Meeting The Wolf You Feed

     

Wolf Spirit

 One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
       He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

      “One is Evil – It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

      “The other is Good – It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

      The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

      The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

 
Today our nation marks a day of service in honor of MLK as well we should. Being of service in some way is one of the reasons I feel we're all here in this crazy bathtub to begin with. As a society, we pick days of remembrance, service, honoring and then the next day people go back to yelling at each other at Starbucks. I wonder daily, do we learn nothing? Are we not better than that? Will we ever collectively be better than that? I suppose for that, we'd have to agree on what 'better' is and how to move forward to create that together. Well, one can dream anyway.

I think though, I want to take this down to a personal level and have you ask yourself, what you're in service to? Do you serve your fear or your love? I've been asking myself this one a lot lately. Do you serve who you think you 'should' be or honor who you really are daily? Kinda big questions but also important ones because they influence how you go out into the world and interact with it and others. These questions are most on my mind at 2 or 3 in the morning when because I'm older, I wake up in the middle of the night and there they are, in my face demanding my attention. My frank answer this morning was, I kinda go back and forth. This morning, I was all about what I'm afraid of which led down a sad little psychological rabbit hole. I think, because I've started writing again and this time in a more public way - I'm starting to feel exposed and vulnerable.

It's hilarious because I'm doing it to myself! No one is making me write. No one is making me put it on the web, not even me. But the little girl in me who has grown into a woman who still looks over her shoulder for the bullies and subsequent pain they bring with them is freaking out the more I do this. I'm ok with this but, it does take some getting used to and I'm not there yet. I'm not one with natural personal boundaries so this path isn't new, it's just in a new format.

 Having the courage of your convictions and walking your talk is NOT for the faint of heart. From the outside, it looks much easier to follow the herd. I imagine though, my oldest friends, I think will tell you I've never been one for that or for keeping my silence for long.  It's not really courage or bravery, I just really don't know how to not talk about stuff, especially if I feel I can help anyone else through their own forest of trees. I wasn't born with an edit button and don't seem to have much interest in creating one. I have learned how to be diplomatic but even that I've found a distaste for as I grow older. I digress.

So, back to my 3am meeting with my fear wolf who, spent an hour of reminding me how tenuous and fragile life is. Yeah, I wasn't loving that so much. For every doubt tossed at me, I had a rebuttal/defense of action I'm either taking or would take in whatever eventuality. IE for every doubt, I had a plan to empower myself. I even tried the new one I found yesterday 'Hey, I'm being green! Can't I just be green?' But for every plan of empowerment, there cropped up another fear to disable that leaving me once again at it's mercy. These were not the 'what if's' of last week. These were the things I imagine keep everyone up at night thinking about and that sometimes I still find myself vulnerable to.

Part of it is having a connected conclusion leaping mind that I have to constantly be aware of or it'll terrorize me when I'm least suspecting it like this morning. I imagine part of it is the normal helplessness of the unknown that most experience. Think that's where I'm going to concentrate, learning to be excited for the unknown instead. I mean truly, why expect the worst? It makes no real sense at all and is a stupid habit of the lazier part of my mind. Part of it is the realities of the now. In fact I feel an increasingly larger part of it is that. Almost any news show is a constant spew of yuck followed by commercials that remind you of everything you're not but you gotta stay informed because it's the times we live in so there's that. Junk food for the mind and more fuel for the 3am fear wolf.  

How do you address that wolf with the more benevolent one to if nothing else, maintain a balance in a truth based thought pattern? Despite the story above, it's not as simple as not feeding it unless you want to live under a rock somewhere cut off from everything and everyone - at least it wasn't for me. I stopped feeding it this morning and it kept taunting. The fear wolf will fight with lies but more importantly finds more power in truths you refuse to admit or allow. This is when persistent musings of an idle brain change to a practice called Stalking Your Shadow Self. Contrary to popular thought, not everything stalking you is evil. It only seems that way. Sometimes what's eating you is looking for attention, acceptance and some sort of change within. So, when the 3am wolf says -' Nobody gets it. Nobody will ever get it. You're wasting your time and your life and by default, the time and life of those around you.' and I start to feel afraid that could be true - I'm being stalked. I'm in danger of being victimized by my own fears and if I know this, now I have a choice to make. There's no question that in the moment I believe this wolf. It's right. What will I do about it? Knowing you have a choice is power. You can fight but in this case it's counter productive. Part of you has already invested in that truth. To fight truth with a lie you tell yourself will only strengthen that wolf.  That's what a lot of people will do at this stage - the HERO stance. Put your hands on your hips, fluff out your cape and stand against the wolf. You may have the illusion of winning but it's just that battle, not the war. The wolf knows you're vulnerable and will be back to take another bite in another way.

