Connected and Committed

the jane austen book club

Watched this film yesterday. Lots of Jane swirling in my awareness these days. Even though I'm an English major, none of her titles ever showed up on a required reading list in college. Amazing, I think. So I'm deciding to delve into her worlds, and pondering which one to choose first. Perhaps the choice will be made for me by what's available at the library, what the cover looks like, or what jumps out at me from the shelves.

The hints of winter coming are getting more and more insistent, and my body is winding down as well. Gave myself permission to heed its call and slept more than my let's-get-busy-on-that-project side might have normally allowed the last few days. Feels good in an honoring my rhythms kind of way, not in a pull-the-covers-up-over-my-head sort of way. Maybe that's why I was cleaning like a crazed nesting person yesterday--in anticipation of what's to come, season wise.

I'm looking forward to it. Sure, the loss of daylight sucks, the snow makes things slow and precarious, but then there's fireplaces, and snuggling up to a good book, and idea simmering time that only winter can hold the space for. Snowshoes. Slowcookers. Coffee. Tea. Given I'm a Northern Woods girl by upbringing but not by birth, I embrace this version of the frozen tundra in which I live because it's balmy compared to where I originally learned this kind of weather, where the handle on the stick shift on the steering wheel snapped off in my dad's hands one frigid morning on which the temperature was probably -35---that's 35 below zero. Without the windchill.

Balmy, I tell you.

So Jane, you may be joining me this winter for some romps into the psyches of human beings that are, according to everything I've read about you, quite unique and revered by your contemporaries, men writers to boot. They couldn't do what you did, and some weren't afraid to say it.

Excellent.

making room for our own fears

OK, two more David Whyte quotes, and then I'm done, For now.

Making room for our own fears, we suddenly have room for the fears of others. Once we have renounced the need to live without suffering, to be special, to be exempt from t he losses and doubts that have afflicted all people since the beginning of time, we can see the difficulties of others without being afraid ourselves. Our fearful, disappointed surface face starts to fall away. We can welcome other people into our lives because no matter their fears, they do not make us afraid. Suffering is the natural cyclical visitation that comes from being alive. We can be present, we can give them a listening ear; we can even be helpful and useful to them...We can suddenly see a larger person than the one in front of us who is afraid, but we understand that misunderstanding and that disconnect--we have traveled that way ourselves.

~*~*~

A strange and seemingly eternal dynamic that seems to keep up both apart and firmly cemented together in any marriage is out refusal to give our partners the very thing they most want in the relationship. There seems to be something almost instinctual about our targeted withholding of specific forms of requested love. We withhold these intimacies not only because we sometimes cannot find the wherewithal to offer them, bur many times because some interior whispered voice tells us that what is being requested is the very thing partners must grant themselves. That we, in effect, cannot supply what is being demanded, even if we tried. Some wiser part of us refuses to buckle under the coercion and though it may not be able to articulate why, withholds the desperately needed commodity in an unconscious effort to educate the other person into their own inherited sense of lack.

~*~*~

OK. David goes back to the library, and who knows what sublime poetry of life will show up next.

the existentially disappointed gentleman

The existentially disappointed gentleman on the other side of the fire had no idea how much his defensive posture reinforced his notions of the world, what he had driven off or what had not even come out of hiding to be driven off in the first place. He did not meet my daughter, because he did not even know she was there. How many other possibilities in life had hidden or run the other way at his appearance? To him the world constantly withheld itself from him and that was another piece of evidence pointing to the equally awful way the world was made.

~David Whyte, The Three Marriages

~*~*~

More David Whyte goodness.

I finished the book several days ago, but the nuggets of wisdom haven't quite exhausted themselves yet.

I loved this section. It leaped out at me from the page, with a "Yes! Another great example of law of attraction. What shows up is what you believe to be true."

There is another gentleman at the very same party, sitting by the very same fire, who does get to meet David's daughter, is in fact almost bowled over by David's daughter, who was eight at the time, because his presence, his essence called her to him.

