Offerings

     After a lovely day attending an online retreat of the Tea and Chanting Sangha, I was ready to go for a walk, get the blood moving, feel the cold air on my skin and go on adventure. I was pleased to find all types of offerings along the way, things that spoke to me as either magical, strange or poetic. So I decided to take some photos and share them with you. 

 Someone spread some rose petals on the ground

                                      

                                                Wishing you many blessings!

That was Sexist and I'm Sorry

     In my last blog post talking about many things including getting over ways that I have allowed myself to be treated in relationships. I repeated a saying that at the time made me laugh, I was sad and feeling dis-empowered, and having something or someone to laugh at I think made me feel better.

     As I was writing yesterday, I had this inner voice that wanted me to delete the story where I recount a friend of mine said "Really, all this just over some dick." I had this idea that now that there is an audience that maybe it would offend someone and then I had to ask myself does it offend me? As a woman, I don't appreciate being treated like a sex object unless I want to be treated like a sex object and have given consent to it.
   
     When anyone say "he/she's a pussy" it really bothers me.  That a part of my body would be used as an insult to someone else. Ironically, it is also a part of my body that politicians fight over and other people fight over. So here I am, being a hypocrite. Telling a story in which a man is summed up to be a part of his body "a dick." I imagine that this might not bother many because it is more socially acceptable in our society to use this terminology. I imagine men out there though who would be really offended by this. I imagine that some of our male allies would find this degrading and not reciprocal of how they fight for our equality.

     I am sorry that I put it in there. Today I almost erased it. I think that writing this though is better than erasing it cause erasing it would not have led to this regretfully inspired repeating of the story and shedding light on maybe something that isn't often talked about.  I'm sorry that I repeated a sexist remark. Neither of the subjects that were written about were only sums of their body parts. They were beautiful people. Beautiful, flawed, intelligent, creative people and no although the sex was usually good, they don't deserve to be degraded to a part of their body. Name calling, though it can make someone feel empowered. Is simply not right. Reclaiming power from within, respecting oneself, making decisions that coincide with the heart and values, those are all empowering. After repeating that story, I felt disempowered, ashamed, thoughtless, inconsiderate...the list of judgmental words can go on.  For now though, I mainly want to say that I am sorry and I will be more mindful of how I deal with pain and feeling disempowered as a result of relations with other men.

     Do you think I should erase the part in the post? It brought up a good topic, and that topic can be talked about here. I really would love your opinion

"I'll open like a daisy every morning. I'll make my work."

     I'm on Vacation. The first day that I woke up I was so happy I cried. I felt like I had finally made it through some fucked up whats the word, jungle jim...not its like a course where you do different stuff like run under something and jump over something else. Crap, concussion brain. Obstacle course!!! That's the word. I've been trying to think of it for a week! Anyways. I had arrived. I was hungry, tired, and the energy that I had pent up to just make it here released. I had so many plans of what I was going to do go the the gardens, go to the tree, I realize now that if I tell all my plans then my secrets of what I love so much here will be out. so for now, I am going to keep them mostly to myself. I am just in that kind of mood. Well, I had my plans and the universe had its plans for me.  Be exhausted for several days, have your birthday, have the pre-requisite exhausted birthday breakdown, have fun with all your friends on your birthday and catch a cold. So yes this is the first time I am in Hawai'i where every day I have eaten chicken soup rather than piles of papaya.

     "Relax. Don't do anything" These were my orders and my body was making sure that I followed. So days of adventures were replaced with adventuring to the health food store to spend way too much money on kombucha, stay healthy stuff, wheatgrass and other produce, seriously it is sooo hard to not spend too much money at the health food store here. I also went to longs as well where everyone had the plague, so I stopped going there. Yes there is a nasty plague that is spreading and I haven't been doing much besides eating soup, looking at the ocean, watching some bad tv, reading, doing my homework which I wasn't stoked about, my practice, watching storms come across the ocean. I watch the ocean a lot. I joke and say that I am hanging out at my place, by the ocean, my own personal big natural sedative. I feel like I am a different person here though and the inevitable choice of returning "home" makes me sad just thinking of it. I don't want to leave the ocean behind. I love the ocean. But I have to leave.

