 One) Hawk. Always inviting me. Same spot every time. Bidding me a good day of clarity and high vision. Two) It's not as cold as he said it might be. This sweater us fuzzing up where the most movement happens: under my arms, along the sides of my chest/breasts. But, I love this grungy sweater. Three) About the sweater. This ragged sweater is a she-shed companion, especially in the winter when the shed is doing it's best to keep out the December chill and my little heater is pumping away. I feel like Mr. Rogers when I change into it before working out in the shed. Four) This tea, I love it so much. Lavender Earl Grey with a splash of vanilla cream. Five) I finally light the candle. I ask St. Jude and make a sweet-grass offering. Six) I miss her. I wish things were different and we were still friends. The kind that would spend hours on the phone or exchange ideas over Skype while sipping on our favorite teas. She was my Best Friend. I think of her often and winter always brings on the bittersweet memories. I will always love her and consider her my soul-kin. I told her I would never give up on her, our friendship. It takes so much out of me to allow the death of our relationship. This will be something I will grieve over from time to time. But, still...Love. Seven) Hope. All I got right now. Eight) Not too much incense. I only burn half the stick. Nine) Writing. I'm counting on the words to set me free. They always do. Ten) A birthday reservation at our favorite restaurant. Every year since I met him. Eleven) Coyote. Still. Twelve) She said laughter can lift us out of our darkness. Thirteen) Grief. Taking it slow for now. I am a soul in recovery...for life. Fourteen) This quote: All you need to do to create is: stand out of the way." --Dr. Clarissa P. Estés
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 One) As someone with a sensitive respiratory system, I will have to wear a mask every time I go out. Even if that means just to my car, and from the car to the store. This goes for my daughter too. Not caring at all how I look in a mask. Makes me want to tell people how precious their lung tissue really is. Lung regeneration is very minimal. I'm coughing as I type this. The air quality is far from moderate, it's unhealthy and hazardous. I stay in, but miss the blue skies. I pray for those that are experiencing such pain and loss. I don't light candles this time. Full body prayers. Two) More dreams and a dream from another where I made an appearance. I think to myself how dreams can be such potent messages from the dreamscape mostly for us, and how rarely they are for the other people in the dream. They serve us individually. Some can be prophetic, but that's not typical. Fascinating. Three) My favorite part of creating an online course is sharing my voice in podcast like form. It's the beautiful art of storytelling to me. I love telling stories. Four) He offers to pay for the two books I've been wanting to get. He tells me to hurry and order them on Amazon so they can get here before the holidays. Books, art supplies, stationary. Those things easily steal my heart. Five) I get the grocery shopping and holiday dinner ingredients in one trip. We usually do this together and I was very reluctant to go alone, but I did and I'm glad. We always end of saving money when I go at it alone. Six) Vanilla beans...$12.95 for two beans. Why did I not remember? Last year, we felt the recipe needed a real vanilla bean...this year, not so much. Then I google and realize they actually have a complex maturing and curing process. They are from an Orchid flower and are hand pollinated! Like, what?! Seven) I call Mom today. She answers by saying my name with excitement. We chat for 20 seconds, then she passes the phone to mi tia (my auntie) and then mi tia passes it to my father and I'm repeating stories. It's funny, and sweet. Then back to my mom. I really need to visit them very soon. There is a bit of disappointment on the other end of the phone when I tell Mom we're not traveling to spend Thanksgiving with them. I miss them. So much. Christmas. I will be there for Christmas. Eight) Grief. There is so much loss lately. How can one not feel grief in the air. Not to mention the sadness that comes around during the holidays. Nine) I still see the moon. The glow through the smoke. A reminder, a witness. Ten) This quote today. "Reliving the thrill of our own conception..." -Alice Walker  One) beginnings are my favorite. Starting over moments are my thing. I will go as far as crafting a ritual to honor this newness because it feels sacred and important. The problem is I am a lover of the dream time and of visioning. I can cling to the illusions in rapturous amazement. All the planning and idea mapping is a language I am fluent in and can remain loyal to this practice of new beginnings.