That old saying, something about vinegar and flies, that's law of attraction in action too.

Like attracts like.

Nothing new here, but somehow it is each time it resonates on a deeper level, registers a cha-ching with the universal laws.

Cha-ching.

There's that old shadow-side magic again

No real conversation can occur without some vulnerability. We often close the conversation by forcing ourselves to make a premature and sometimes absurd choice between our self-preservation and having a proper conversation, even when there is no real threat to our person. We exaggerate and even create a sense of threat so that we are saved the necessity of a real dialogue. Calling someone a "little Hitler" may feel satisfying at the time, but it is a very efficient way of closing down any possibilities of redemption, either for the little Hitler I am judging or the little Hitler inside me that called him a little Hitler in the first place.

~David Whyte, The Three Marriages

There's that shadow-side magic again. Whatever we dislike in someone else wants desperately to be let out of the cages we've built for it because we think if it gets out for a second, all hell will break loose. Well, it might, but it might only because we've had those constraints on part of us for so long that any taste of freedom may be permission to let things fly. But all it wants is to be acknowledged and allowed some breathing room. And our fear of all hell breaking loose is probably unwarranted, based on some previous experience of someone else's behavior that can't begin to correlate with our own.

the lame lament of why we can't get that creative idea out there in the world

The greatest, most prized excuse for a writer is the lament over our lack of time in which to write. It is a false and paper-thin defense against another more difficult, underlying dynamic; the inability to have the will to find the time. It is quite sobering to find with experience that if we write only a hundred words a day--a normal paragraph--we will have a book of ninety thousand words in three years. Three years is about the average time for a good prolific writer to produce a new work, given that the first year is often spent not writing at all, the second year telling ourselves that we must write, and the third in a gradually increasing frenzy building up to perhaps three or four thousand words a day.

The sober truth is that any of us can find the time to write a book, no matter the schedule of unstoppable events in out life. Finding the part of us that wants to write the book is a different matter altogether. 

~David Whyte

~-o-~

Finding the part of us that wants to actually do whatever that creative endeavor is, is a different matter altogether. Finding the part of us that is willing to peel away the meaning or belief that is actually the culprit is a different matter altogether. Finding the part of us that is wants to divest ourselves of that doubt, fear and self-sabotage is a different matter altogether.

Finding the part of us that wants to love ourselves is a different matter altogether.

Advice to a human being on planet earth

It's like being in the ocean when the waves are really rough and high. They knock you over and you find yourself on the floor of the ocean with your face in the sand. The sand is getting in your nose and your mouth and your eyes and the waves are holding you down. But then the wave recedes and you stand back up and you walk until the next wave comes in and knocks you down and the same thing keeps happening. And each time you just stand back up and after a while it seems to you that the waves are getting smaller and smaller.

Chögyam Trungpa

Freedom comes through a persistent, all-encompassing tenacity

What I remember most, and what has stayed in my bones, is how any difficult, seemingly terrifying situation just necessitates a step-by-step, concentrated approach; an absolute presence for the next move, the next arrangement of the ropes. Each step taken opens up the next step and the next...Freedom comes through a persistent, all-encompassing tenacity.

~from The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship by David Whyte

~-o-~

So loving this book. 

The choices of real people's lives Whyte made to illustrate his ideas on how these three areas of our lives can perk along at maximum experience in tandem with each other are fascinating stories to hear and satisfying on a cellular level. The complexity of Whyte's own background, interests, what feeds his soul--it's an unpredictably awesome mix. The quote above is going to grace my consciousness for awhile, put everywhere I can run into it. A resistance toy of sorts. It's that powerful.

revolutionary road

Revolutionary Road.

What an amazing journey through film.

I instantly identified with April's character, having tried the stay-at-home mom thing and almost lost my mind. And I can also identified with Frank's finding himself becoming the man he never wanted to be, showing up every day to a job that provides for his family that at the same time makes him want to scream.

Entertaining the idea of seizing an opportunity to live their lives the way they want to enlivens them both and offers a glimmer of hope for a time to an existence that is defined by hopeless emptiness. As one of the characters so brilliantly says, "Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness."

