blogxaustion...

I'm in the final 2 weeks of school which means finishing school projects, midterms, lining up an honors sponsor, selecting fall classes and about 20 other things. I'm exhausted. I feel a bit like a pinball at this point, bouncing from spot to spot only to be popped out again to hurry to the next spot. I try to sleep a lot when I have the chance but I'm still tired. I know this is temporary but spring is always the most difficult - the end of double semesters.

The upside is always summer holidays and plans but so far I haven't decided exactly what those look like so I can't say I'm looking forward to more than having time off. I am looking forward to the absence of pressure I guess.

One of the difficult things about this summer is that I have to put together my honors thesis experiment in a rush and then hope it gets approved over the summer and it might mean I have to go in to fix stuff. It's a bit unclear. I feel like a dork for not really comprehending how everything works - a lot of school feels a bit random to me even though I know it isn't. Next semester I also have to start paying attention to the GRE test and which grad schools might be good for me. AKKKK!!!!

Ask me in 3 weeks - a week of sleep is likely to change everything :)

writing

The best decision I made this semester was to include a writing class in my schedule. This has kept me actively writing new material and submitting DURING the semester instead of in the gaps. I'm pleased to have several new pieces emerging and more story ideas than I can write at the moment. I find it emotionally hard to go for long periods with writing creatively and for myself so this has been a good bridge.

I am also pleased that I took a nonfiction course because I often write nonfiction but seldom write nonfiction essays. In fact, I remain uncertain of the distinctions between writing types and at this point I think those distinctions don't matter at all - what everyone seems to want is a good story, be it fiction or factual. I am also reminded how strong I am at this end of the writing spectrum. I've done a huge amount of nonfiction article writing over the years and at this point I can tell that the work is in there.

I've also reached a new level in terms of how marketable I think my writing is becoming. So much of this world centers in self confidence and preventing personal sabotage. Sure, you need to work your skill sets to a nice, smooth place - but, there are a lot of really good writers in the world and what seems to propel one forward more than another is often centered in how the writer sees themselves. Confidence gets you to submit work and submit work and submit work. It fights against the negativity of certain rejection. Prevailing will eventually deliver sales and then name recognition will improve sales timing etc... But, right in the middle of all of that is the person who must find the inner wherewithal to endure. In addition to confidence or because of a type of confidence - the ability to get bloody, get real, get relevant also emerges. In a way it is a surrender and an empowerment at the same time. When the Emperor Wears New Clothes - he's naked.

conquering april...

I had a reading. It was my first this year and turned out pretty good. I dished more about it on my other blog. I wanted to mention it here because now there is a possibility I will be heading to Huntsville as a NASA guest to do promotional stuff for it. Cool. Now I need to raise some funds to cover expenses. Hmmm.

It's Monday and lovely and I'm feeling like writing and everything is good with the world. Sometimes I feel that it's important to acknowledge the mundane blessings of living. The semester is heading toward a wrap up and I'm liking that too - I hope I have enough funds for a simple summer but I know to be flexible and trust a bit too. My son is in a more helpful mood so together we should figure everything out. I'm currently stuffing all my extra pennies against my couple credit cards in order to shove my FICA score up - this is a good thing but yeowww the pinch pinches....

I'm thinking I'll try to snag some freelance over the summer or talk my big client into some work - basically I'm asking the universe to provide for the gap. So, "Hey Universe -- please send some cash my way -- much obliged!!!"

Oh, on another note - one of my housemates has a new sweetie called Shannon whom she calls a he but he is a she with excellent eyes and a good face - I'm watching said housemate process what may be a lifechanging shift for her. Interesting. :) My intuition is telling me they could end up 'really' together which might mean my housemate moves. I'm interested to see if I'm right on this one :)

the line of stuff...

My agenda for the day is too long. I have a midterm on Monday morning and everything wants to interrupt my studies. I have two persons coming to look at the room, my son has the yard full of yard sale, I came home to cat litter not cleaned and son's excuses and I have this list :(((

I hate doing things in the chop or cutting from one project to the next to the next - I always feel like I do a poor job at all of them and I don't end up feeling satisfied. I can't start the next thing till these people come in and out. ::sigh:: So, I'm a bit stuck with frustrated feelings for at least a little while more today.

On the up side my door is open and the birds in the water dept property next door are very happy and chirpy - they are certain summer is on us. I found a hole in a hose ::sigh:: and tons of cobwebs (new) - California is notorious for webs - we have very busy aracnids. Still, it's lovely out there and I really have minimal reasons for the complaints I'm offering.

Ding goes the bell - so, I'm off till later...

what it means to be a woman

Today I'm reminded what it means to be a woman.

