Wednesday, July 30, 2014

I Arise Today

     When I went to Burning Man for the first time in 2012, my pappi told me to bring something of my mother's to burn at the temple.  I didn't really know what the temple was or it's significance to Burning Man the only thing I knew about it really was that two of my friends had worked on it the year before.  I decided to go to Burning Man about one and a half hours before my ride came to pick me up.  So as hastily as I packed everything, I also hastily grabbed a couple things that I inherited from my mother.  One of which was a blue glass heart in a heart shaped box and a tiny book (my mom had a tiny book collection) of poetry on nature.  My mother and I got along best when we were in nature whether it be hiking, swimming or beach combing.  It was when in fact we didn't argue and we argued a lot.

     I ended up going to the temple every chance I could get.  It was religious.  If you stand facing the entrance I spent all my time laying on a bench in the far front left corner.  I would take the blue glass heart out and place it in-between my breasts and lay there and meditate.  I thought about a recent art collaborator who had passed away that year, I worked on releasing all the pain I had built up surrounding my mothers death, I wrote a letter to my mother, which I then tucked away in-between the temples wall and the bench before it burned and I read form the tiny book of poetry.  I forgot that I left the book there to burn as well.  Before leaving it behind I ripped out one page.  This one page sits, when facing buddha and myself, in the far left corner of one of my altars.  I thought it would be a nice thing to share today.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendour of fire.
Speed of Lightning,
Switness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of Rock.

-Saint Patrick.

As I embark on a special journey healing a part of my past, I can not help but think of the phoenix that my lovely cousin gave me in one of here recent little mailed gifts to me.  She stuck a pink post-it note on the phoenix "bookmark?" "A phoenix for you as you rise out of the ashes".  As I write this now I think of the synchronicity of my journey to Burning Man in 2012, the poem that I keep on one altar and the phoenix that I keep on the other altar.

Today! I rise Again!


Tuesday, July 29, 2014

The Year I Loved Myself More.

 
     Tomorrow, July 30 is the first day of my journey to figure out what life would be like sober.  When I stopped drinking I didn't know it would be a year long adventure, I just new that after the death of someone I loved that it may be smart to stay away from the booze for a bit, and my therapist told me to ( I pretty much do whatever my therapist tells me to do, I mean that's what I pay her for right? ) I agreed and figured that it was better this way.

      I wish there was a pretty package that I could write about all of this and wrap it in a bow of a perfect summary, and I don't know if I could do that right now.
What I do know is that I have learned productive and creative ways to deal with stress and anxiety.

  I am more honest with myself and tend to run from the truth less.

 I am facing my demons instead of suppressing them, ignoring them , trying to hide from them.

I love going to bed early and waking up early, especially to the sunrise, I leave my blinds open and my window faces east so it is the first thing that I see during the day.

 It is a lot more important for me to have friendships were we are honest and supportive.

 I like to meditate.

 I know that shame is only a judgement and something that I am not really interested in having in my life.

I know that it is ok that my heart hurts so much that I feel it tense up all the muscles in my back.  That my heart pain is love, sadness, maybe some fear, and all those emotions are totally ok.

I know that I can speak up for myself, ask for what I want and work on cultivating the type of relationships that are important to me.

 I know that there are people who love me exactly the way that I am and if they don't, I know that its fine if our relationship doesn't' continue.

 I know I am more than the sum of my mistakes.

I know that I can say no to countless drink offers when before I would automatically say yes.

 I know that the woman taking her anger out on me is hurt and that it's better that she isn't in my life anymore. Relief.

I learned that there are ALOT of stuff that I feel anxious about and I learned that I couldn't live a life where I tried to hide them from others.

 I learned how to love my body more.

I learned that I could have sex sober and that it was something that I could enjoy.

That sex was a positive thing in my life.

 I learned that making decisions based on my health was my #1 priority and if anybody didn't agree with that, fine, be on your merry way.

I know what my grandmother said was true, that using substances can decrease ones psychic ability.

I know that I am fine being on my own participating in the life that I create.

 I learned that I could have a photo of my mother up and not cry every time I walked by it.

Although I may be "alone" I am not lonely.

 I learned how to stand in front of everyone disrobe, voice my insecurities while standing naeked in front of a room of strangers.