     While I was here I did do one thing that I wasn't supposed to do. I got upset. I was doing this class where you in essence prepare to bring in all the magic you want to create in 2015 but first you have to look at 2014 what didn't work, what things from that year you want to leave behind, how you will change. It required lots of writing and delving into the past and that was not something that I was happy about doing. My anxiety about it all got kind of bad and I almost stopped doing it. I began to think that going over the past year wasn't healthy for me. But I made it through. I did my releasing ceremony, if you are ever going to burn a piece of paper in your house just be mindful that it creates lots and lots and lots of smoke, I wrote everything on a letter, I wrote everything I was grateful for, the things I wanted to release, the person I am and how I am going to be that person. It did involve lots of smoke.

     One of the hardest things to confront, was that I allowed someone else to treat me like shit.  Or maybe I allowed someone to treat me in a way in which I felt shitty. And that this had been a pattern. Not only had one significant person done it but others had as well. Speak up Chrystal! Be Authentic! Yes with a capital A. This is what I tell myself.

     I was reading Lena Dunham's "Not That Kind of Girl," which I almost regretted reading because it was sometimes triggering in a bad way and she wrote a bit that really spoke to my heart.

     "The way I saw it. I was fully capable of being treated with indifference that bordered on disdain while maintaining a strong sense of self-respect. I obeyed his commands, sure that I could fulfill this role while still protecting the sacred place inside of me that knew I deserved more. Different. Better.
But that isn't how it works. When someone shows you how little you mean to them and you keep coming back for more, before you know it you start to mean less to yourself. You are not made up of compartments! you are one whole person! what gets said to you gets said to all of you, ditto what gets done. Being treated like shit is not an amusing game or a transgressive intellectual experiment. It's something that you accept, condone, and learn to believe you deserve. This is so simple. But I tried to make it complicated.
I told myself I'd asked for it"-Lena Dunham

     It hurt my heart to look back and see the times where I compromised myself, my values for what my friend would say "Just some dick". Yep one day I was crying over a boy and my friend said "Really, all of this just over some dick. That's all he is is a dick" I won't ever forget it. Unfortunately if I let a "dick" treat me in ways I didn't like to be treated because I didn't speak up, I also let other people do it as well. In hindsight I wonder if my anxiety has just been a symptom of not speaking up.
Ugh, I am so over thinking about it and yet, I know that I need to hold this pain close to me for I need to know that it is always an option. That instead of believing I am deserving and lovable, instead of using my voice, I can be quiet in complacency as my values, beliefs and time are trampled over. I remember walking in the rain one day, realizing that I felt like shit and not thinking that I could do any better. Not in 2015, no ! NO! NO! NO! I will be authentic. I will not let the judgements or opinions of others stop me from speaking my truth and doing the things that I value. I have found happiness within and I am released from this conditioned idea that my happiness should be interdependent on whether or not I am in a relationship and how successful that relationship is. I know that I may have fucked up before and I am doing the work that needs to be done that corresponds to some of my values, especially when it is hard. I am still a work in progress, I got lost for so long in the wants, desires, needs of others that I kind of lost myself in some ways and I am exploring my dreams, I am following my heart, and I know that I am deserving of my dreams. That this life is a kingdom in an essence and I am a queen. I can decide who comes who goes. I can decide the laws. I can speak up.

     It hurt to see how I treated myself. How I let others treat me. It's time to bask in the sun of being treated well, being loved, being loving and being kind to others. To being authentic, even if, especially if I will be judged by it.  As Ru Paul says "What other people think of you is none of your business" I love quoting Mama Ru! Mama Ru, if you ever read this. I love you!