This might have been the 50s and the stultifying societal expectations that went with them, but I don't think things have changed all that much. The chasm between happy and empty seems to be that much wider now because of the intense pressure that marketing puts on us to buy in to its clever distraction. The layers are deeper, more insidious, and more devastating given the extremes to which humanity goes to numb itself out, and with which the culture happily complies on many levels to supply us with.

We don't know and aren't told that there are other ways of living, because the perception is that money can't be made from uncontrollable, happy people. I disagree, and hold the space for the powers that be to catch on.

I had a great discussion with a friend after wards about how crucial communication is in any relationship, and I was able to articulate ideas I've had about how important it is to me that, if I should find myself in one again, to remain vigilant about living the way that makes sense for both parties, and not to so easily fall into gender roles or comfort roles or accommodating roles or any kind of role just because it's been beaten into our psyches from the culture.

Discussing how we want our lives to be together as first interactions happen, and not letting resentment get a foothold, is absolutely essential. That takes enormous dedication and persistence and awareness, but the investment holds such an incredible payoff, I don't see any viable alternative.

My casting director has the esteemed assignment of lining someone up for me who wants to walk that walk as well. With this bit of evidence showing up in the form of a film, I so appreciate it. It has given me grist for real-life application, I'm curious to see what shows up next.

*I appreciate being able to recognize when thoughts that don't serve me show up and that I have counter measures to diffuse them and not allow them to ruin my day. And when they work, I demonstrate to myself that I can trust myself, again and again. Important stuff.

*I appreciate the machinations that I put into effect with my casting director when that happens, shifting my thoughts and therefore shifting who and what comes to me. I love thinking about my casting director standing offstage with all kinds of things queued up beside him, and him sitting at a huge console, and every moment I do or think or say something, it alters what he sends across the stage, depending on any shift I might make in the trajectory of my thoughts, up or down  the emotional scale. I love thinking about that.

*I love remembering what it was like going to high school dances. The anticipation during the week building up because I knew how great it would feel to be in the gym and hearing the music, doing its thing to my nervous system and pumping tons of energy through me--never failed. I could count on losing a pound or two in those three hours. One particularly satisfying night, a group of four of us were standing up near the band and we started dancing together in a four cornered box that rotated and criss-crossed and twirled in on itself. We held that magic together for what seems like half an hour or so, two guys and two girls just blissing out to the music and the fun. Priceless.

how do we proceed

How do we proceed when there is actually not meant to be a plan, because we are actually working with a way of being, a slowly building conversation between want we want for ourselves and what we are most afraid of?

~David Whyte

~*~*~

With wild abandon and glee, that's how.

All my colleagues seemed to be under the same happy island spell

By the time I sat down for this lunch, my ship was nowhere to be seen and well over the the horizon without me. I had been drawn onto a magic island of constant busyness where all my colleagues seemed to be under the same happy island spell, moving hypnotically from fax to printer to filing cabinet to meeting, like an elaborate court dance, with everyone seeming to have the same lovely comforting foundation of constant work as an identity, and gladly so.

three marriages

All of Stevenson's disciplines were to do with the close encounter. The understanding that deep in the conversation; deep in the attempted meeting itself; is the only place you can ding the answer to the great ancient human questions he was coming to himself, such as: Is the one I am pursuing, my true love? Is my work real, and is it any help to others? Is that strange thing I call myself, semi-imprisoned in a small cabin, among the tight crowd of other traveling strangers, equal to all the things it loves and longs to encounter?

~David Whyte, The Three Marriages

~*~*~

Fascinating, resonating text in The Three Marriages by David Whyte. Whyte takes us through some fabulous romps through literary history with the pursuits of love, work and self that informed their lives and produced art in its various forms. The description of the way "these journeys ... [are] inextricably knit together" is a calling, a path to follow because of its authenticity and of its embracing vulnerability head-on. It revives the adventuresomeness that populated my teens and twenties in one way, in another way now.