I learned how to be more open more vulnerable.

I learned that there are several things that I could do sober that some (which is fine by me, I don't judge) would do not sober including me, which include and are not limited to: going to burning man, attending the memorial of someone very dear, going abroad with families into situations that reignited my ptsd, attending a wedding, going to family reunions and dealing with the anxieties of that, getting evicted from my art studio because the new owners of the building wanted to turn it into I don't know what, I don't care, that I could be kicked out of the home that I was trying to learn to love by the man that I loved, that I could go through a separation, that I could go through a breakup, that I could handle toxic people trying to load their feelings onto me as a scapegoat for their codependent issues, that I could make it through mothers day and fathers day without having a mother or a father in my life, wooh!

 I know that there are a few people, but they are the ones that really matter, that support me, love the person I am the person I was, view me as a supportive friend, a good listener, a compassionate soul.

I get positive feedback from people all the time that tell me how awesome I am doing and I love it.

 I learned that I play a very important role in the lives of people that I view important to me.

I learned that as time goes by, that list gets longer and longer.  I am sure there is more but that's a good start.
   
     A couple weeks ago while sitting and talking to my therapist I had mentioned that sometimes soon, I didn't know when, that it would mark 1 year of me being sober.  My therapist wanted to know if I could find out when that date was, I know that a dear friend of mine also got sober on the same day and that I could figure it out based on texts.  So I scoured through them and found that it was the 30th.  My therapist said "You should have a party, a celebration, a little get together."  I agreed.  Then my thoughts moved from the clouds into the ground and I remembered that it was sometime around this time that I lost my mother do to an accidental overdose.  I thought to myself "It better not be the day that I got sober." I began feeling nervous, anxious, uncomfortable.  I did what I needed to do and found the file that has the 10+ copies of my mother's death certificate (there was a time and still is where I needed a lot of copies) and found out that my hunches were right.  The very same day that marked the first year of my journey sober was the day that they believed she died.
 
      I began to feel a sort of doom gloom forming over me.  There was no more celebration.  Rather fear, doubt.  "How could I celebrate on the day that my mother died?" What if I decide that I do want to drink again? Will people be worried or concerned because I had a celebration? ( The celebration was really going to be much more than my year of not drinking, kind of also a celebration of wooh, I made it through all that crap and I am stronger, wiser and better.  Lets celebrate!)

     Anyways the party became a no.  Until today.  I am truly excited that tomorrow marks the end of the year where I loved myself more and the beginning of a new dawn.  Though the loss of my mother was tragic and still haunts me.  There isn't anything else that could make her more prouder of me.  That was one awesome thing about my mom, she was always saying how proud of me she was.  I miss having someone be that proud of me.  For the people that say stuff like that to me now, I treasure every word as it comes out of their mouth from their heart.
 
      I don't know how I am going to celebrate.  It's nice that a day that used to be so dreadful now has a new meaning to it.  A transformation.  Whatever I do, I will be bold, I will be brave, and I will continue to love more.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

The Surrealist's Mind

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite people! The one and only CrowMeat! I called him early this morning to make all strange noises into the phone.  My rendition of happy birthday was a combination of howling dog, squabbling turkey, and yowling cat.  It was operatic as well.  I made sure I torture him good and plenty for his birthday :)  I'm really lucky though to have him as a friend. I can call him whenever I want, he makes me laugh when my heart hurts, he is kind, creative, inspiring and bad to the bone, he's my pappi and one of my very best friends.  This morning as he rambled on one of his genius verbal tangents.  He asked me "Don't you know that god came down and killed all the cats on the island. You know that's a good story, I am not going to write about it but you can. You won't though because you will sit and worry too much about why the cats haven't delivered your enima equipment.  Ooooh that's a good story! Cats parachuting out of a plane delivering enima equipment." Really this man is a true poet.  He has the mind of a surrealist.  Talking to him is like traveling to another world sometimes.  One where things are strange and the only things that happen are ones that you could never imagine happening, but he can.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a trip to the island where he lives and got to decompress for a couple of days.  I went out as well.  Him, myself, my cousin and her sweetie all sat by the fire to celebrate solstice.  Lately there has been a real interest in Tarot happening with the gaggle of friends.  I myself have started doing daily readings.  Anyways, we were busy collecting sticks or breaking the branches off of sticks so that we could roast dogs and marshmallows.  CrowMeat had found some sticks and said "I'm the seven (not quite sure if it was seven, could've been another number) of wands" and repeated it several time.  And I snapped some pictures.  I thought he would like seeing these for his Birthday so here, they are.


