myself to grieve over this situation - the whole situation - and its injustice and cruelty and frustration. I feel blocked creatively, it's been so long since I had that Fire in the Head, that spark of inspiration. I sit down to write, and nothing comes but the same dull old rote, the same superficial rot that everyone writes. I have nothing to say. I am in no position to say anything at all. I'm broken down into silence and sorrow.
Anne Lamott says there are only two prayers really that we say in our heart of hearts: Help me! Help me! Help me! and Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
It feels like so long since I was able to pray with gratitude - all my prayers are just the grunts and groans of the beast of burden trudging along beneath the yoke, asking for some leniency, for a rest, for a burst of energy to get me through, for a better way. I am not happy, I am just surviving, getting by. I worry about myself - that I might be in the midst of a depression. I know I've been here before, when I just can't see the end to the work and the work itself seems pointless and not any good or help to anyone, and all I want is to die. Not literally, but to die to this old, feeble self that isn't any good for the task at hand. To find some release from the blockage, to become some slip of a thing, a ghost that can pass through to a new place.
But then I get angry that I am always having to die, that this is such a never-ending process of being remade, that I should always have to be facing some new obstacle or problem instead of settling down into a stable, steady life of happy productivity and contentment. I resent that there should always be this pressure on me, that I should always be expected to use all my strength. What if I want to put my strength towards some purpose that I choose, pursue something that I love or want. It feels as though I didn't choose this, though I guess there is the argument that actually I did, at least at some level. That I might be the one putting the pressure on myself, and that it might go away if only I would just stop.... just makes me angrier. I don't know how to simply stop, especially when there seems to be no good solution and passivity just seems likely to make things worse. I feel chained down, and yet there's that part of me that wonders - that worries - that the chains are as thin as a spider's silk that I could break in a heart beat if I wanted to.... so why don't I? I know about freedom - and the very moment when you realize you are free is the same moment you see that you have been free all along - so why don't I feel free? What level of consciousness am I pushing towards, here? And why isn't it enough to just stay where I am? I do not believe in this eternal progression or working towards salvation - so what exactly is the point of all this pointless struggling?
Last night, I was up until at least midnight. Jeff was snoring, so he slept in the den, and I spent a good deal of time crying and praying and blowing my nose and watching the cat adjust and readjust himself in the next of blankets at my feet. I prayed to Brigid and Manannan, asking for their help and guidance, asking them what I should do.
And the thing is, simply crying, allowing myself to sob, I sank deeper even than the constant strain of stress and frustration that has been weaving through my life these days - and there, underneath, was still that inexplicable and strange pulse of fierce joy. Somehow, even that deep, there was fierce joy. How could there be joy there, and if it is there, why can't I bring it through, bring it up to manifest in my everyday life and the lives of those I love? Why should such a fierce joy wallow like a dark puddle at the very bottom of a dank and collapsing well - why shouldn't it rise with all its power and strength to overwhelm the stupidity and stress of the every day and open the way, like a surging wave or wellspring or an all-consuming fire? Why should I have to sink so low to dip my hands into a small and muddy pool? It is not fair! Why shouldn't love and joy rise up to wash everything clean and clear away the debris? Why shouldn't it break up this heavy fog of confusion and pressure with sunlight burning off the mist of morning? I know it's there! What keeps it from rising up to manifest?
Is it me? Am I keeping it down? How could I be responsible for that, when I feel so helpless and impotent so much of the time? When I've been working so hard to clear the way and nothing seems to help? This fierce joy that lies like a vast ocean beneath and in all things - how could I be enough to block it, and why would I? I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do, or how I'm supposed to do it. I don't know what will help, and what will hinder. I don't know how to stop being a blockage and become a better vessel.
That's what I want to know.
Which is not to say that I don't have moments of happiness - I do. There is still plenty of laughter and enjoyment in my life. There's an Ani DiFranco song (to quote from my personal canon) that goes:
i think i could accept all these dark colors
as just part of some bigger color scheme
if it wasn't for that drippy string quartet of sadness
underscoring each smiling scene
And that's pretty much it. Not a drippy string quartet of sadness, exactly, but the creeping tense eerie straining hum that transforms a normal shot of life as you'd expect into the quiet-before-the-storm in a horror movie. There is a constant stress underlying every moment, and I am sick to death of all of it.
