DatingGod

Shift and Flow

Obviously not writing much. Except for work. And that is a different kind of writing. Eviden*ce-based incent*ives and benef*its for the research project I work on. How to incentivize folks to take better care of their health. Dozens of documents, reports, briefs, summary reports, literature matrices, graphics depicting full-color attempts made to render pictures out of a sea of eggheady verbiage. For this fellowship whose contract ends at the end of this month.

Where will I go after that? I don't know. 

I do soul retrievals and psychic sessions on the weekend. I spend the week feeling like a flow wedged into a narrow tube, the flow getting all hectic and chaotic from trying to shove itself through such a small aperture. Then the weekends overflowing with cracking through what built up during the week, and submerging down into sessions with folks, feeling like Yes again.

I spend a lot of time out on the small back porch, watching the trees. I spend a lot of time on the front lawn, watching the night sky. I drink a lot of wine. Burn plants. Look for the throughline with it all. What the truth is.

Patience is growing deep roots inside of me, as I surrender to what I can put into motion, what I can't or won't force to happen, what Life has in store for me next but hasn't revealed yet.

I send out resumes when it's true. I submit a proposal to a local, well-established holistic center for an Integral Shamanics Training. I hear nothing from the public health stuff. I get a go on the shamanic training. And so that's what direction I head in. Even as I wait to hear from the state public health job, which I interviewed for over two months ago, but because of the slow creaky machine of the state, I may or may not have gotten. 

The worst scenario is that I get unemployment until I can find a public health job (I have yet to figure out how to make a living doing holistic work). I have no idea how the best scenario plays out. I try not to go there. To ask for a scenario from Life. I take actions when they feel true. I refrain from action when I get a No or I get no action to take.

I don't feel afraid. Not really. Just in a strange sort of suspension.

I don't like how the current job has curbed my willingness to write here on this blog. How there is something hard and intense and unYes about it. I do the work they give me, do it to the best of my ability. In a workplace full of teams and interaction, my project is solo, and it's been like working inside an echo chamber, only coming up for air for an hour or so every week when I get to update my supervisor on the latest things I've researched and written. 

They don't like me there. They want to like me. But they don't. But they can't cop to it. Just radiate their discomfort when I open my mouth. I do my best to keep my mouth closed, to simply do the work. It's helped that I've been "remotely commuting" two or three days a week for the past month. Then I can simply sit at home, with the kitties, and write, do the work, create the widgets, deliver the widgets when I'm back in the cubicle farm. That small, windowless wedge of space in the corner away from everyone else where I can hear them talk, but not to me, and so I refrain from answering, because if I do it's just weird, like dropping into a conversation with the people eating lunch at the next table to you. But mainly sitting in that cube by myself all day, five days a week, just feels like a shriveling kind of death. 

I saw Jin again this morning. Surrendered to the brutal needles and muscle manipulation that is Korean Chinese Medicine. Except it wasn't that brutal this time.

"It doesn't hurt as badly this time, Jin. Are you going easy on me?" I asked.

"No!" he laughed. "I never do easy!"

Which means that my exploration into being with pain that I've been dealing with the past few days is working. I'm not so afraid of pain. It's there. I can feel it. But I don't need to run and take acetaminophen or a scalding hot bath with aromatherapy. I can be with it. The pain. I can let it inform me of its message. 

I talk on the phone with people, more social interaction than I've done in years. My sister, some friends. But I don't know how to do "friendship" anymore so I end up doing a session of some sort with them, in a conversational way, and it feels both true and weird. Especially if I'm drinking wine.

I'm reading about all sorts of things. Downloading enormous sh*tloads of documents onto my kindle, my smart phone. For some reason, I've become obsessed with predators, how they operate, what they take, what deflects them.

I read about the aliens who use this planet as a feeding ground - what my old spiritual teacher used to call "the entities" - who feed off of human emotion, and have come up with ever inventive ways to stimulate emotion, as high and as low as they instigate. An email from a blogger I follow linked to this a while back.

I read about sociopaths, how they operate, how intuition comes into play long before they make their move. I read about guns and haikido and crisis intervention. An old college friend whose become an FB*I agent who is going through a divorce and has been calling me and chatting turned me onto what agents read and use.

I read about chakras and auras. A kind of refresher course. From a new book out by my old spiritual teacher. An excellent book, and I do some of the exercises I use to do (the book doesn't go into new things, just the things we all learned some ten years ago, but which is very good, distilled Yes.)