Happy Birthday CrowMeat! 






Monday, July 21, 2014

You Can Call Me Anytime

Dear Reader whomever you are,                                                                         July 21, 2014

I realized that I had been making my notes a little on the dark side and had been thinking about setting up some time to write about things a little less heavy hearted. (I have lovely pictures and journeys to share.)  I told myself the next post will be dedicated to beauty.  Yet something happened along the way, inspiration.  Thank you for your kindness. And here is something beautiful.  It's titled "Conduit for Love" and helped me transform the title of my online journal.  Here is also a little story about about the transformation of heartache.

Chrystal Brooke

  
    My life really changed after my mother died.  When I looked towards the future I had to come face to face with the new reality.  A reality that meant, my mom wouldn't be there if I got married, my mom wouldn't be there if I had a child, my child wouldn't have a grandmother from my side of the family, I wouldn't get presents that were filled with stuff that one buys at the ABC store ( a hawaiian chain ) and I wouldn't have someone to talk to whenever I needed someone to talk to.  At the present time that was really hard.  When the shit hit the fan in my life I didn't know who I could talk to.  My mother had always been my go to.  No matter what I knew that if I was having a hard time that I could always call my mom and she would listen.
     As time passed by I began searching for that person that I could always talk to no matter what, I searched for it in family members, co-workers, anyone willing to let me pour my soul out to them.  Along this journey, I really realized that having someone to talk to whenever you needed someone are some pretty big shoes to fill.  
     The other day I was reflecting on my mother, the anniversary of her death is fast approaching which means a time to look at my story straight in the face.  As I was walking down the sidewalk on a beautiful and sunny day.  I reflected upon those times in my life when I needed to call someone.  I felt comfort knowing that I have at least one person that lets me do that, my adopted Pappi.  I basically just tormented him with love and kindness until he let me into his big curmudgeon heart.  He listens to me and torments me about everything that goes on in my life.  I feel so blessed to have such a good friend.  I reflected on other people in my life as well.  The ones that have given me unconditional love.  After my mother passed away, for a while I didn't know if anyone would ever love me unconditionally again.
Turns out there are people that love me unconditionally and people that can call whenever I want.
     The next day following my sunny sidewalk reflection day, I check my voicemail and it's a thick tongued man whose voice is unrecognizable to me.  Turns out it was my Godfather getting back to me. A couple days earlier I felt the inspiration to call him, it had been seven years since we last spoke.  I went into a box that was labeled "Mom's Paperwork Don't Open" and found her address book.  I flipped through the pages of her address book, seeing her handwriting get shakier and shakier as she got more sick.  Cried over her handwriting and found the number for my Godfather and called him.  Turns out, his number is already in my phone.  He leaves me a message with a different phone number after all he is in the arctic circle.  He tells me how happy he is to hear from me, how he has so many questions and how I can call him whenever I want.  Those magic words that sing to me "Call whenever you want."
     It took a couple days of phone tag and hearts worth of courage to call him back.  Yet I just did.  I just got off the phone with my godfather.  He tells me about how he has so many questions, so many memories of my mom and how he wants to talk in person rather than on the phone about all that stuff.  He tells me again that I can call him whenever I want and he tells me "you know, its my job to look over you." My response was "Thank you for letting me know that."
     I am old enough and have had my heart broken enough to know that there are truly no happy endings, only happy moments in time.  I am unsure of where this relationship will go.  Unsure if it is a healthy one and afraid of trusting and making myself vulnerable, time has proven that it's not always the best thing to do.  We have plans to hang out on one of his boats, he works at sea, and he has asked me to contact him before I go to Burning Man or leave the country.  He expressed endless gratitude for me reaching out and I apologized that it took me seven years to do so.  
     With all the fear, anxiety, hopes, dreams bundled up together, I am willing to take on this new chapter in my life, getting to know my godfather better and how that will effect my life.  I tell you one thing, it sure does feel fucking great to be loved.  To the friends, families, animals, sea, mountains, sky and sun that love me my gratitude can not be summed up in a collection of words but beats throughout my chest and back the strong feeling of love. Namaste.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