~~~
Part of it is Emily. She is hellish. I am continually astounded by how awful she is, how heartless and cruel and manipulative, how intent she is on punishing Jeff for moving away. It would be enough if she would just content herself with legal machinations to keep him from seeing the kids, or even from being able to Skype them regularly (both of which she's doing to the best of her ability). But on top of that, she sends emails that are obviously and explicitly meant to suggest that somehow it is Jeff's fault, that he should feel guilty because she is incapable of organizing her life or controlling her schedule, that someone his refusal to capitulate to her every whim is a failure on his part. She says she's "very surprised" that he hasn't called the kids in the past week, but then when he tries to arrange for time to talk to them she says their schedules are just too busy and the most she can do is a regimented hour-long conversation during which she sets a timer to allow each of them only fifteen minutes. That she doesn't even have the competency or control to actually enforce these idiotic plans just makes it worse! We have to deal with her constant self-justifications and cruelty towards Jeff while all along knowing that she has very little control over her own life. She is utterly unreliable even when it comes to her own stupid demands. I almost wish she would enforce such a regiment - since it's much more likely that she will instead fall into a habit of signing onto Skype later and later, finding excuses why she can't stick to the pre-arranged schedule, until we'll end up with a situation like when she first agreed to bring the kids over on Saturday mornings, and soon began to sleep in and not get them to us until lunch time. At that point, Jeff just had to start driving out to pick them up himself. With a Skype call, that's just not an option, there is no way he can compensate for her failure. Her weakness and learned helplessness just makes the times when she lashes out all the more frustrating, because you know that it is from her own weakness and incompetency that she draws on that secret fear that she projects towards everyone else. She does not know how to be a functional human being. The only way she knows how to get her way is to become a dead weight that everyone else must carry, a dead weight spewing insane accusations and guilt like a vile phlegm that covers everything.
I am so tired of carrying that dead weight around. Jeff and I want the best for the kids, but we also want the best for us. I want him to be the good, loving, involved father that he so wants to be and that he always has been - but I can't see any way of staying involved with the kids lives without also being forced to have dealings with their parasitic, selfish, manipulative mother. There is no reason why being a father should be a miserable duty that precludes personal happiness. There is no reason why being a stepmother has to be that way, either. I am not upset that it is hard - I knew it would be difficult, as learning how to adapt to and handle complex family relationships always are. But I'm angry and frustrated that there seems to be absolutely nothing we can do to stay in touch with the kids that Emily won't use as a means to abuse and punish Jeff. She is, in the most literal sense of the metaphor, like a fucking antiChrist. Instead of a loving, merciful bridge to the divine Father, she is the vindictive, hateful gulf that we have to cross as our only way of connecting with the kids. Having to go through her is almost worse than not being able to see the kids at all. The whole relationship gets twisted and warped, bent to her selfishness, dragged down by the gravity of her dead weight.
And I'm angry - at myself, and at Jeff and me together - for not being strong enough to do something about it. I'm angry that we even have to deal with this at all, that we don't have the financial resources to fight it, that the lawyers we hired to be on our side just drained us of all our money but accomplished exactly nothing for us except wasting our time. I'm angry that there seems to be no good solution, that a single dead-weight woman could so effectively ruin Jeff's relationship with his kids, that we can't just scream her into submission and make her see just how terrible a person she is. But she probably knows, in any case. I can't imagine all this guilt-tripping and manipulation is because she actually likes herself.
I don't want to indulge in the part of me that is angry and wants nothing more to be violent towards her, to reduce her to dust and sniveling worms. I'm not going to deny that part of me, but I know that it won't do any good. I suppose part of me wants the power to do such a thing simply because it would give me the opportunity to be merciful. I want so much for us to be the better people - but what is that, what would that mean in this case? I can't see how it's right for us to accept all of her conditions and demands and then allow her incompetence to slowly erode away our time with the kids and our relationship with them. How will that help anyone? But then, fighting the good fight, leaving us miserable, frustrated, exhausted in every sense of the word, staining our relationship with the kids with the constant strain and stress of it all? How is that any good? What is the good thing to do here, the merciful thing? How can you be merciful and kind to a parasite, someone who has made herself a parasite by her own choice because she is too afraid and weak to be anything else? And how do you protect the kids and their dream of family? How do you salvage that ideal and preserve the heart of it, to sustain their hope and optimism in a scenario like this? How can you come out and tell them everything their mother is doing out of her own selfishness and smallness, without destroying the mother archetype for them, or the father archetype for that matter? (On the other hand, how could it be any worse than the way Emily is warping and twisting that archetype into one of supremely powerful helplessness, the manipulative passivity that she models for them on a daily basis?)