I've done the hero thing for many years thinking I was winning so I know this path well and this wolf and I are old frienemies. This morning I did something new. I admitted to the wolf that it was right and allowed all that - gosh I don't even know what to call it - sludge of emotional backwash, failure, futility, helplessness, anxiety etc to wash through me and believe it all. Accept it all. You know what? Right through me was where it went and right back out and was replaced with a rather innocent quiet thought - so what? In the face of what loving and life may cost you, do you curl up under that rock? Can you? Or do you walk away saying it was all worth it. Loving completely is worth whatever pain it may cost. Loving unconditionally (not stupidly FYI) is worth whatever rejection may come your way as a result. Being transparent is totally worth it if it lifts another from their darkness and if it doesn't - so what? Frankly, the world could use more people willing to be that. This particular 3am wolf bowed and left me with the other one, and a lot of new ways to look at my life. Who knows, maybe I still haven't hit all the things I need to accept from that wolf and it'll be back. Learning is like that - bits at a time. But for now, we're at peace. I'll take it.

People - LOVE like you have nothing to lose - not for others, but for yourself first and others will benefit because it'll just come spilling out everywhere. Trust yourself to come out the other side stronger and more than you went in. Don't be satisfied just winning the battle. Or find a comfortable rock with a nice view of the life you could've had. Now that you know, the choice is yours. You can have my old rock if you want..... I won't be needing it anymore.

Maybe Happiness is Green

Happy New Day! I actually feel kind of awake today so that's a good start.

I was writing a friend earlier today about just general stuff when all the sudden I started writing about the bamboo plant in my studio. My thought was, well that's odd but went with it and realized that I have one damn happy plant for some reason. I mean I gave it food a few days ago when I changed it's water but it feels really happy and I'm finding that momentarily fascinating. I told my friend it feels like it's singing. My brain is looking for a reason and says there should be but what if it's just happy. Period. And now I'm musing what that would be like and why would I wait for a reason to 'feel' happy. Why not create your happiness?

Ok, everyone will have a different idea of what happiness looks like to them so lets just get that out of the way now. But do we experience happiness as a consequence of circumstance, a consolation prize for some coveted experience or can you just decide to be happy and then be that? Is your happiness conditional, intrinsic, or a choice? I think a lot of people define their happiness by when they're not. "If I win the lottery THEN I'll be happy." "If this or that wasn't the way it was then I'd be happy."  I dunno, when you think of it that way then it's like you withhold that feeling from yourself until conditions are met and that seems self defeating to me. Reminds me of the voices that tell me you can't have desert till you finish your spinach. Uggh, I was that parent.

So I'm asking my bamboo plant what happiness is since it seems to have a handle on it for the moment. Till now, I thought my notion of it was pretty good. I've learned to think of happiness (in my definition) as a choice in most cases. That's been challenging lately as I've learned that choosing happiness while grieving is a weird and interesting thing. But sitting here now, writing about it with my bamboo singing to me, I feel like I don't understand it at all - or more to the point, I have more to learn about it. I will remind people again if you haven't read my other blog entries - this is what an intuitive person lives with all the time. It's how we see the world. We learn from everything we're mindful of and try to be more open all the time. So, when I come into my studio, I say hi to all the paintings, stones, plants and whatever energies floating around and listen to them for a bit. It's like a relationship with all the energies you can perceive. You listen to them and they listen to you - you communicate and share. Everything has a voice. So, when I say I'm listening to my bamboo, I'm listening to it as though it could talk because to me, it does. And happiness has the best voice.