My Skills Class Secret

Very little people know that I participate in a group skills class. All the more reason to write about through the inter webs of "who even reads this anyways."  I'm pretty good at keeping secrets, actually excellent, and also very good when something is precious to me and I feel like I need to protect it.  If I have any hint that my beliefs or my ideas will be subject to criticism and judgement, I will keep my lips tightly pursed.  Who knows if I will continue to be this way in the future, its something that I am currently on the fence about.

Anyways, even though my head feels funny and it would be best to stay off the computer, my head was generating sentence after sentence for this entry, so I decided to sit down and write about all the lines that were coming into my brain.

Behaviorism is one of the things that I learned in my group skills class.  Behaviorism teaches us that if you are trying to change some aspect of yourself smoking, gossiping, losing your temper, whatever, in my case right now it is checking Facebook, that you will be most successful in changing that behavior by rewarding yourself every time you have the urge to do it and don't.  It is particularly effective if you reward yourself right after you avoid the urge.  I have been working with it and so far it works.  Every time I have the urge to check Facebook, unless it is for a class, message, or event and is not early in the morning or late at night, I put a dollar in a bucket.  A bucket, only because I don't have a piggy bank.  If you are struggling changing something about yourself, please avoid berating and negative self talk, instead reward your self every time you avoid it.  When rewarding it is best to engage in a positive activity :) Make Sense?

The other day I learned about PACE breathing.  PACE breathing helps decrease anxiety by counting the breaths that you inhale and counting the breaths that you exhale and making sure that the exhaled breaths are longer in count than the inhaled breaths.  What I found particularly interesting is that the reason why so many people feel relaxed after having a cigarette, isn't because of the cigarette itself because cigarettes are actually stimulants, it is because they are engaging in PACE breathing, longer exhalations.  The other day one of my triggers for anxiety got a nice kick.  So I made sure to try this PACE breathing and it not only slowed down my heart rate but also helped me feel more relaxed.

Here is some healing energy for you! The light of the candle is at the point where energy radiates through these images of creatures who love all.

Monday, July 14, 2014

Vive La France

Happy Bastille Day! I have a fondness for this holiday for many reasons.  Growing up I was not that impressed with the U.S of A.  I felt more of a connection to Europe, especially France.  As a young girl I went almost every summer to Lourdes, France.  A village nestled in the French Alps that upon summer gets inundated with busses, the sick, those helping the sick, Catholics, Christians, the list goes on.  Having been raised to be the perfect catholic girl I once dreamed of becoming a nun and helping the sick people at Lourdes.  I remember Bastille day staying at the Hotel de la Grotte.  Watching fireworks  go off by the old castle.  Sounds like a fairy tale doesn't it?  Well it may be many things, one of them is not a fairytale.  I do however have deep gratitude for my time spent there.

I loved France so much that I begged for years to be able to be an exchange student.  I am pretty sure that from the age of 13 I asked my mother every year if I could go live in France.  Every year it was the same answer. NO! Until my senior year of high school, which is the most important year of school especially if you are attending a college preparatory academy, my grandma gave the ok, and I was off to France.  I took 1 french lesson, bought myself a teach yourself french book and within five months I was on french soil taking a weeks worth of french immersion before heading over to the lovely town where I was to meet my french family and attend school.  A wonderful story begins here.  But for now, the hour of the night calls.  The beckoning of dreams, the heaviness of my eyelids all inspire me to say goodnight and sweet dreams, or good morning and have a blessed day,

Thursday, July 10, 2014

A Page From My Standard Diary for Thursday June 10, 2014

Amongst the many gifts that my Grandmother would give out each Christmas, there was always included for all the kids and grandchildren a red Standard Diary with a page for each day of the year and a calendar for Butchart Gardens.  My lovely cousin adored these standard diaries while the majority of everyone else either put them on a bookshelf to never open again or gave away.  Who knows what happened to them! After my Grandmother had her stroke and stopped sending the Standard Diaries my lovely cousin began sending out an email to all of us cousins and uncles and aunts asking if anyone would like a Standard Diary.  Myself along with I think 2 other cousins said yes.  My intention for writing in them has often been better than my practice.  However, recently I am back on the train writing each day in my Standard Diary.  I figured I would share a page.  The writers voice is often different when documenting in a diary and also, I feel really grateful for what I was able to write today and want to share the love.  So here is what I wrote word for word for Thursday July 10, 2014.

