Imbolc Celebration and Life Balance Work

This past week I spent some time working on some discernment when it comes to my life goals and finding balance. I had a bit of a rough week, with major writer's block for several of my projects (including my columns for SageWoman and Aontacht coming up) — and on top of typical health stuff, I was left feeling restless, frustrated and somewhat directionless. I was also disappointed that my Imbolc detox diet seemed to have the opposite effect as usual. Usually when I switch to a raw vegan diet for a couple weeks, I feel more energetic and kind of "cleared out." This time, I just spent most of the time feeling rather weak and stuck, and my self-discipline gave out somewhat earlier than usual. That, of course, just frustrated me even more. It was, all told, a pretty shitty couple weeks, with the exception of Sunday itself, when we spent the day in the woods hiking and celebrated Imbolc with a very simple ritual.


I'd originally hoped to do a steampunk-inspired ritual for Imbolc, but the more I planned it, the more I realized there were certain ritual tools and such that we didn't have that we'd need to get first (like, of course, a dedicated ceremonial cast iron teapot — the water, tealight warmer and the loose herbal tea symbolizing the three Druidic elements and the three realms, with the teapot itself a symbolic reinterpretation of the Cauldron of inspiration and transformation.... except that we don't have an appropriate teapot that we could use). We tend to do very minimalist, simple rituals, since almost always we do them outside in the woods after a day of hiking, so usually all of our ritual tools and altar objects are practical and easily transportable. But the steampunk aesthetic is much more Victorian and elaborate in a lot of ways, and seems more suited to high/ceremonial magic (think: Golden Dawn and theosophy, both of which have their roots in the spiritualism of Victorian times).... So a steampunk ritual is really, by necessity, the exact opposite of minimalist. Jeff and I have been talking about slowly collecting items to create a specifically steampunk altar, and here and there we've made some progress (like the steampunk pacific tree frog I made recently, which is currently sitting on my naturalist/deep ecology altar), but by and large we still don't have the kind of tools necessary to pull off a steampunk ritual in style.

In any case, the ritual itself was lovely (and I wrote about it a bit here), but for the most part the past couple weeks have been less than stellar. In general, I felt that kind of listless feeling that leaves you dissatisfied but without being able to put your finger on exactly what's wrong. I felt bored and stuck, but no particular project or activity struck me as interesting enough to shake me out of it. So I decided to spend some time in discernment trying to figure out what it is that I actually want, to give me a clearer picture of where this sense of lack and ennui was coming from. I was inspired by Plotkin and his idea of the soul as our "ultimate place" in the world to look back at the placemaking diagram from PPS, which provides a kind of visual formula that helps to pinpoint weakness and areas of improvement when trying to craft a public or shared community space.

I thought it might be useful to tweak this diagram so that it would be more relevant to "soul-making." I liked the basic structure, with key attributes in the center and concentric circles beyond those for intangible qualities and tangible expressions or outcomes. I'm not sure how PPS determined the four quadrants for their placemaking diagram, but I decided to go ahead and use the four classic elements of earth, air, fire and water for mine, representing (respectively) the physical, mental, energetic and emotional aspects of my life. I rotated the quadrants somewhat so that each quadrant aligned with a cardinal direction.