By the way, if you have occasion to ask your bamboo what happiness is, you aren't going to get a very coherent answer in people ways. My bamboo's answer feels like happiness is green, sucking up water, having a moist place to hang out - pretty much being a bamboo plant - which I find both profound and amusing. I heard a quote once 'I love you like a flower loves the sun.' How do you define an experience like that except poetically? It's too big fit into tiny words. Like a flower loves the sun. My bamboo says happiness is green. Maybe for today I'll believe happiness is green and see what it brings me.

It's not that easy being green
Having to spend each day the color of the leaves
When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold
Or something much more colorful like that

It's not easy being green
It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things
And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're
Not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water
Or stars in the sky

But green's the color of Spring
And green can be cool and friendly-like
And green can be big like an ocean, or important
Like a mountain, or tall like a tree

When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why
Wonder, I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful
And I think it's what I want to be.

Kermit the Frog (Muppets)

and if now you just have to watch it.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco

Navigating Internal Conflict

Major Tom to Ground Control

 Hey all! Spent the last few days putzing around and/or relaxing for a change and now I'm back in the studio! Mundane stuff on my mind includes new shelving for my desk. How about ANY shelving for my desk to organize bits and bobs. Right now I have some sad wire shelves groaning under the weight of papers and a herd of paint brushes. It's bugged me for awhile and now it's time to do something about it so I ordered some desktop shelving from my favorite friend, Amazon. Other mundane stuff drifted to some clear acrylic risers or something better to display the vinyls I paint (pictured above) but that can wait for more money in the pocketbook. I've been making due with the converted spice rack risers I got to display them on but for Awesomecon in March, I'd sure love something more professional looking. I'm constantly reminding myself, one step at a time when it comes to managing an art business that's feast or famine if it's anything at all. Studio organization is more of a priority. The spice risers will do.

The last few days I've also been trying to discern the energetic flow of the business aspect of my art. Should I keep doing the scifi cons or try other art venues? Should I look seriously into moving my studio from the Workhouse to somewhere else? Where do I want this to go? Am I happy? I'm always asking these questions trying to gauge where the flow is going. It's easier to move with it than do the same thing over and over because that's what you've always done. It's not easy to objectively examine something you're in the middle of and invested in and I can't say I'm good at it. But I do keep trying. I have learned a few ways to tell though whether I'm where I want to be or getting a bit out of the flow. I've noticed that if I'm not worrying about the future etc, I'm usually in the flow. If I start to obsess about other stuff like the dust bunnies at home, what my kids are doing or other minutia, I'm not focused or in the flow so then it's a matter of breathing and bringing myself back to the present/now instead of the anxiety of the unknown because the NOW is the only thing we can directly effect and hope to manage. Going back to my Creating Space post, that's why it's important to create and keep that space within and though I talk about it, sometimes I find I've not done as well as I wanted to on that front. Trying to walk my talk and then I get off track - which is all a part of learning right?

I guess with so much going on in the world right now, I'm conflicted when it comes to trying to run a business or even allowing myself to concentrate on what I want in life. It seems like such privileged thought that I immediately defend with my husband and I have had to work hard all our lives. We've had a bit of help along the way but we've worked hard under difficult circumstances, raised two wonderful men and are now at the point in our lives where we finally have space TO think about things like what we want moving forward. We've earned it. I'm not saying others haven't. Life happens to everyone. No one asks to be devastated by a hurricane or fire. Life happens. No one expects a life altering illness. Life happens. My sense of civic compassion is often in conflict with living the life I choose and I don't know if that's a good thing or not. There seems to be no resolution in my mind for this. I've even tried making both work together. Last year at Escape Velocity, I made a sign saying that I was offering a portion of sales from the event to Harvey relief. And... no sales. Hard to 'be the change' when no one else is playing. It's like I made a door and the universe said - that's ok - don't worry about it. In energetic terms, that's flowing in the wrong direction, for want of a better word than wrong. So far the only direction the universe has supported fully is staying right where I'm at and continuing to do what I do here. Sigh. Maybe it's time to just listen to that.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with this kind of internal conflict which is why I followed this line of thinking out here - jumbled though it seems to me. I feel I'm coming to understand that there's great and immediate need everywhere and always has been but, when the universe wants you somewhere in particular, that path unfolds. You don't have to fight with it - like a river flowing that you just jump into and it takes you where you can not only be your best, but be the best for whatever is needed at the time. Maybe on the surface that appears idealistic as a concept but, it's also been my experience. Maybe being in the flow isn't about 'you'. It involves you but isn't about you at all. Surely, while there are people desperately needed in these and future situations, there's also people needed right where they're at - nurses at hospitals here, waitresses at restaurants in your town and I guess artists in their studios wondering about where or if they fit at all in the big picture or if there's a big picture to suffering at all.