Well I have been enjoying doing my daily practice.  The drops from the tinctures seem so sweet and full of life on my tongue.  I have boundless gratitude for my loved ones.  The ones that love me and the ones that I love.  Their words of encouragement, love pride in me.  I am very grateful for it feels wonderful being appreciated, receiving compliments when I haven't been expecting them, knowing that those around me believe that I'm "doing good." I can feel my heart swelling.  I have great love for all these people, even and especially for the ones that no longer play an active roll in my life.  I am grateful to loss for showing me how much I really have.  I am grateful for heartbreak for showing me how much I really do love.  I am grateful for every day that I wake up and choose to love myself more.  Thank you for the love.

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

She's Bad

Thank you Dent de Cuir for making this awesome video,whose song "She's Bad" is  a collaboration of Dye and Egyptian Lover, you had me going with your sexy vibe and creative interpretation of collage and really won me over during the shark attack.  


Tuesday, July 8, 2014

What I Did When I Was Not Making Art

One day I found myself on the phone with my lovely cousin.  I was about to tell her about how since my life was so crazy with the loss of my art studio and having to move homes as well that I hadn't made any art.  I caught myself right before I said that because I knew that it wasn't true.  I may not have manifested a profound body of work, yet I had been making art.  I have a little black Moleskin that I carry with my in my purse.  When I had the spare time, drinking a ginger beer at a bar or waiting for something I would pull out my little book and do a drawing.  After I told my cousin how I was about to say a false statement, we continued on talking about how sometimes we don't give ourselves credit for what we are doing.  We often think that we are not doing something because it doesn't live up to our grand perceptions that we had created, while truthfully though, we had been working on something.  So here are some drawings that I did during a pretty busy time in my life.










I bet there are somethings that you don't give yourself credit for.  I bet if you sit down and think about it more that you will actually have some of the dreams that you've wanted, maybe not the form you wanted, but still, some of the same aspirations.














Sunday, July 6, 2014

Are you loving yourself right now?

     Standing on a dock someone very close to me asked me this.  " Are you loving yourself right now?"  I said yes, looking back I don't know if I was or not.  In fact, I don't know if I had every really pondered the concept of self love long enough to really know what role it played in my life.  Lately though, I've been looking closer at it.  I've noticed a couple things, for starters, I have been pretty mean to myself. I mean, the stuff that I say to myself is more mean than anything I would ever say to anyone else.  I've also noticed that in other ways I have felt shame or guilt for putting my needs ahead of others.  After a bit of a health scare,  I have committed myself to making healthy decisions.  If that means that I can't be there for someone else then I have to be ok with that because that is a part of self love.  They need to be ok with it as well and if they aren't, then their not someone that is whole heartedly beneficial having in my life.  Other times, I have felt unworthy for the gifts that I have had in my life.  I've also felt guilt for having the things in my life.  All a part of shame.  A very tricky thing that can get in the way of self love.

     The first image is kind of disturbing (its from the film Carrie,) I preferred focusing on the contents of the article and the "test" at the end.    Says some pretty important stuff.  I think we could all grow by looking at how shame affects our lives and value self love more.  I hope you love yourself as much as I do, in fact, I hope you love yourself more than I do.  May we all full heartedly love every ounce of ourselves, whether its the parts that make us "crazy" the parts that make us "slutty" or the parts of us that are "broken" .  By the way I don't think your crazy, slutty or broken.  These are words that other people often use to describe things that make them uncomfortable. xoxo

Detoxing Shame: A 5 Fold Path by Anjana Love Dixon
http://theanjananetwork.net/2014/07/06/detoxing-shame-a-5-fold-path/

P.S Here is Ani DiFranco singing Shameless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjizt4Ixt6E