More books

I went to Border's Friday night, just to browse, of course, but I bought a book, 365 Tao : Daily Meditations and a magazine, Yoga Journal (website). I have wanted the book since Angel gave it such high praise "** Did I mention, this is the first and last book I read everyday? **" The articles that caught my eye in the August issue of Yoga Journal were "7 steps for turning bad habits into good ones" and "Be happy from the inside out".

Quote from Yoga Journal:

You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state. What is this natural state? Eternal, everlasting happiness: bliss." -Sharon Gannon, Jivamukti Yoga Cofounder

A good thing to keep in mind.

Am I famous yet?

~Z~ from theatter left me a nice comment and then wrote a blog entry about lil ol' me. A day or so ago Angel mentioned me too. This attention might be making my head a bit big but I started to wonder how many blog sidebars I am on.

Here's the list as far as I can tell (is there some easy way to tell?)

• A Mindful Life
• Kat's Paws
• John's Dharma Path
• Luminous Heart
• queen of cups
• the not-so-daily news

I guess it's not really fame but I never really expected anyone to read this blog. I am amazed at the thoughtful, kind, and interesting people I have 'met' through blogging. So thanks to all of you who have read my words, commented, listed me on your blog, and made me feel welcome in this exciting, addictive, new world.

Friday morning sensations

Morning light filtered by white curtain
Silky soft cat fur and low purring
Foot slaps through hall to the kitchen
Click of electric tea kettle
Hum of smooth cool laptop on bare legs
Bright bitter taste of hot green tea with lemon
Hot water on stiff lower back
Wonderful scent of grape seed shower gel
Buzzzzzz of electric toothbrush and minty taste
Comforting support of New Balance cross trainers
Smooth slide and thud of sliding door closing
Bright sun in eyes
Ready for another day

Inspired by Saturday Morning Me by Easy Bake Coven
which I first saw in rune's blog, queen of cups

Progressing in politics

Ah politics. When I started this blog, I decided that I didn't want to discuss politics or current events. Why? Well, I don't like controversy, I don't like heated arguments, I tend to avoid confrontation. But I have been rethinking my choice lately. So much is going on in the world and in this country. So much that I don't agree with, that I don't like. It seems like a time that everyone should speak their voice, do what they can, or be prepared to accept responsibility for the atrocities done in their name by their leaders. Maybe I am late in coming to this conclusion, but here I am. And this is a difficult choice for me personally. I have a deep seated fear of bringing attention to myself, of speaking out for things I believe in, of ridicule, of rejection. I have hidden behind provable facts in my profession so I don't have to have an opinion, just state facts, results of experiments. At the end of Fahrenheit 9/11 I clapped with the others in the audience, but then thought and looked around to see if I was in the majority. When leaving the theater, I started to worry. What if there were reporters? What if someone wanted my opinion? I was relieved to see no one. I could pretend I had just seen something mindless and uncontroversial like Spiderman 2. I know what I believe in but I don't feel like defending it to anyone. I am a member of the Green party. I vote for the most liberal candidates available. I support/supported Kucinich's campaign. I send emails and faxes to support the environment and progressive politics. I get lot's of alerts and emails. But these things are rather anonymous. I can hide behind my computer screen and my credit card. I know that a blog is rather anonymous too but it is a start.

Today I just supported MoveOn's campaign to Fire Marriage Amendment Supporters Elect A New Generation of Progressive Leaders to the U.S. House

Progressive/Liberal sites/alerts that I subscribe to:

Center for a New American Dream
People for the American Way
Care2

Some Anti-Bush sites:

ReDefeat Bush
Run Against Bush
Stop Bush in 2004

Kerry/Edwards in 2004

Derek Walcott

Here is the poem by Derek Walcott that Angel mentioned and quoted from in her comment to Running with Wild Women.

Love After Love

The time will come
When, with elation
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror
And each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott won a Nobel Prize in 1992.
Derek Walcott's Wikipedia entry.

Perspective

After searching for the last few weeks in our archive disks I finally found a number of poems I wrote when I was in high school and college.

Perspective

The book has been classified, catalogued, and shelved
The life of a hero written in prose
The story of the nation he rose

I saw the book and I liked the color
So, I read it while sitting on the beach
The life of a madman struggling to win
The hand of a maiden devoid of sin

Running with Wild Women

Zenchick's interesting encounter led me to Angel's blog where her July 8th entry talked about the book, Women Who Run with the Wolves:

I know that where I'm headed is full of warrior women. They are creative, forward-thinking, solutions oriented women. They are women who are living succulently, living juicy. They are artists and writers and painters and teachers and best yet, they are believers beyond the dogmatic restrictions that attempts to keep us all in chains. They are women with photos to show of all the places they have fearlessly travelled. They are warrior women, Women Who Run With The Wolves (and if you don't own that book by sister Clarissa Pinkola Estes, phD, do get it). And I know this: we are all getting ready for each other. We are in our separate spaces, feeling this urge in our bones, trying to find our way back to the pack. But we will get there, this I know.