My friend Terry would often tell me that a lot of the things I wonder and ask are unknowable. As I rolled all this stuff around my mind this morning like a manic rubrics cube of confusion, I heard her voice say it was unknowable. Man, I miss her alive and here. When she would tell me that I'd say well, that doesn't stop me from trying anyway. Unknowable? I accept the challenge. She often gave a kind of quiet chuckle, like she was watching a cat play with a mouse and I'd go off chasing my tail again trying to figure out what it was attached to and why it wiggled. Eventually I would get tired of it all and have to concede her point. From this vantage point - maybe it was unknowable. Then I would holler at Creator to stop teasing me with unknowables. It wasn't funny - even if it was. For me, the challenge of being hollow is reconciling the unknowable with the compassion of the moment. The only peace I've found in this tug of war is to suspend the two apparent opposites and learn to live with the fact that any feeling of resolution is perhaps an illusion and that the conflict is simply a product of not being able to have all the puzzle pieces that enable you to understand.  Or, maybe I think too much? Maybe it's all just justification?

In the end, I can only answer for my life and how I live it, through choice and through circumstance. You can only answer for yours. And though I firmly believe we're all connected, we're also not. My evidence for the not is that I can't make a choice for you in any real way. I can't say, put that doughnut down and your hand automatically obeys me. I can't say, don't suffer and your suffering magically disappears. I can't take anything away or add anything which frustrates the hell out of me. But I can offer what I have and what I think I understand. I can take a hand and reassure someone that they aren't alone. Or I can write a blog that seems intent on meandering around heavy topics in hopes that it may help someone else understand their turmoil, light their path. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at that but even if I'm not, oh well. Though I've not publicly talked about this, another reason I started this blog is because of my dear friend Terry. She and I would spend close to 20 years, I think, chatting every weeknight about all this kind of thing, pondering mysteries that there's no hope of understanding and being there for each other when we got stuck on our path. Sure there were a lot of 'stuff' nights where we just connected and talked about the mundane or our families. But no matter what it was, I could blurt it out to her or she could blurt stuff out to me and we'd roll it around both brains to see what we could learn together. She isn't here for that anymore and in a sort of homage to our ponderings and out of missing our time doing that, I started to write. She loved it when I wrote. So, if anything I've said or will say touches you in some way, spare a thank you to her too if you would. Without her encouragement and friendship, I would not be who I am now. So I'll keep meandering like I did with her. And someday, when I can articulate the path through grief, I'll share that too.

Anyway, that's it for today! Time to paint!

Creating Space

Om Blessings

It's a special kind of cold outside today here in the northeast. The term for it is a bomb cyclone and though the snow didn't really hit too hard here, the winds have been bitter and blustery. I braved the elements to come to the studio and open the gallery. It's warm inside but my feet remember the frosty walk in and won't seem to warm up but they will eventually.

I usually have a lot on my mind, things I'm' always chewing on and trying to understand but the last several days have been an exception. I find myself thinking about a concept I come back to every now and again when I'm feeling 'full' or overwhelmed - I thought it was emptying to fill (from Tao) but looking it up, it's called 'Using What Is Not'. I'm referencing a book by Ray Grigg called the Tao of Being, one of my favorite books. This passage talks about something's usefulness coming from it's space or emptiness. By example: a wheel is useful because of it's emptiness in the middle. Can't rotate without that space. A cup is useful because of the hole inside. 'What is valuable comes from what is; what is useful comes from what is not.'  Easy to understand about objects but maybe not as easy to understand when it comes to emotional or internal dynamics.