~~~
When you are out of options about how to move forward on the mundane plane, that's when you turn to magic. Rereading Dion Fortune's novel Moon Magic recently, that's what I was reminded of. Work things out on what she calls the "Inner Plane" - work things out on the level of imagination, thought, intention, will, inspiration, the place where we connect most directly and most deeply with the gods and with Spirit and with the Song of the World - and they will work themselves out on the physical level. I always believed that love will work its own way out. I want to believe that. But I am at a loss as to what to do magically to help this situation. I'm not sure what kind of work can be done. Calling on Emily's higher self or whathaveyou.... Doing some kind of banishing or binding..... I don't know what work needs to be done. I'm unclear about where the problem lies, and unclear about our intentions and how we can or should shape them.
I don't know what work needs to be done on myself, either, for that matter. To make me stronger, calmer, better able to handle the strain of this work. I want to believe this is like the crucible where I am being melted down to be refined, shaped into a sharper instrument, a better vessel for Spirit. But instead, it just feels like a coffin, a tomb, with the pressure of earth - all the material weight of the world and its fucked up practicality - bearing down on me so that I can hardly breathe. I need to find a creative way to overcome this, to push through this. Or maybe not push, even, but simply to get through it somehow.
I've been doing a lot of crying recently. Weirdly, that seems to help. Just allowing myself to grieve over this situation - the whole situation - and its injustice and cruelty and frustration. I feel blocked creatively, it's been so long since I had that Fire in the Head, that spark of inspiration. I sit down to write, and nothing comes but the same dull old rote, the same superficial rot that everyone writes. I have nothing to say. I am in no position to say anything at all. I'm broken down into silence and sorrow.
Anne Lamott says there are only two prayers really that we say in our heart of hearts: Help me! Help me! Help me! and Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
It feels like so long since I was able to pray with gratitude - all my prayers are just the grunts and groans of the beast of burden trudging along beneath the yoke, asking for some leniency, for a rest, for a burst of energy to get me through, for a better way. I am not happy, I am just surviving, getting by. I worry about myself - that I might be in the midst of a depression. I know I've been here before, when I just can't see the end to the work and the work itself seems pointless and not any good or help to anyone, and all I want is to die. Not literally, but to die to this old, feeble self that isn't any good for the task at hand. To find some release from the blockage, to become some slip of a thing, a ghost that can pass through to a new place.
But then I get angry that I am always having to die, that this is such a never-ending process of being remade, that I should always have to be facing some new obstacle or problem instead of settling down into a stable, steady life of happy productivity and contentment. I resent that there should always be this pressure on me, that I should always be expected to use all my strength. What if I want to put my strength towards some purpose that I choose, pursue something that I love or want. It feels as though I didn't choose this, though I guess there is the argument that actually I did, at least at some level. That I might be the one putting the pressure on myself, and that it might go away if only I would just stop.... just makes me angrier. I don't know how to simply stop, especially when there seems to be no good solution and passivity just seems likely to make things worse. I feel chained down, and yet there's that part of me that wonders - that worries - that the chains are as thin as a spider's silk that I could break in a heart beat if I wanted to.... so why don't I? I know about freedom - and the very moment when you realize you are free is the same moment you see that you have been free all along - so why don't I feel free? What level of consciousness am I pushing towards, here? And why isn't it enough to just stay where I am? I do not believe in this eternal progression or working towards salvation - so what exactly is the point of all this pointless struggling?
~~~
Last night, I was up until at least midnight. Jeff was snoring, so he slept in the den, and I spent a good deal of time crying and praying and blowing my nose and watching the cat adjust and readjust himself in the next of blankets at my feet. I prayed to Brigid and Manannan, asking for their help and guidance, asking them what I should do.
And the thing is, simply crying, allowing myself to sob, I sank deeper even than the constant strain of stress and frustration that has been weaving through my life these days - and there, underneath, was still that inexplicable and strange pulse of fierce joy. Somehow, even that deep, there was fierce joy. How could there be joy there, and if it is there, why can't I bring it through, bring it up to manifest in my everyday life and the lives of those I love? Why should such a fierce joy wallow like a dark puddle at the very bottom of a dank and collapsing well - why shouldn't it rise with all its power and strength to overwhelm the stupidity and stress of the every day and open the way, like a surging wave or wellspring or an all-consuming fire? Why should I have to sink so low to dip my hands into a small and muddy pool? It is not fair! Why shouldn't love and joy rise up to wash everything clean and clear away the debris? Why shouldn't it break up this heavy fog of confusion and pressure with sunlight burning off the mist of morning? I know it's there! What keeps it from rising up to manifest?
Is it me? Am I keeping it down? How could I be responsible for that, when I feel so helpless and impotent so much of the time? When I've been working so hard to clear the way and nothing seems to help? This fierce joy that lies like a vast ocean beneath and in all things - how could I be enough to block it, and why would I? I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do, or how I'm supposed to do it. I don't know what will help, and what will hinder. I don't know how to stop being a blockage and become a better vessel.
That's what I want to know.
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