     "And I imagined my own pain, my anger magnified by fifty in the man who would send that email, the person who believes that life is a zero-sum game and girls are there to be your props, that anyone else's artistry is a mere distraction from the Lords grand plan to promote your agenda. How painful that must be, how suffocating. And I decided then that I will never be jealous. I will never be vengeful, I won't be throated by the old, or by the new. I'll open wide like a daisy every morning. I will make my work. -Lena Dunham

Think Kit Day 3 LOL

I have emerged from NANOWRIMO, travelled across the pacific ocean, and am somewhat settling into rest and relaxation, I am, just not enough yet.

Despite using some of the last of my energy to yank words out of my body, I accidentally signed up for a mother writing challenge. I don't know if I am committed to it yet or not. I do want to be able to just chill out so I am only keeping a short list of to dos. So we'll see how this goes. For today though, I am going to do it. I hope you get some laughs.

Todays Topic
Let's loosen up: share a side-splitting story from the last year. What made you laugh out loud until tears formed? What made you giggle every time it was referenced? Whether it's a story, an image, a video – we want to hear about the banana peel on the floor, your best practical joke, or gems from the mind of a three-year-old. Whether it's sassy, sarcastic, or just plain silly: make us laugh!

Humor can definitely be a coping mechanism for me. When done right it can make me laugh during the hardest of times.  It is a beautiful gift to get a break from despair and be able to laugh and cry tears of joy rather than sadness. This year there were two moments that I can think of now that made me laugh during hard times

Here is one of them. I can't remember what challenging situation this made me laugh during. I hope that it makes you laugh to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdX_OBUeHb4

This one was also a pleasant joy during a tough day. If you haven't seen it yet, I hope you enjoy it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRBAZJ4lF0U

The Quest for Inspiration

     I haven't been living up to my hope of checking in here and creating something once a week. I've had the blinders on and my tunnel vision has zoomed in on National Novel Writing Month. It's pretty fun. November is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is simply to write 50,000 words in one month and yes, they can be 50,000 words of nonsensical hoopdidooda if you like. 50,000 words is roughly 1,667 words per day. I literally didn't think of doing it at all until I found myself wandering around a bookstore with a fever, on steroids and wearing a unicorn onesie the night before the first day, it was Halloween.  At 11:45PM, 15 minutes before November 1, I was still trying to figure out what, and how to download the software I would be using to write with and also setting up my account through NANOWRIMO.  Being that I was sick and on drugs, I decided that the only way to do this was full steam ahead. So I have been doing lots to get my word count to 43,000! the last three days my word count has been at its lowest. somewhere between 1,000-1,500 if I had been writing at the rate I was writing at I would have already crossed the finish line.

     This is my fourth time doing NANOWRIMO and my first time ever being ahead of the word count and let me tell you it is a whole different view from a head of the game. I can do things like think about how my novel is having an existential identity crisis.

     For me, to be successful at NANOWRIMO means to silence the critic and move ahead. And if silencing the critic is not possible one must still move ahead. Making decisions, making things happen especially when everything is either confusing or boring is necessary.

     It's nice to have something that has a beginning and an end, that has defined parameters and that sweeps in and stirs up life.  It totally makes life different.  There is always the word count. Rather than simply going out for the night and leaving the to do list to the curb, there is the voice that says "you could write more" With every decision that I make there is always the poking of the piece.

So what am I writing about?  The quest for inspiration....To find out more about NANOWRIMO visit http://nanowrimo.org

To You, Barbara Scheidler Bartholomew

I am looking at this picture and all I see is one of the most beautiful women I have ever known.  Her loving presence still rests deep inside me.

 

  It is the season of Samhain.  Time to reflect on those who have passed over. Time to reflect on our lives, what we have lost.  Give them all time to grieve.

     I was talking through the inter webs to a special group of people.  We were talking of ancestors, how there are those of blood and those of affinity.

     I remembered a painting teacher I had quite some time ago.  She passed away when I was living on a small island in the Salish Sea.  I sat at the public computers in the library, read her obituary and cried.