I began by trying to imagine an ideal life in which I felt fulfilled and balanced in all of these different aspects — and I asked myself, what were the tangible, outward signs of this ideal life (or, ideal self)? This process of trying to articulate my goals and desires was itself incredibly helpful, since I found some goals much easier to identify than others. For instance, when it came to the physical aspects of my ideal life, it was easier for me to note right away that I wanted a healthy body, a good diet of food that was healthy for both me and the environment, access to nature and the outdoors, a beautiful and comfortable home, etc. When it came to the mental or intellectual aspects of my ideal life, though, I suddenly found that my goals were much less concrete — they were more abstract and intangible. That sent up a warning flag for me, since part of my frustration I think comes from feeling bored, not challenged or stimulated intellectually. Unfortunately, I tend to sublimate this boredom by doing things like eating or watching television... which only serves to undermine some of my other goals (like health and exercise). So simply by trying to organize my goals and my idea about what an ideal life/self would look like, I was able to identify areas where I was undermining myself without realizing it. I spent a few hours drawing up lists of intangible qualities that I wanted to invite into my life, and the tangible results or expressions of those qualities, or the kind of work or activity that would help me embody them. After doing these for all four quadrants, I turned my attention to the "key attributes" and tried to distill all of the different aspects of these four areas into a single word that seemed to encapsulate the attitude or attribute from which both the intangibles and tangibles arose. Below is the diagram that I eventually came up with:


Since the writing may be difficult to read (I wanted to make this a hands-on activity, so I used colored pencils instead of just making the diagram on the computer), here's a typed out list for each of the quadrants.

North - Physical

Tangibles:

• healthy body
• good diet
• regular exercise
• beautiful, comfortable home
• access to the outdoors/natural world
• financial security

Intangibles:

• stability
• balance
• strength
• endurance
• comfort
• rest
• health
• sensuality
• physical pleasure and enjoyment

Keyword:

• Enchantment

East - Mental

Tangibles:

• opportunities to teach
• opportunities to learn new things
• time to read carefully and think deeply
• conversations with people who respect and challenge me

Intangibles:

• perspective
• clarity
• challenge
• engagement
• growth
• patience
• persistence
• understanding and wisdom
• respect
• acknowledgement

Keyword:

• Insight

South - Energetic

Tangibles:

• regular creative writing (fiction, poetry, creative nonfic, spiritual/nature writing)
• expression through visual arts (drawing, photography)
• enjoyment in playing music (guitar, flute)
• time to relax and have fun
• crafting projects (beading, wood burning, clay)

Intangibles:

• energy
• motivation
• creativity
• self-discipline
• exploration
• freedom
• experimentation
• consistency

Keyword:

• Inspiration

West - Emotional

Tangibles:

• supportive community of smart, creative friends
• romance and surprise in marriage with Jeff
• regular get-togethers for fun and relaxation
• solitude in nature
• awareness and appreciation of beauty

Intangibles:

• sense of humor
• fun
• support
• engagement
• respect
• encouragement
• appreciation
• peace
• gratitude
• generosity

Keyword:

• Intimacy

I intentionally left out "spiritual" as one of the quadrants, for a couple of reasons. First, because I tend to associate the south and fire with energy, passion and creative activity, and although that can be very spiritual, I think the belief that it is somehow inherently more spiritual than any of the other quadrants is a kind of bias against the many other ways that spirit can manifest. The other reason was that I wanted to kind of "build up" my spiritual goals from the key attributes and attitudes of the other four quadrants, so that they were supported and shaped by those attributes. So that's what I ended up doing, including the keywords from the first four quadrants as "intangibles" (along with some others that are more specifically "spiritual") and then imagining what kinds of tangible outcomes or expressions would naturally follow from them in the area of religious or spiritual work in my life. From there, I then sought for what keyword or key attribute might speak to all of those things. This was what I came up with:

Center - Spiritual

Tangibles:

• regular meditation
• regular ritual as poetry/creative expression
• shared ritual with community
• simple daily rituals of routine, sacred in the ordinary
• opportunities for deepening theology
• crafting altar/shrines as aesthetic space
• connection with the gods through prayer
• sense of place/deep ecology (sense of belonging in and to the world)
• sharing sense of wonder/gratitude with others through spiritual work

Intangibles:

• enchantment
• insight
• inspiration
• intimacy
• groundedness and centeredness
• connection
• mystery
• love
• joy
• gratitude
• peace
• belonging
• balance

Keyword:

• Love
• Wonder

Since I have been doing more work with the tarot and delving back into some more "witchy" and ceremonial aspects of magic, I've been playing more recently with the pentagram as a symbol. I've always been intrigued by the Feri Tradition's use of the Iron and Pearl Pentacle meditations, though I haven't actually practiced them myself, not being Feri. I'm pretty sure that the basic concept of embodying the pentagram physically in yourself, with points corresponding to your crown and four limbs, is found in many different traditions, though the Feri Tradition's use of this technique is the one I'm most familiar with. In any case, I'm playing with the idea of using this Life Balance/Soul-Centric Self work to craft a personal pentacle meditation that will help me ground in these key attributes and invite them more deliberately into my life. So I spent some time drawing a simple pentacle diagram with the keywords at each of the points.


Needless to say, this plunged me into the complex issue of which elements/aspects correspond to which points, and why. Turns out, this question is weirdly complicated. I don't feel like I know enough about it at the moment, and it may take some experimentation on my part to figure out which version I like best. But for now, I just went with the most common correspondences (which I'm pretty sure derive originally from the Golden Dawn).

So that's where I'm at.

Thought Scatterlings - On Prosperity and Opportunity

Yesterday I ran headlong into writer's block when I sat down to work on my upcoming column for SageWoman (I think I wrote about two and a half sentences, literally). Last week was an intense week of writing for me, with more than 10,000 words of spiritual journaling on top of the blog posts for Meadowsweet that I was working on. So it's probably natural that this week all I want to do is sit around and window shop online for pretty things. Because, did I mention, Jeff is officially out of debt!

Okay, not exactly. His last payment to the debt consolidation folks for the joint debt from his previous marriage was this month. He's still paying off the debt for the time-share (plus the idiotic monthly maintenance fee), so our next project is to start on the legal paperwork to get rid of that white elephant. And of course, I'm still paying off my student loans. But still, it's a huge weight off. I actually had a bit of a breakdown last night, for the first time crying about money because I felt good about our financial situation. I'd spent much of the afternoon daydreaming about someday being able to build a Tumbleweed Tiny House, and looking at the cost and realizing that, yes, it actually is in the realm of possibility to someday be able to do that. Not for a good five to ten years, but the way things are going right now... I might actually be a homeowner by the time I'm forty. The thought boggles the mind. I know the American Dream/Promise/Lie is that everyone can get a great job and become a homeowner with a little suburban spot with a yard and a white picket fence, but that's never been my goal and part of me never really believed that I would ever get there. (When you grow up wanting to be a poet, you kind of reconcile yourself to poverty and obscurity right from the start.)

The suburban home is not my dream now, either, but what is my dream is to have a small cottage (like, if we took our current apartment and squished it to make it two floors instead of one, but with the same basic square footage) with an outdoor deck and small garden (with maybe a fire pit and small stone circle) and, beyond that, some forested land that is part of a larger green belt or park. I imagine myself sitting in that cottage with the windows open, drinking tea and working on my writing while listening to the sounds of the natural world outside, or going out onto the deck at dawn to do some yoga in the fresh morning air, or taking a walk in the forest in the late afternoon... And I'm noticing that not many of these daydreams involve Jeff, so I guess he'd still be going in to the office to work! Or, another thing we talked about, was having a kind of "community" of tiny houses, so that he could work from home but still go out to his "office," a separate little shed furnished as a study and/or library. Because, you know, I still need my solitude, and I think I'd get restless always having him hanging around the house... (Also, having a separate office space would be better for tax purposes, since then you could count that as a business expense; we can't do that now, even though I work from home, because all the rooms I use for my work are technically "multi-purpose".) And maybe I could have my own little "study" too, and they could then serve as guest rooms for when we have family visiting, so the kids have somewhere to stay and, once they're grown up, could even come and bring their partners. That way, we could reduce our carbon footprint by only heating those spaces when they're in use, or only using them during warmer weather when we don't need heat, instead of having a sprawling house with all the rooms always being heated whether or not we're using them. Since it never gets all that cold out here, we wouldn't even have to worry about pipes freezing or anything, like Melanie does with the farmhouse up in New Hampshire when it's not in use during the winter. The point is, we could start small and then slowly add on one tiny house/shed at a time -- and when we're older and retired, if we don't need them anymore, we could even end up renting them out like B&B rooms (or like that yurt that we stayed in this past summer).

