Connected and Committed

fresh, crisp

close encounters of the important kind

The 30th anniversary edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind showed up in my dvd player this weekend. A true testament to Mr. Spielberg's storytelling powers, my son was compelled to continue watching after the first few minutes in spite of his Aspie nature to resist all things new and unpredictable.

With two dvds of special feature material in addition to the movie itself, there were interviews galore of cast and crew members reminiscing about their amazing experience with the phenomenon that became this movie. I especially enjoyed the perceptions and impressions of the now 30-something Cary, who played the painfully cute three-year-old Barry who disappeared through the kitchen doggie door. The stories about the process Steven went through to elicit the responses that resulted in the facial expressions in that little boy are truly heartwarming. No child actor was harmed in the making of that film.

Whether one believes in ufos or not, this film embraces many levels of belief and magic and possibility, especially how certain notions just will not let us go. Richard Dreyfuss's character, Roy, experiences a close encounter and is subsequently consumed with figuring out what this thing means, because he knows "it's important." 

It struck me while I was watching that those little voices in our heads, the ones that call us back to our dreams when we'd really rather be living our "normal" lives, are exactly that insistent and that important. An idea or project or relationship or cause that we launched in our minds decades ago or just last week awaits becoming real on this plane too.

Sometimes it waits patiently. Sometimes it can get downright clamorous in order to get our attention focused on it again rather than the television, or the kids, or the thing at work, or the distraction of the hour.

This thing that needs to be expressed will not be denied.

It might feel like a burden, some insufferable albatross around our necks, this thing that is unshakable.

We might try to drown it out with various substances or activities of choice, becoming numb to it and to the rest of life.

We might try to figure out a safe way to allow it to come to fruition and not screw up the supposed order we've orchestrated in our day-to-day.

We might insist that we know better than it does.

But deep down we know that's a lie.

Deep down we know that the folks who manage somehow to find their way to befriending their nagging dream are miracle workers. Sometimes we call them wack-jobs or crazy people, rolling our eyes at their deviation from the silent agreement this culture requires of us to slog through our days doing what we "should", what's "right", what's expected.

What we didn't expect was that who we really are would get lost somewhere along the way.

And then, there we are, dealing with that little voice again saying, "Go on. Find out. It's important."

At one point Roy is asked by the lead ufo scientist why he risked life and limb to be there where the action is, what it is he wants. "I just want to know that it's really happening."

Go on. Find out.

It's important.

fronds

communing with tinkerbell

crack me open 1.1

So rockin' this mantra thing has been quite a ride lately.

In case you missed the 1.0 original post, here's a recap on the mantra: "Crack me open, universe. I'm making room for what doesn't serve me to be washed away; take over that vacated space with what does, please."

It's been humbling and ecstatic and rough and sublime, all at the same time.

Sort of like life is anyway, but with a purpose, a direction, an intention, a reason for the commotion, and a framework in which that commotion makes sense.

Which is more than I can say for the first four decades of my life.

Lots of commotion, not much purpose.

Well, that's not true.

If it weren't for all that previous commotion and the preferences it triggered in me, then this stretch of the journey wouldn't be the satisfying culmination that it is.

It's never too late. Ever.

For anything.

It's hard to believe that though, in the throes of seemingly directionless commotion.

I didn't either, at the time.

But part of me did, and never gave in to the confusion.

I didn't buy that it was supposed to define my life.

Nope, didn't ever totally buy into that concept.

And now here I am, veritably basking in a harvest of peace of mind that just won't quit.

That's not to say that there aren't periods of time in my days where frustration, irritation, clenching and gnashing take up residence on occasion.

But when they do, I know they are temporary placeholders.

On a cellular level, I know this.

Just like I knew back then that there had to be something more to life than a daily slog through hell.

Now, within a relatively short length of time of liberally dosing an apparently negative situation with a perspective borne from sporting new lenses from which to see, I'm free to choose differently.

Didn't have that option available before. I knew it was there, but my old lenses didn't make it available.

Choosing differently, thousands of times, instead of choosing the same, thousands of times.

Eventually it leads to basking.

I am a thought chaperone. I teach people why and how to get better at owning which pathways their 60,000 thoughts a day travel.  

Which beats the hell out of the daily slog.

spring is sprung

zero grams of high fructose corn syrup

About this time 24 years ago, I was a convalescent, flat on my back.

I was recuperating from plastic surgery following a motorcycle accident in which it appeared a ghost melon ball utensil had scooped about that much flesh out of my lower left leg, just above the ankle.

The surgery was not cosmetic. It would allow me to continue walking on the planet, since the tissue wasn't growing back on its own from said melon ball scoop.

All of this occurred in Italian, on the boot-shaped peninsula where I was living a few lifetimes ago. The surgery was beautifully performed by a medical professional trained in the U.S., and my convalescing was beautifully orchestrated by several nuns from various places around the world, most of whom spoke no English but cooked up some awesome grub and changed bed linens like nobody's business.

One in particular fairly bubbled over with enthusiasm for the service she had been given the opportunity to offer; I think she was from Poland, and I remember looking forward to her whistling, her very wrinkled face and her focused intention on my healing. I always felt better when her shift came around, even though we couldn't communicate with the spoken word.

During that time I was at a crossroads in my young life, figuring out what might come next.

I knew that it would entail going back to The States, but where, and doing what? I had no idea.