     She was an inspiration, a warm soft blanket that you could cuddle up to for love in a realm that was often constricted, confined and cold.  As we would paint, she would whisk around, her long black skirt flying behind her, wisps of grey hair moving away from her face, and she would say the most beautiful, inspiring, supportive things that an artist could ever hear.  All that was needed in her world was letting go. In her art realm there did not exist the scientific conceptualized realm of what someone smart with a degree can just create anything out of fanciful words.  Her art, her teaching, her being came from a connection deep within her core.  It was all human all the time.

     The words she spoke were so beautiful that I would try to write down everything that she would say.  I still have it to this day. In a notebook some where.

     She was the first person that really made me think that wearing all black was my style, and I dressed in all black for several years. Thinking about her now,makes me want to wear an all black outfit all over again.

     She thought my tired raccoon eyes made me look very parisien.  She showed us pictures of her studio. A small little attic where she would sit hunched over painting small little paintings on the floor.  She showed us small pieces where gold, black, and white paint moved over the paper creating lines, textures, spaces, voids and matter.

' In Huang Shan, China's Yellow Mountains, I saw no one.  The stars were close and the stone steps skirting shear drops demanded full attention.  For on hundred thousand years and at this moment, in the highest and most remote regions, clusters of souls, hermits and immortals live in quiet mystery, in the light of the moon, in alchemy, prayer, wood gathering meditation and...with the forces of nature travel nowhere and everywhere with names unknown, breath the breath of one thousand miles, and share the light.

Appearing magically, huge drawings carved into shear and inaccessible stone faces are undeciphered poetry.

I am grateful to all souls near and far who live in remote and light fill regions among disappearing clouds on the highest most inaccessible peaks, alone and together; and as molecules encircle the globe, for lighting breathing the breath of one thousand miles.'

     With her presence wafting by, her lips parting to express only love of creation, she helped undo years of feeling boxed in, painting within the lines.  She helped me feel free.  Even though I was still a critic, I was a much more honest, raw, loving, scared, crying and passionate critic.  I escaped the realm of over-conceputalization and danced in a realm where anything was possible and everything was ok.

     Thank you Barbara Bartholomew.  The next time I paint, it's been some time, and oh I will paint again! you mark my word, I'll be listening for you, sending me a little whisper to my ear. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

"It is this universal energy in the world that I attempt to convey in my work.  I am not confined by the traditional arrangement of forms customary in Western painting.  Hierarchy is absent. I attempt, rather, to bring the viewer back to the present moment, back to direct experience.  I believe that paintings should be experienced as one listens to music or to the sound of the wind. The painting is silent.  My work demands a slower pace, as the viewer enters in the experience of emptiness, space, time and the undefined"

To see some of Barbara's works you may click on this link

http://sheidlerbartholomew.com/about.html

Now That's What I Call Progress

Aloha! I can close my left eye, I can move the left side of my face! This is very exciting!

     I'll admit that for a day or two there things were feeling kind of dark.   I had to allow space for those feelings to exist so that I could then focus on my knowledge that despite what the forums had to say, I was going to heal. Despite that there had been no visible sign of healing, I was healing.    I would look in the mirror every day for some slight chance of movement on the left side of my face.  Nothing. A week later I did some more research, I scheduled some acupuncture improvements and my healing drastically sped up. I really believe that the drugs may have helped, however the true healing happened through acupuncture, rest, faith, positive attitude, support from my friends and family, and surrendering to the moment, even if, especially if that meant I had to shed some tears.

                                                   Here's where I was

Look at me Now

 I can tell how my face isn't quite the same yet, I still sometimes drool when I drink water, and my eye has to work extra to stay shut.  This though, is progress and I am grateful!

 I am still tired and steroids are kicking my ass. So I am using this time to be quiet and calm.  Think about what I want to add to my life and what no longer serves me a good purpose.  I look forward to recovering and with all the work I have been doing coming out stronger, wiser, more compassionate, gracious, fearless and kinder.

Thank you so much for your warm wishes and your love.
Places hands together and bows.