But all of that is way down the road. The point is, there is a road and we're on it. We're not pulled over stuck in a ditch anymore. And if we save money and get a little bit of land where I can garden and a little house that we own, then no matter how old and poor we get, at least we'll have a roof over our heads and a place to grow some food.

Because I do get a little worried about what it will be like to be old. I plan on living a long time, and so does Jeff, but he is ten years older than I am to begin with and women tend to live longer than men in any case. And as much as his kids are awesome, it's not like I expect them to take care of me when I'm old once he's gone. And I don't really think my own family, like my brother or cousins, would feel like it was their responsibility to do that, either. And in any case, I'd feel a bit bad about being a burden on them. (The one exception being if Dan goes on to be a millionaire fancy-pants and never does end up having kids, in which case, hello, Mr. Millionaire, it's your big sis, who always loved and supported you... ;)

Speaking of Dan, he emailed me this morning to brag about this really cool course he's taking this coming semester, the Sociology of Consumerism. It looks fascinating! In his email, he said, "You'd be proud," and damn it, I am. Super proud! When he was little, he always wanted to be rich and he was always fascinated with money.... but as he's grown up, that part of him has really matured into a thoughtful, conscientious person who wants to understand other people and their aspirations and how they define and conceive of wealth and success... I get a little bit teary-eyed at how awesome he is, and how much I admire him for leaving a crazy-well-paying job to go back to grad school to study this stuff.

And of course, I'm also jealous. I would love to go back to school. But I think during those seven long years of always being broke, something in me got broken. I feel such resistance against and disdain for academia and how they fleece people, even though I love the atmosphere of those kinds of centers of learning and the opportunity to devote my time to reading and discussing with other people who are also there to learn and think. Every time I think about going back to school, I immediately shut that idea down because it would be insane to take out more loans to finance my education, especially when I'm mostly just interested in learning, not necessarily how a higher degree could help me get a better paying job. Case in point: there's an amazing ecological and wilderness awareness program at a school only about forty minutes away; the program is a year-long study of various aspects of wilderness survival training, hands-on naturalist training and a study of the philosophy and spirituality of nature-centered indigenous and modern cultures. It's pretty much perfect (and the school is accredited, unlike some of these Pagan-based programs). But my immediate reaction is: well, I could never do that, because I can't afford it.

There are a lot of things that I have that reaction to, and I wonder when I started to respond to life that way. I know that living below the poverty line for so long was, in many ways, very good for me and helped me to ground in who I really am beneath all the "stuff" of modern consumerist culture, helped me to ground in simplicity and see the beauty of the world just as it was. I lived a very happy but monkish life for quite a while (that should qualify me for something or give me some street cred, shouldn't it?). But at the same time, I look at my brother and I see how he's getting to pursue his dreams because he put money first when it mattered, and now he has the luxury and resources to do what he wants with it. (Granted, as a grad student who is now deeper in debt than I ever was, I have a feeling he'll be getting a good dose of the simple, monkish life himself.) But I'm not even talking about the money, so much as the attitude. There's an attitude that anything is possible, that you can take risks and it won't be that bad, because you'll always have a support system, something to fall back on. Except, I've never had that. (Moving back into an abusive home where people treat you as a burden and a failure even if you're just visiting for more than a few days... that's a no.)