Two) Consistency is what I like and I'd like to explore this a bit. I want to see what I'm made of and discover what stories stay hidden inside of me that can be set free. Three) In my communications class this week, a portion of essay #2 was due. I spent three-four days torturing myself trying to choose a topic. Just when I think I had it, I couldn't write about it! I went from, "the value of community," to "feminism," to "slime!" You read that right. Slime. Young entrepreneurs in the Slime making business. Wheeet? Four) My dreams this past couple of weeks have been so very insightful and eerily accurate. Snakes one night, jewelry shopping another night, cheetahs and my vacay with an Instagram influencer. In the middle of the night, when I can't record a dream in my journal, I reach for my phone and quickly note my dream on this free, easy-to-use app, called: Dreams Diary Five) Finding a system that works for you is so important as a creative person, yet so challenging when everything out there is geared towards telling you how to do the damn thing correctly. I did a google search: "can people excel at life even without a consistent routine?" This, after I already noted in #2 that consistency is key. I found only one article so far, but I'm not so sure it's answering my question. I'll be exploring this one...to be continued. Six) 9:42 Friday night. My eyes are heavy as I type this. Sleep is next. Seven) The leaves are beginning to drift off, one-by-one from the cherry plum tree in my backyard. The colors are luscious. Deepest red, plum, cherry dark, oxblood, burgundy, the darkest of purples and burnt umber. Eight) I wear clothes until they are literally holey af. When it was my reality for most of my life...to "go without," it's hard to transition out of that. Now I have the privilege to go out and get what I "need" and, my idea around this is, that I really don't need much anyway. I experience guilt. I'm sure my mother and her mother, and her mother's mother felt guilty too. A sort of ancestral discord if you will. Especially, when their families were full of many hungry mouths! Poverty is dense and heartbreaking. Easier said then done as well. It's a consciousness, or a mindset. I am learning and I have so much more to say about this, but right now it's just an (after)thought. Nine) Voting. This shit better work.  Friday Afterthoughts is a new blog series that I'm experimenting with. The idea came to me years ago, but the courage to write it never came, the instruction manual never arrived, no bouncy and enthusiastic writing or business coach came on the scene telling me to write the blog series because it was my destiny. None of that. In fact I greatly resisted it because I thought it had to be and read a certain way...a "perfect" and "good" way. Which really is some fake-ass-shiz my ego tells me.
I love writing as long as it's casual writing. Is that a thing? I enjoy journaling, keeping a notebook with random thoughts, experiences, dreams and ideas. I could do rough drafts, brainstorm and draw up idea maps for fun and just be content in that phase of the writing process, but it's time to get some practice in. Because, isn't that what writers do? Write. Isn't that what artists do? Create. This makes me think of blogging. Blogging has changed so much, in fact does anyone still do that? Blogging, to me feels flexible. There is room for mistakes. Room to messily write out your guts and express all those opinions you been holding tight to. So...here I am. Writing. Or Blogging? There is more to this story. Especially the title, but I'll get to that later. I hope you find some inspiration here within the madness of my thoughts. Friday afterthoughts are random. These posts may occur weekly, but most likely sporadically. Always on a Friday. I share my current thoughts, the things I might be mulling over. New insights or discoveries, my experiments, books I'm reading. The current dream-story I'm crafting. Enjoy! One) my current existential question or crises, depending on how you wanna look at it. My revised translation regarding life-living is: a series or stories, experiences spun into the meaning we give. Depending on the sum of those experiences, a consequence or action may occur or be required, so we alter our stories all the time. We switch in between the dimensions of our storied life in order to continue on breathing in a well thought out or beautifully dreamed up reality. But, when that reality pierces us, blindsides us, harms us- we pay attention. I'm looking at all the connections lately. Still with me? Okay, good. Two) collage. It's where my overthinking brain untangles and softly drift away into the background. When my awareness realizes...nothing. is happening. Three) Death is never going to make sense. Sometimes I find myself trying to explain to people how death isn't concerned with it's meaning. Four) Speaking of . . . I've been into this song lately by Ibeyi. Five) Favorite drink as of late: earl grey latte, aka: iced London fog. If you are local to me, Foxwood Coffee & Tea has the best in the area imho. It's called a "Frisco Fog." Also, get the California bagel. Cream cheese drizzled with pesto and topped with a big slice of (heirloom) tomato. Seriously delicious. I also like foxes so I'm a big fan of this family owned cafe. Six) We sit on the couch together, our bodies side by side. We hold hands. I think to myself of how fortunate we are to have found each other. I feel a wave of gratitude rush over me. I look at him and his eyes meet mine as if he knew exactly what I was feeling in that moment. Seven) This dog. I finally mastered her barks. There is a particular low "warning bark" when a random passerby be it a neighbor jogging past or a delivery driver gets too close to the end of the driveway. She has a tiny bump of a bark when she wants to come back inside after a potty break. A little squeal and dance when she wants out. A short muffled bark in the morning to wake us up. This dog. She has trained me well. Eight) The intensity of my process lately has required that I clear space. I just didn't think it would be so dramatic, but the liberation is incredible. More on this later. Today, in honor of my b{earth}day, I take some time to list "what I've learned so far". These are moments of experience and perspectives that I have discovered along my journey. I proudly claim that I don't have it at all figured out, because I believe there is no having it all figured out place to ever get to. Working on this list helps me to realize this even more. There is no end. This is my 37th year and looking back, I am reminded again that I have learned a specific way to be in the world. Some things due to conditioning, some routine, habitual and created through fear. Some things, deep and meaningful. Some are work in progress, and some were really hard experiences that changed me. There are many that offer excitement because of their abundant potential and unexplored possibilities.