I am reading Women Who Run with the Wolves right now. C. recomended it to me. She is reading it because her sister recomended it to her. After reading it, her sister changed, she was almost reborn. She found love and passion for the first time in her life. Coincidently, I am reading the copy that my sister gave me. Parts are highlighted so I can see the passages that were especially meaningful to her. I am so blessed to know so many vibrant, creative, juicy women through my real life and my online life.

Each woman has potential access to Rio Abajo Rio, this river beneath the river. She arrives there through deep meditation, dance, writing, painting, prayermaking, singing, drumming, active imagination, or any activity which requires an intense altered consciousness.
Excerpted from Women Who Run with the Wolves

Maybe we can add blogging to that list.

I leave you with one of my paintings created as I read Painting from the Source: Awakening the Artist's Soul in Everyone. It was one of the times I connected with my wilder feminine side.

Films are prodding me

I have watched three films in the last 24 hours. They were selected without apparent forethought, at the dictates of chance, and yet each one spoke to me deeply about appreciating life, exhorting me to live life to its fullest. Actually most films seem to be telling me that in some way or other. Maybe that's what good cinema does? The films I saw are:

City of Angels

I had seen this film before but I wanted to show it to my friend C. because I thought she would like it and we had recently seen Wings of Desire together. This modern remake is about savoring life but it does not show as deeply or effectively as Wings of Desire did, in my opinon. What was remarkable about seeing this was seeing it with C. She is such a positive person and she loved it so much. She appreciated that I showed it to her. It was so refreshing. I seem to be hanging out with so many jaded intellectuals that critique the life out of everything. This is not to say that C. isn't intelligent but she isn't only intelligent. She thinks with her heart and her mind and it really is beautiful to listen to her speak about things.

After C. left I wasn't tired so we watched another film.

About Schmidt

Nicholson is superb. He plays a retired actuary who is only now faced with discovering himself, not in comparison to others or from expectations or others, but his true self. Well what to do about that? He reaches out and makes feeble connections with others, often leading to misunderstandings. But slowly he begins to sort through things and the last scene in the film brings me to tears, here, now as I remember it. There don't seem to be any easy answers. We each have to get in our own RV and make our own mistakes.

Finally this afternoon we went to the Cinema Arts Centre to see Facing Windows.

Wow! What a great film. I feel like stopping people on the street and telling them to rush right over and see it. I already called C. and left a message. I felt stupid leaving such a message but sometimes things wear off, you know, and I wanted to tell her now, before ordinary life rushes in and dilutes it: See this film -- you must see this film. I don't want to write the plot here, you can read that on IMDb, I want to write that it was great and you should go see it, if you can. It's too fresh in me to describe. I looked at the clear, blue sky driving back from the theater and ... it was so incredibly beautiful and I wondered why aren't I just happy with that? Why isn't that enough for me? Why do other things creep into my mind and ruin it? I don't know.

Cherry Grove

Today we spent most of the day walking around taking pictures Cherry Grove, Fire Island, New York. It is a fun, beautiful, interesting place and a popular spot for gay vacationers. There are no cars (with a very few exceptions) so it is a great place to walk around. Instead of streets, there are boardwalks between the 'city' of cottages. I felt a great energy when I was there, there was a lot of acceptance of others and I felt a genuine friendliness. We often greeted and were greeted in return by people we saw. I mentioned this to my husband but he didn't notice it. It occurred to me that the judgments I often sense from others may not originate from them but from within myself and being in Cherry Grove allowed me to drop my self critical tendency and just enjoy the world around me.

Here is a sampling of what delighted my eye.



Near the pier where the ferry comes in, the rainbow symbolizes acceptance of many diverse lifestyle choices.




This part of Fire Island has lovely beaches. This picture shows walkways through dunes to beach.




People who live here for the summer make interesting garden displays. This is one of the most dramatic ones.



We saw some VERY tame deer there.




I saw this hose and was amazed. How can a hose be so beautiful?