Maybe it also has to do with the fact that I don't drive, so I never had this sense of freedom that, no matter how bad things got, I could just break away from it all and go do something else, even if only for a little while. I never got to go to any parks or "escape into wilderness" all those years when I was poor, even though it would have only cost me a tank of gas to get into the mountains. Instead, I had to take every opportunity to go when others would be willing to take me along -- like family vacations -- and hope that I would get a chance to spend some alone time in nature. So in some ways, I guess I trained myself to put other people's needs ahead of mine, or at least to put their dreams ahead of my own and be practical about what I could or couldn't do. I got used to being treated like I couldn't really take care of myself or be independent if I didn't drive or didn't have a lot of money. There was no point in trying to make plans for myself, beyond very modest plans, because I didn't have the means to act on them in any case.

The more I think about it, the more it seems like the choice not to drive -- which was largely because I couldn't afford a car or the insurance, and my parents weren't willing to give me a car and pay for my insurance like they did with my brother -- played a very large role in whether or not other people saw me as an "adult"... And the only time that wasn't true was when I was waitressing, since a lot of the people I worked with either used public transportation or couldn't afford a car. But then, a requirement of being promoted to a management position was having a car, and I was once offered a promotion only to have it taken back because I didn't.

And this brings me back to those thoughts I've had before about living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in a settled, consumer culture. Between waitressing for tips and having to rely on the chance opportunities that came my way, I very much had to learn how to see bounty and prosperity where others might have seen scarcity or restriction, and to find ways to embody generosity precisely because I knew how much I relied on the generosity of others. But I also got used to seeing restrictions where other people saw potential because I couldn't afford to plant seeds and sit and wait for them to grow so I could harvest them later... because in the meantime, I'd starve. (This is a convoluted metaphor.)

I wonder to what extent our online lives are pushing us in this direction, too. It seems like the people who do manage to make a living being "online content creators" do it in a kind of hunter-gatherer fashion, relying on viral memes and the chance that people will buy their t-shirts or donate on their webpage or share their links to earn them ad-sense royalties... It's a much different model than someone who goes into the office everyday, works normal hours and gets a reliable paycheck as a result. Sometimes I feel like a hunter-gatherer who married into an agricultural family — Jeff with his 9-to-5 and the kids he has to support whether he has a job or not — and so I find myself sometimes feeling oddly restless and wanting to just move and do whatever inspiration urges me to do, and other times feeling somewhat panicked because I don't know how to settle down, focus on regular consistent work and trust the harvest to come in, because part of me doesn't think I'm very good at it.

Maybe I should find a harvest goddess or god to help me out with these issues. Maybe this is why my relationship with Brigid has been weird over the past few years (because I think she is much more a settled, harvest kind of goddess than a wild goddess like Artemis). While I trust in the fecundity of the earth to provide me what I need, I don't necessarily trust the other people I'm in community with to portion out something that is fair, because I've almost never been in a familial relationship where that was the case. I've always been the runt who gets the leftovers, and while as a kid I could get used to it and make do on what little I did have, as an adult who is now supposed to take those leftovers and hand them over to the stepkids because, you know, children are the future or whatever... It's the worst of both societies, in which scarcity is forced on some so that others may prosper, but with no expectation that those who are prosperous will also be generous in their turn.

So, I think a goal for 2013 for me should be: re-learn how to drive. I'm on Jeff's insurance already, anyway, and during the week his car just sits in the garage while he bikes or takes the bus to work. I'm not a huge fan of driving for lots of reason (many of them ecological), but maybe as a symbol of independence and freedom within this particular society I need to prove to myself and to others that I don't always have to put everyone else's plans and needs before my own, that I can go after the things that I want in my life and I have the means to get there. (And that goes for biking more around the city, too, though I was starting to do that a lot more last fall anyway and now I'm just waiting for the weather to get a bit better again so I'm not driving around in the dark and/or cold.)

Okay then.

Problem solved, writer's block? Can we get back to work now?


~
ETA: Obviously this whole "feeling good about money" thing wasn't meant to last... Figures today we'd get a bunch of bat-shit-crazy emails from the EW stamping her foot and demanding impotently that Jeff spend his money according to her whims. ::eyeroll::

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....