I tend to experience this as creating space within. I use many experiential tools to help me with this - meditation, art, physical activity etc. I guess for other people it could include fun activities that provide escapism or a sense of getting out of ones own way. I do that too. But the practice is most effective for me as an active purposeful form of creating and sustaining a consciousness of space rather than the more passive and ephemeral experience of escapism. In simpler terms, I go to a movie and experience the suspension of self, for a few hours. Then it's back to real life where there are no Storm Troopers or lightsabers - yet. That's a passive form. Read a book and live in that world for a bit of a breather and then come back to your reality. It's great for relieving stress and temporarily letting go, but it's not a true or lasting form of it. The key to either is letting go of what you're holding on to with one extra step, don't latch on to something else. Stay comfortable in the emptiness. It's also the most challenging part because once you create space, something else will rush in to fill it. If it does, let that go too.

I guess that's why nature is a good place to accomplish something like this. Nature is a constant reminder letting go. Reminds me of one of my favorite poems from Robert Frost.
 

Nature’s first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf’s a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 

 I'm kind of meandering because letting go is connected to holding on which connects to feeling full internally which leads back to letting go if you don't want to feel that way and on and on. You know what I discovered in my meditations this morning? I suck at 'letting go'. I can let things go till the cows come home and they always come back - like emotional boomerangs that don't seem to live anywhere but in me and it's annoying. I used to think that well, maybe I missed something in whatever it was? Maybe I'm still hanging on to something? Sometimes I was. Sometimes I was just feeding these energies out of habit and worked on not doing that. Still they'd come back and sometimes they'd bring new friends to bedevil me. What are these internal things? Fear, uncertainty, doubt - stuff like that. Normal stuff that over time or depending on the situation become overwhelming and paralyzing. 

First thing I'll say, if you've decided to take on these demons is, don't have expectations that if you 'let go' of fear lets say, that you'll suddenly or even eventually feel confident. That's a trap that'll throw you right back into the cycle. The reasonable dualistic mind says hey, as proof of not having fear of whatever, I should experience a feeling of calm or confidence right? If I don't feel that, I must've done it wrong - try again. In the truest sense of letting go, you will experience a sense of freedom and clarity, not the opposite of what you were letting go of. That sense of freedom and clarity is where you need to stay because that's where the space is. That's WHAT the space is. 

How do you do that? Realize this is a process. Realize that as soon as you enter that space, something will rush to fill it. Again, something I thought I sucked at till I realized that one by one, these things stepped up not to fill the space but not for the reasons I thought. This letting go thing wasn't a tool that served me well at this stage. These doubts etc needed me to do something else. They needed permission to evolve out of fears prison. So as each came into the space of clarity and freedom I'd created, I allowed them to grow past the limitations I kept them in. I allowed them to evolve and the space within got bigger and the sense of freedom and clarity became more profound. I found as I allowed the process to continue that I was also creating a state of reception.

I realize a lot of this may only make sense to me. I'm unsure I'm explaining it well as understanding how I process this is new. But as a result of the meditation on this earlier today, I've carried this space with me all day and it's been a relief! So, what is this meditation and how to you start? I started by mindfully examining, questioning, and understanding my fears. I gave them a voice in the theater of my mind and interrogated them without mercy, mostly because I was bone tired of the limits they create. I'd like to think I didn't have many left anyway, having worked on them over the years but, the remaining ones I found today are old and survival based so tenacious - things like, should I get a paying job instead of pursuing what I love because I'm not getting any younger? What if something catastrophic happens and I can't take care of myself which reminds me, still need to make a will. A relentless parade of what if's at 1am that keep me awake and worried, trying to plan for hypotheticals that will likely never happen but a good, responsible member of society plans for them anyway.  This isn't because of anything specific in my life now. Sure I've had a lot of adjustments and changes lately - death of my kitty, death of a dear friend etc with more on the way. But in truth, this is my brain and how it always works. It's the product of a detailed mind combined with being an empath. Sometimes it works for me, most of the time it works against me unless I engage and challenge it directly. THIS, I suspect is why I've been feeling overwhelmed - a great big steaming pile of what ifs that snuck up on me. 