Dinner for friends

Last night we had 2 couples over for dinner. It was fun to play gourmet cook again. For many years I have been fascinated by cooking and food given away more cookbooks that most sane people ever own. Now I have less than 50 but I supplement by getting books from the library and from cooking magazines. I don't make recipes from most of them. I do love to sit and page through them, tasting the food with my imagination. I also love to read food lore and learn about other cultures. One of the guests is a woman who loves French food and wine so I thought I would make that the theme. I posted the menu and the recipes in my food blog, The Nourishing Leaf. Check it out.

Wendy's at sunset

We got salads at Wendy's and ate them at the beach while we watched the sunset. I wanted to swim but then didn't feel like it. We walked along the beach for a while. A simple, relaxing evening.

Nightmare inside a nightmare

Last night I had a nightmare, one that really scared me.

In the dream I was sleeping and had a nightmare. I woke up in my childhood home and I heard music from the basement. This terrified me because I knew my husband and I were alone there. I went to the living room to tell him about my nightmare (I often do this in my waking life). I also told him about the music in the basement. Who could be down there? How did they get in? He went down to investigate. I was very scared and looked for some kind of weapon to defend myself. The kitchen table had a lot of things on it and I was fumbling around finding the best one. I heard someone coming so I quickly chose a glass of water. Then two blond children came running from the basement. They ran for the door. As the ran out of the house I threw the water from the glass at them. I turned around relieved that they were gone and I saw my husband running at me looking like a mad man with an angry look on his face. He came at me and grabbed me. At that moment I awoke for real and ran out to the living room to tell my husband about my dream so he could comfort me. During the dream, sound, light and my body was really distorted and that added a lot to the terror of it.

Interpretation

According to Betty Bethards in The Dream Book:

House = self
Basement = sexual awareness and unconscious
Kitchen = work area, cooking up plans and schemes
Table = daily activities
Glass/cup = spiritual heart of self. If overflowing you are attuned to divine love; if empty you are walling self off from love energy and life force within.
Water = emotional energy
Music = healing, creative flow of life
Children = Aspects of yourself, such as vulnerability, innocence, openness, flexibility, playfulness. Often suggest you have forgotten the child part of yourself.
Husband = masculine part of self, perception of relationship with husband
Fear = Being very close to truth and frightened to look at it. The other side of fear is insight. Seeing unknown parts of self and fearful of acknowledging them; resistance. Anything feared must be faced in order for it to go away. Your greatest fear is change; ironically, to change is the only reason you are here.

I awake very close to truth and frightened of it. I can sense healing music and creativity coming from my unconscious. I run for support from the masculine part of myself and he goes into my unconscious and brings up some aspects of myself, vulnerability etc. They run through the door and I throw emotional energy after them from my spiritual heart. I think they are gone but my male aspect comes to confront me, to make me see the change I must make.

I don't know what this change is. Maybe it is to have more respect for aspects of my unconscious, to nuture the children in the basement.

No Zen

I didn't go to zen tonight. I got home from work really tired and I took a 'nap' that lasted over an hour. I woke too late to go. This difficulty in doing what you 'say' you want to do and know is good for you has troubled me for as long as I can remember. I guess it is a fact of the human condition since many people I know voice this concern also. But why? It seems to me that if I could understand and circumvent this annoying propensity, I would accomplish a lot more in my life.

Progress

Half of my free months is gone. Wow, it has been quick. I am tempted to whine that I don't have enough time and just waste the rest of it. NO! Let's review the list:


Things I want to do:

1. Go to zen center twice a week, Wed evenings and Sunday morning

Missed a Wed but I will go tonight.

2. Meditate at home

Not yet.

3. Go to the gym or exercise outside or at home everyday

Only went once.

4. Go to movies with husband (Fahrenheit 9/11 is next on the list, probably tonight)

I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 and watched a lot DVD's.

5. Experiment in the kitchen more

I made some nice salads and plan to invite people this weekend.

6. Eat healthy/detoxify

Half/half. This trip to PA was filled with 'treats'.

7. Go to my family reunion next week

I did it!

8. Attend one or more Reiki workshops

Not yet.

9. Read a lot, go to the library/bookstore often

I went to Borders with my sister and brother-in-law. I have gone to Borders at home too. Not to the library yet.

10. Go to the beach, swim in the ocean as often as possible

I went once.

11. Finish my June's blog to do list

Not yet.

12. Get my hair done (appt Wed)

Finished!

13. Get a massage

Not yet.

14. Buy some nice clothes that fit, are comfortable, and look nice

I bought 3 outfits, some work out clothes and a new pair of crosstrainers.

15. Do art, paint, draw, make collages, etc

Not yet.

16. Spend time with uplifting friends

I little bit.