One evening in the middle of recuperating from the surgery, I started making lists of what needed to get done in order for me to fly back across the pond when my ticket said I was, and what it might look like when I got to where I was going. A sugar high of desire took over and I couldn't sleep, I was so jazzed about the process. List after list after list was compiled and fawned over. That state lasted for several days, and while it probably helped propel me from my hospital bed back into real life a little sooner than I might have otherwise, it didn't really serve me.

That memory popped into my head last night as I was pondering yet another crossroads in my life, nigh these 24 years later. And it occurred to me that the kind of desire that I've come to label as the sugar high kind just wasn't a part of the picture this time.

You might be asking yourself, what exactly is a sugar high desire?

It's something or someone that feels like a dream come true, but really can't be yet because you haven't lined up with believing you can have it. And you don't want to see that because the sugar running in your system feels so much better than the numbness that was probably there before, which is a prerequisite to the sugar high happening in the first place.

It feels like rocket fuel in your veins. At some point the sugar inevitably burns off and the ungroundedness of the situation becomes woefully apparent, because you couldn't see it until that moment, since you were busy enjoying the sugar high.

A sugar high is a great improvement from numbness, and is part of the process of recovering how to feel, for those of us who grew up stuffing our emotions until we didn't know how we felt about anything. But some of us get stuck there, experiencing safety in faux emotion, and we don't move on to life with the real thing.

We don't move on to the knowing-I-deserve-those-dreams part.

Somehow I've learned to recognize the sugar high for what it is, and I continue to practice saying, "No, thanks," to circumstances that feel that way and pursue situations that still feel authentic after meeting the no-sugar-high criteria.

After a lot of hard work and believing I deserve my dreams, I now know that I do. This place I'm in now, several decades later, feels authentic.

Grounded.

Real.

There is no corn syrup on the label.

Not only do I know that I deserve what I want, I know that not allowing myself to have that--playing small--serves no one, least of all myself.

Everyone around me benefits from my knowing what I deserve, and my acting from that place. The ripple effect across however many degrees of separation there are between you and me is astounding.

You prove this to yourself every time someone on the street or in a store simply smiles at you, perhaps for no reason.

Feels pretty darn good, doesn't it?

Imagine a world where maybe even thirty percent of us have remembered how to allow ourselves to live the kinds of lives that make our hearts sing.

The ripple effect from that tsunami of bliss would feel pretty darn good, too.

Government-sanctioned policies would topple from their own overweight.

Citizens would create effective, empowering communities and services to take their place.

People might not ever learn what a sugar high feels like, because they wouldn't learn to stuff their pain.

Can you imagine a world like that?

Can you imagine your world like that?

I can.

Zero grams of high fructose corn syrup.

contrast

Laying low these days. Contemplating contrast and rockets of desire, ancestral lines of unprocessed gunk, choosing a life one wants to live, constructing it with intention and purpose, holding to boundaries and requirements that don't have anything to do with gaining permission from anyone else.

Just me.

Enjoying Trader Joe's dark chocolate.

Gerbera daisies.

Clean shower stalls. Decluttered shelves and closets.

Corners of the psyche swept free of cobwebs and layers of dust decades' thick.

Popcorn.

Lemon verbena soap.

Thunderstorms.

Friendship's good talk.

Not needing to go anywhere or do anything.

Just be.

rant

I would imagine nearly everywhere on the continental U.S. the ice has melted on lakes and ponds near you, allowing the liquid version of H2O to shine through once again.

I wish this wholeheartedly for the culture one day. The true liquid, fluid version of all of us to shine through once again.

<rant>

This morning I was physically unable to sit through an in-service day at the school district where I work. Over the past 20 years or so I've done the research, and I know why and how organized schooling made its way to this country during the Industrial Revolution, and I know why and how the system serves an agenda not of its compulsory users but of those who do everything in their power to perpetuate it.

Because nearly everyone experiences schooling of some kind in this culture, it's difficult for most to imagine learning going on without it. There aren't any alternatives to compulsory attendance in buildings where only similarly aged children are boxed into rooms where the magic is supposed to happen, hour by hour, buzzer by ringing buzzer, that are seriously considered or spoken of with much respect.

Isn't that interesting?

I've sat through countless in-service days in which very well-intentioned presenters and well-intentioned attendees discuss some "fix" that will address the needs of their students, or themselves for that matter. Schooling affects the adults in those buildings just as much as it does the children in them.

But today, I just couldn't do it anymore.

I was prepared to defend my stand and say that when the powers that be are ready to come to the table and talk about what's really going on, I'll hang around.

I just couldn't stomach knowing about the skyscraper in the room and not have it be part of the discussion. I couldn't sit through an event that districts feel compelled to organize that don't do much more than give adults time to socialize with other adults for a few hours and then earns a check mark on someone's continuing education list in an administrative office as "accomplished".

I know these people, and I've worked with folks like them for years, and I don't fault them for continuing to struggle with a system that was broken when it was forced down the throats of parents 150 years ago.

I don't fault those who are born teachers and enjoy working with young people with every fiber of their being, whose only sanctioned avenue for doing this type of work involves jumping through innumerable hoops in order to be able to earn a living at it.

I don't fault parents who send their children to places where they think learning is going on.

I don't fault anyone.

But I do ask the question: whose agenda does this all serve?

</rant>