So, for today I'm on top of it and staying in the moment. We'll see what comes of this.

Those Pesky Resolutions

Balance #4

Apparently a new year is upon us and so begins the march of well intentioned 'resolutions'. For the last few years, my go-to resolution has been to make better mistakes. I figured that was easy enough to keep up on all year. I've learned far more from my apparent failures over the years than my successes so I figured if I made even better mistakes, I'd learn even more. It's a kind of nebulous resolution but it also had the side benefit of making others scratch their heads and I enjoy that. I mean, who seeks out mistakes and failure? We're all trying to be our better selves right? What says I'm living a better life than keeping imaginary scores! After two years of this, I've learned something VERY important. I've learned to ask what a mistake really is and what do I do with or to myself if I perceive one.

I'm kinda loving this style of writing because this is completely not what I was going to write about today and yet, this is what comes out when I sit down. I was going to write on the consciousness of your body and instead, resolution stuff leapt out of my fingers and onto the screen. I chose to start a blog for many reasons that I'll probably talk about in time. But first and foremost reason is, I already wrote a book. When you're writing that way, you have to stay within the outline and blah blah blah. Blog writing is freeing in that way - a steady stream of consciousness that you don't necessarily have to organize. I don't even title something till I'm finished thought meandering for the day. It was an aside thought I wanted to share. Back to your witty regularly scheduled resolution talk.

Resolution has several meanings. I think though, when it's applied to how you're going to behave moving forward, that it implies the application of will to something you may feel you have none in. In a sense, you're allocating a personal power in your life to a specific outcome or at least dedicating yourself to the journey to an achievement of that. Though I imagine some would argue that resolutions aren't that serious. It's just something we do every new year and another meaningless social activity. To that I'll say, cool but I'm not buying it. If that were true, then why not just have fun with it then instead of those ever present - go to the gym more - ones people always make? Say instead, I resolve to fart more or something. I really think there's something to that public declaration of a change you want to embrace in your life that holds people loosely accountable and that's why people make them. Anyone you've told that you're going to spend more time in the gym this year will ask how it's going and you'll have to either lie or fess up. (course going to the gym could mean just driving there and leaving) Maybe some part of you feels you need the oversight until you can handle it yourself? Or maybe by declaring resolutions you're asking for support from others in reaching a dream?

That leads me to another question. How do you hold yourself accountable in your life? Do you? Self accountability is pecking around the same subject as 'mistakes' and self expectations - just a different tool to pry that particular thing open and see what's inside making it tick. How you punish yourself if you perceive a misstep is another great question to ask while feeling around the edges of something like this and leads to my resolution for this year. I will stop punishing myself - period. Must be a good one because I had to leave my computer for a moment of internal OUCH! If that resonated with you like it is with me right now, group hug. This is a tough one. Don't you realize yet that you are enough? Do you want to? Truthfully, what thoughts and feelings immediately lept to your mind in defense or reasons why you won't accept that?

Those are the things you're punishing yourself for.

Everyone say it with me -
I AM ENOUGH.

I don't believe you yet.
 I AM ENOUGH! 

Still don't believe ya. It doesn't have to be louder, but you have to allow it to resonate - deeper - it's a tiny voice sometimes speaking up from the dust pile of things you've put over it (that we're no longer punishing ourselves for so now we can hear it)

 i. am. enough. finally.

Try taking a moment when you feel you've made  mistake to breathe instead and say out-loud or to your fears - I am enough. If during the year you have an unplanned cookie or three - I am enough. If you feel you aren't enough and start to fall into doubt and worry, breathe and say, I am enough. Because honestly, what has punishing yourself and being critical of every freaking little thing gotten you over the years?

Practice, for the year being enough and see what happens. Heck practice it for a day or an hour and see what happens. This year, make your resolution a gift.