I want to know

Self Portrait

It doesn't interest me if there is one God

or many gods.

I want to know if you belong or feel

abandoned.

If you can know despair or can see it in others.

I want to know

if you are prepared to live in the world

with its harsh need

to change you. If you can look back

with firm eyes

saying this is where I stand. I want to know

if you know

how to melt into that fierce heat of living

falling toward

the center of your longing. I want to know

of you are willing

to live, day by day, with the consequence of love

and the bitter

unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even

the gods speak of God.

~David Whyte

we shall be what we imagine though we know not yet what that might be

We shall be what we imagine though we know not yet what that might be. Blessed are we in eternal changing. We live among gods because we are gods. Blessed are the creatures and gods of earth, things of the air and water, flame from the fire.

I have lived in the midst of gods who knew not who they were. You and I are pure as dream, lasting as words, opulent as women. We were given the gift of becoming and the ways of it. After a time of forgetting, I come back to myself. I am as tied to my destiny as an ass is tied to a plow. Because the gods will it, the work is done, and our labor to become what we must is like the perfume of lotus and red sanders.

I have taken pains to empty myself of the illusions of flesh, to accept failure, even success when it comes, but not to crave it as some men crave wine. I have looked into my heart and seen jealousy, pride and greed. I've seen fear and resistance to change. Even as I cast these off as a snake sheds skins, I've been tempted to congratulate myself. I have regretted the past and longed for the future, forgetting to notice the mountain of the present. But today, for this moment, I am here with you unburdened by thought and filled with joy. In this moment I regret nothing for the paths I chose led me here. I offer you my life. In this moment as the veil opens and before it closes, I see us as we are--that we are gods, that all exists and can be named is god coming from the body of god...I tell you truth, here, in my field behind this sometimes slow and stubborn donkey, I am standing before god. It is good to be here.

~*~*~

BOD/BCFD~Normandie Ellis

having lived the life demanded of me, I shall step into eternity

Having lived the life demanded of me, I shall step into eternity. Long and quietly I spoke with my soul of death, of love, of things that mattered. I am clothed in light, loved and touched by light, bound by light to enter light. On my heart I bear the scars to prove I lived and I live still. And I live forever. I've been shamed and beaten and have cried out fro revenge as I gazed on the empty face of sky. I learned the story of my existence as I lived it, as it was spoken from the mouths of gods. I've passed through the errors of night.

~Book of the Dead/Book of Coming Forth by Day/Normandie Ellis

Be silent then and let them speak to the god within

I shall hide even as the gods hide behind the veil of nothingness, listening. Though they hear men call in their troubles, they come not; yet, silent, beyond the veil their shining fingers move, weaving the cloth of destinies. Even great gods are bound by law not to interfere with a man's own becoming. Therefore, we die and lie alone awaiting transformation.

The gods care not if you rage and thrash your breast. They hear not words but thoughts. They speak not to ears. Be silent then and let them speak to the god within. Be quieter still and let the will speak through you.

the way has been arranged

The way has been arranged that I might know my own passage. I have loved the light and followed it easily and with joy. And I struggled to learn how to lie with the darkness where all the wrong things happened for the right reasons.

The Book of the Dead (Book of Coming Forth by Day) --Normandi Ellis

the pushing-against thing

“A friend sent me a PDF of an article from a business journal in which a company expressed reservations about this new technology over which everyone seemed to be abuzz. They decided that they would restrict employees’ use of it, because of the fear of corporate secrets getting out, of insider information making its way to Wall Street, and of employees wasting their time on it. For that reason, they set up the hardware on a single station in the middle of everyone’s desks so that everyone could see how people were using it.

“That PDF was an article from a 1930s business journal and the technology was the telephone.” --Scott Monty, Ford Social Media guru

~*~*~

I love stories like this one that expose our human propensity to let fear run our lives and as a result postpone the good stuff. 