17. Go for walks, bike rides

Took some walks, especially with my sister in PA. No bike rides yet.

18. Do some re-decorating in the house (maybe--not sure I am up to it)

Probably won't get around to this one.

19. Write, think, explore dreams

Yes. Doing this a lot.

20. Dance

Not yet.

21. Sign up for that acting class (still hesitating for some reason)

Too late for this one. Maybe fall.

Returned

I am back home after my trip to PA. Traveling was fine. Traffic was sparse on the way there and manageable on the way back (yesterday afternoon). There is something very satisfying about a solitary road trip. I choose the music, the temperature, the route, the speed, and decide whether or not to stop. Yep, I did it MY WAY!

Few posts

There have been few posts of late. It is not because I don't have anything to say. I write posts in my head all the time. I just haven't felt like sitting down and writing them. For the last week I have been either lazing around or racing around. Today was definately a racing around day. Work was busy with students taking up the whole day. This evening I am preparing for my trip to PA for my family reunion. Running around packing, buying last minute necessities, returning library books and resting from the day's work. I will leave early (~5 AM) tomorrow and spend a few days with my sister after the reunion. I may write while I am away or not.

I did get my hair cut and highlighted on Wed. Here is the newer me.

God with a fish on her head

Today I had a problem
A big problem
All the stuff that makes your head spin
Lost love, betrayal, anger and pain
Guilt and fear – the whole game

I sat for hours
By a window, on a chair
I paged through holy books
I meditated inside myself
Breathing in and out
In and out

And I prayed
In a searching way
Not
Now I lay me...
Then
I looked up at the curtain
And there she was
God with a fish growing out of her head

August 1997

Does a flower struggle?

During his dharma talk today, my teacher reiterated that when one gives herself to a flower, the flower also gives itself, they become one and then there is no separation, no self, no flower. I began to think about this and jokingly thought it wasn't very fair that I have to struggle so much to give myself to the flower so I can become one with the flower but then the flower gets to become one with me after no work at all. I asked my teacher, "Does the flower struggle with me as I struggle?" Another wise student said that I am the one who sees the flower separate from myself, so I am the one who has to struggle. Aahh. I see.

Watching the sun go down

Nearly sunset at the beach
Scattered families enjoying the evening
Father teaching daughter how to ride her bike
Young family collecting ocean polished stones
And many cars parked facing the water, facing the decending sun
Tonight will not be the most spectacular sunset
Too few clouds
But still people have gathered for the event
One couple has snacks, chips and soda, to munch
While viewing the sunset like a drive-in movie
There is a Asian woman with dark sunglass watching alone
And many more have gathered
I wonder how many are regulars, addicted to the color-splashed sky and sound of surf
As the sun dips below the horizon, I watch them watching
An older couple drives off before the final sliver of sun is gone
As if the sight is too sad to watch
And then it is gone
More people drive away
Others stay, talking, walking, throwing rocks into the water
I think, what an odd thing to drive here to watch the sunset with TV and movies and books
And I also think, what a great thing to gather here and watch the sunset, a ceremony to our ancestors who gathered, a ritual to reinforce our connection to sky and earth, sun and moon, air and sea


Note: Although I live on the East Coast, there are beaches on Long Island Sound where the shore faces west

Open month

I am contemplating the things I want to do in the next month while my stepson is away. In general I want to focus on my personal growth and on spending quality time with my husband. I am firm believer in planning, that if I don't do some planning the time will run away from me, spent in 'drib-drabs' (my mom's word) on nothing. Especially, knowing me, it will be given to any person who asks for it. If I have a plan, it is easier to say no.

Things I want to do:

1. Go to zen center twice a week, Wed evenings and Sunday morning
2. Meditate at home
3. Go to the gym or exercise outside or at home everyday
4. Go to movies with husband (Fahrenheit 9/11 is next on the list, probably tonight)
5. Experiment in the kitchen more
6. Eat healthy/detoxify
7. Go to my family reunion next week
8. Attend one or more Reiki workshops
9. Read a lot, go to the library/bookstore often
10. Go to the beach, swim in the ocean as often as possible
11. Finish my June's blog to do list
12. Get my hair done (appt Wed)
13. Get a massage
14. Buy some nice clothes that fit, are comfortable, and look nice
15. Do art, paint, draw, make collages, etc
16. Spend time with uplifting friends
17. Go for walks, bike rides
18. Do some re-decorating in the house (maybe--not sure I am up to it)
19. Write, think, explore dreams
20. Dance
21. Sign up for that acting class (still hesitating for some reason)