In a profound way the feminine is illuminated by the ritual cycle of menstruation. Women maintain a level of exposure to harm through their vaginal opening, this is a persisting sacrifice or ongoing area that is in constant defense -- something like a forty-year wound. Women devote resources to this aspect of self over an incredible span of their lives. While primarily active, this process bends or informs a woman toward acts of compliance and mediation. When people talk about free will, I generally know they aren't women talking. When thought and behavior are directly influenced by hormones and other powerful in-body chemicals - free will isn't really free. I've often thought that choice exists but during her fertile years a woman is bent to the plow of reproduction, of raising offspring. Her body is designed to tolerate the intrusion of men, bringing with them every possible sort of crud.

Why are women less likely to sleep around? One or two bouts of hives or internal burning promptly smacks her around into understanding her risk exposure. Survival is when you limit disease.

Women pay for access. When reproduction doesn't occur women sluff off part of their body. This involves pain and a sense of loss. It involves anger and irritation, resentment and again, that certain awareness that their own body is temporarily in service to both men and species.

When women speak of empowerment, they must, also, speak of the bondage of the reproductive process. As a woman ages and her contract with men, children, species diminishes, often she feels a rise within as the unknown non-bonded woman wakens - as hormones diminish and the primeval power of the contract fades in ever lessening importance - then, the woman feels the feminine and a new neutrality that no longer devotes resources to reproductive process. It becomes less important to groom for attraction, to comply for acceptance - value is no longer measured by the number of eggs residing within her. As each thread of bondage lifts her innate energy returns, her motivations clarify, her ideas flourish. This is how women come into their power -- through the process of discarding reproduction and all its hidden vampires.

mystical experiences

A friend posted a question about what a person might consider a mystical experience.

I tend to think of such experiences in differing ways. Spontaneous or erupting type experiences are those that I'm unprepared for, that shock my senses to a sudden sense of expanded sensory life. In those moments everything gets bigger, stronger, more smelly, more textural, more acute and my experience of the temporal transforms or changes such that my internal log of linear time stops.

My most recent event of this kind was two years ago when I flew in to Maui for the first time. I wasn't prepared for the way the mountains floated with clouds much like a fine Japanese painting. I had an immediate sense of being in the presence of the goddess of NEEDING to go to Haliakula (sp?) and perform a ritual. This unexpected feeling stayed with me over the 10 days I was on the island and prompted me into the collection of objects including such things as black rocks, seashells, rare bits of coral, handfuls of flowers, frankensence (sp?) and a watercolor painting I did myself. I traveled to the goddess and stood on her heights and burned incense while these tokens rested close to me. I'm not a ritual type person so this was quite extraordinary for me.

I've done a lot of altered state of consciousness work over the course of my life and most of that work is through a mechanical means of entering such states. The most profound of these experiences was done using simple holotropic breath work which caused a transcendent experience which dealt primarily with an experience of Mary Magdalene and the sense of levitation.

However, the pivotal moments of my life are not augmented with altered body chemistries or the sudden experience of great beauty. Often I have a more subtle sense of 'wakening' where I am suddenly certain of an action I must take - often an action that surprises those around me as it isn't supported by a process of arrival. In these transitional moments I become aware of a new direction - the most notable recent occurances of this process was the moment I decided to return to college. One day I wasn't thinking about it at all and the next day I was taking an assessment test. When my mother asked me what was going on - I had to think a long time about what I was responding to - my sense was/is that I am compelled to this path - it is a cosmic prompt or if you are religious, I'm on a mission from God. Once engaged I become like a juggernaut striding forward, through, around, over, or surrendered to the obstacles littering my path. It's over there, is the vague sense I have of where I'm going although I have a larger sense that something I do may be useful to many or many many, even though that smacks of narcissism. Since I don't exactly know what that might be, I can't claim it either :)

All I can say is that such motivations become progressively more freeing. Since I am a writer this has emerged over the past six months or so with an attitude of going for it - I don't really care what the university expects or what teachers expect or what they assign - I write for posterity in some way. I'm supposed to go after what nudges me - that is my sense of the mystical presence in this.

A different type of mystical experience also needs to be mentioned. Sex. When two or more humans intentionally engage in orgasmic processes that include deep breath work the arc goes toward the third level or divine orgasmic experience where corporeal experience is transformed into divine engagement. The sense of the experience is that each person is touching the face of god, communing with god. This fundamental creation experience is what I feel is meant by the word intimacy and it is almost unachievable due to most people having so many issues with sexuality in our culture.

resistance...

One of my struggles, as a writer, is that I always want to write when something else is pending. I have this contrary streak that shows up and torments me.

Today, I want to write - I NEED to study, but I want to write. How weak am I? Pretty weak! Even though the reading part of the studying isn't really a ghastly book - still, it is homework and that alone makes it negative!!!

So, I wrote 2000 throw-away words last night. Not really, the scene I depicted was actually quite good but in retrospect I don't think it accelerates enough to just thrust the reader into the story. So, I will save it for some blurry future work and center on my core story.

See - I'm already cheating.

I'm weak!