Come on 2012, this global enlightenment thing can't come soon enough....

such a rockin' year

*These stunning days of low humidity and moderate temperatures, where my skin feels like baby powder is blowing across it as the breezes waft in. I remember them from earlier days, growing up, fall in Bemidji MN–it’s almost like a switch is thrown and my body can relax into itself after the stress of high temps and humidity. The blue of the sky is more intense then, and I am more connected to the earth. I can feel the threads of my casting director’s webs of connection between what I choose to think about and what shows up, and the shifts as I shift. There is a constant contented sigh flowing through me on days like this, especially when I get outside to enjoy them.

*Walking. Being mobile. I started wandering when I was five, asking my mom for destination recommendations a few blocks away. Then I was suddenly at my dad’s work place, which required crossing a major road. Surprise! Walking around town, around the lake, in high school and college, in all seasons, for solitude, recharging, thinking, exercise. Extending that mile accumulation around the world in all the various places I’ve been, always responding to the places in nature that I could find that would allow lengthy perambulating. Sometimes having music with me to enhance the mood/experience. Sometimes other people, as I’ve gotten older and seem to need the solitude less and less. Appreciating my body that keeps up with this activity.

*Music. Such a personal, intense, raw, beautiful thing that affects me so deeply. Listening to how it has inspired and affected others who were called to create and/or perform it is an honor and a privilege.

*This year, this crazy, amazing 2009. I’ve been given the gift of living my days as I choose for a big chunk of them, and I so appreciate the opportunity to feel what that’s like, and to draft off of it in updating requests to my casting director, informing my future with more of that freedom. I’ve been given the gift of dollars from several sources to provide for this year of change and shifts, and I appreciate those gifts, that synchronicity, that abundance taking care of me.

*Truly priceless, truly rare, truly amazing people I have met this year as well who have played a major part in this being such a rockin' year.

*Contrast, that allows me to ferret out what I don’t want, and in turn allows me to better paint the picture of what it feels like when I’m around what I do want. Coffee grounds are like that–you gotta accumulate them if you want to make coffee; they are messy and can be a nuisance, but they are part of the process, nonetheless. I love the results of hot water being forced through ground coffee beans, the smell, and sometimes the taste, so I appreciate what it takes to get there.

*Water. When I remember to drink it throughout the day, it significantly enhances my life experience, and I don’t even mind the frequent trips to the bathroom. Such a simple thing can transform a life, but then isn’t that usually the way? Water tastes so good, the unadulterated, life-giving liquid that we are mostly made up of, that responds to our thoughts and intentions, that reminds us of who we are, that is such a willing partner in so many of our activities. I appreciate its willingness to continue, even though we’ve done some majorly wacked out stuff to it as a planet.

*School supplies. The stack of stuff sitting there waiting to get organized for Little Man’s first day of middle school makes me smile. I have been delaying the gratification for the perfect moment in which to dive in and begin enjoying the process, and I think that moment just arrived.

making peace with now will improve the future

It may sound odd, but the fastest way to get to a new-and-improved situation is to make peace with your current situation. By making lists of the most positive aspects you can find about your current situation, you then release your resistance to the improvements that are waiting for you. But if you rail against the injustices of your current situation, you hold yourself in Vibrational alignment with what you do not want, and you cannot then move in the direction of improvement. It defies Law. In every particle of the Universe, there is that which is wanted - and the lack of it.

Abraham--The Vortex

~*~*~

Off to make my lists.

It's actually my focus for this month in the 30-day intention group I'm in. Since I am aware of the improvement in my waking state because of how I started choosing to feel before I fell asleep the last few weeks, not doing these lists is tantamount to self-sabotage. Been there, done that, didn't enjoy the souvenirs.

The dance to self-empowerment is a fascinating thing, really. We may struggle against it, thinking that we really are not that powerful, or may struggle against it because who would we be without our stories about what victims we are? If we peek behind the curtain of cultural conditioning, get a taste of the good stuff, realize the depth of its reach and value, we may say we are not worthy of it, or that it couldn't possibly be real.

It is all that, and a bag of chips. Extra-large sea salt and vinegar, or whatever flavor you prefer.