 Birthday collage, January 19, 2015 @ the cafe.  This I promise you: I am as human as ever. I foil in the dredge of life like so many others. I feel my hand tremble when I reach for the light in my darkest hours. This I promise you: I will do my best, but I must let you that I have been wounded, broken open, scarred, charred, chipped at, dismantled, scraped to bone. This I promise you: I will embrace my past and see the million glimmering jewels I have been gifted from it all. It shines beautifully, like a sky in midnight blue and silver. I tell you, I have failed, I have been wronged and I have wronged others, my hurt- hurt others. I've laid on the cold tile floor of a small studio apartment while my three year old daughter slept in the bed next to me as I cried into a pillow a mournful cry that was never mentioned to anyone...until now. There have been these moments: utter despair, where I have questioned the unanswerable, where I have flung my arms towards the heavens, cursing the Creator. I promise you I have traveled soul deep into healing, but sometimes I slip back into old beliefs or step into the familiar narrowness of an older version of myself. There have been nights of worry, anxiety, body-numbing boredom and overeating. Days spent hidden inside for fear I might be too ugly for the world to see. But, because of these experiences I can promise you that I'll hold you close through the all wrecked and done moments, through the stale nights and failed attempts of trying to be "good" for others. I promise, I will look you in the eyes and meet you with the softest, untouched place in my heart that is always pure and aglow. I promise you that there is such a place as the "untouched pure and aglow". No matter how much pain our fragile bodies have endured, no matter how many wounds, hurts or how many ashes you rose up from...that holy place exists. Within. I confess that it hasn't been easy and that I don't have it all figured out, but I am in a knowing place that having it all figured out is further away from myself, further away from what lies at the core of my being. When I look to the earthly nest, I see the trees in their bare, and in their dark. They are leafless and naked, but they are still reaching for the heavens. They believe and they "know". I promise you: there is gold in all of this dark.  A year later, I find myself at the keyboard attempting to write a post. I am slowly making my way out of my hermit year. A year in grey. A year communing with the wild one that dwells in a moistened, cool cavern. A dip. A smooth curve in between the valleys where water runs, but one cannot see...only feel. I've been feeling my way through. Trying to peer into the deepest dark, scanning for some kind of visual. They were hard to make out so I had to enter through a slip in the rocks and TRUST. I found my way through deep breaths, aching memories, painful decisions, moments of releasing. The refinement process pierced my 36 year old way of being, thinking, doing, and responding. I think I am seeing through the shadows now and catching glimmers of light. Thank you dark, thank you grey, thank you light for your rich defining medicine.  An epiphany tingled my body while witnessing my kids learn about themselves through a series of liking vs. disliking. They will go on and on about someone, something, or some situation they may find themselves in and harp on it until they reach a place of final decision. It can sometimes be negative. And even in that...lies so many choices and perspectives. I sort of laughed to myself, when I thought of how often I do this too. There may be some of you who find this process familiar. Are we too afraid to even look at it differently? For example: is there another way to realize you are being judgmental without experiencing it firsthand? I find the more I distance myself from these ideas the more I can observe a pattern or particular process from a place of wholeness. This allows more wisdom. So, I fumbled around with this new piece of knowing this year and had several real-life test-runs. One of the deepest places I traveled to this past year; one that allowed my self-compassion to flood in was: The Impermanence of My Perspectives and The Faulty Ground where Stand: My Beliefs. Much can be rewritten or redefined at any given moment. It's the reflection and awareness of the process that keeps me going, it keeps me afloat, it lulls me into calm and softness. It stretches my muscles and expands my spirit. It also kept me awake at night, showed up in my art, scraped off that old dead skin to the point of tenderness. I must admit it did hurt a little.  As I enter the darker places this season, I will do my best to remember the life that grows in it's darkness. I will allow myself to feel, to miss, to grieve, to release without knowing why, to experience a good dose of loneliness as a reminder that this is not a "bad" thing that goes away with avoidance. The cycles carry me through, like meeting a wise woman that knows the way when I'm lost in the forest. I will meet my most softest and compassionate self and she'll hold me close and gently no matter the shades of dark.  To be sure, I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses. - Friedrich Nietzsche |
Welcome to my Virtual Journal. Here you will find #fieldnotes of a Medial Woman. I write unabashedly imperfect, mostly short, even one-line word play. I share story. I share- first, my process. I view my life-living as a grand experiment and I am taking notes, mapping a trail by moments, stories and synchronicities.
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