But mostly I rip tv shows and movies, learn the new pathways put into motion since the S*OPA crackdown, which in spite of its not passing, shut down most established pir*ate sites for a while. And again I ask: please, all of you media outlets: give us a place where we can watch what we want to watch when we want to watch it and we'll pay you our 30 or 40 or 50 bucks a month. But the choices are so silly that ripping is the only option, even as annoying as its gotten.

And I cut off all of my hair last week. All of it. No trauma. Just a feeling of freedom. From tangles and mess and laborious machinations. And a chance to let the grey grow in. Facing the loss of youth and the oncoming time of crone. Took the action. Feel the Yes.

Near-constant physical pain. Mental and emotional and spiritual pain that comes and goes. No clear throughline. And so I just wait. Do what feels true. Release what doesn't. Hold my death in one hand, Life in the other. 

Patience. Just that one word.

Oh yes, and Further.

PS - and new pic posted on site with shorn locks and freaky vibe. Yes, freaky vibe occurring. N'est pas?

2012 and a Happy Colon

My digestive system didn't feel well on Friday morning, so before I left for a session with my Korean Chinese Medicine practitioner, I only had a spinach and strawberry green smoothie. Eating light before Tui Na massage and acupuncture with Jin is always a good idea, but that Friday, it was a very good idea.

Jin put me on a 48 hour water fast, noting in his stern, yet kind way that it might be difficult, what with New Year's Eve and all. No lemon, no herb tea, just water. I'd never done one before. I was nervous. But I trust him. He's very, very good at what he does. 

And so after two days with nothing but mug after mug of steaming hot water, this morning at 7a the fast was broken with a mug of ginger tea, with just the tiniest dash of stevia, about a tablespoon of vanilla almond milk. Delicious. Now I'm drinking a mango, strawberry, blueberry, spinach smoothie, and holy cannoli: it is fantastic. 

The fast itself wasn't that big of a deal. I woke up the morning after the session feeling like usual, that I'd been in a car wreck the day before. Jin's stuff makes swedish deep tissue work or rolfing look like a back tickle. But once the bruising and pain subsides, the range of motion and absence of pain, the sheer feeling of flow in the body is . . . fantastic.

A pretty monstrous headache kicked in yesterday at around 3p yesterday, but aromatherapy oils - tangerine, camomile, peppermint - massaged onto my forehead and neck helped, as did a long aromatherapy bath with eucalyptus and lavendar. A lot of napping occurred, as did hitting the bed early, along with much aimless, random kitty snuggling, both feline and human instigated. And four pounds were missing from the scale this morn, mostly bloat of course, but four pounds of bloat is a beautiful thing to have vamoosed.

I thought about food a lot. I discovered that pretty much everything triggers the desire for food for me. Tired, bored, up, down, happy, sad, confident, confused - all caused the bright idea to pop into my head: let's get something to eat! But I kept coming back to the fact that Jin said my digestive system needed it, and so I trusted him, and trusted my trust in him, and hung in. But what I also noted is that I craved for the largest part, healthy stuff - veg stir fry and green smoothies and such. 

The real parting gift happened last night, at a little after midnight. I went to bed at 8p, covered in toasty kitties. I don't remember anything waking me, just opening my eyes, a phrase from the dream I'd just been in looping round and round. I got out of bed, had a glass of water, took a tee-tee, sometimes whispering the phrase, sometimes just watching it repeat inside my head. Then I crawled back into bed, pulled a kitty up into my arms.

Then I noticed the sound of explosions in the distance. It took a few moments for it to register that it was fireworks, not gunshots. And then I realized: It's 2012. 

Then the significance of the phrase made itself known, how it was a message for the new year for me. I got out of bed, walked to my desk, and wrote it down:

Transformation: it goes in as one thing and comes out as something completely different. . . transformation . . . it goes in as one thing and comes out as something completely different.

So, that was my new year's eve. How was yours?

 

Shamanic Yes, Always Available, Let Go, Dive In

When the request is heartfelt, and true, Life always says Yes. 

In one moment Friday night, a moment that came out of seeming nowhere, after a cascade of moments that showed me where the hole was inside of me, I realized that it had been years since a musician created songs that I felt myself deeply inside of.

And the realization came as I listened to Florence and the amazing tribe she leads. Greenery and grainery singing down my neural pathways. Out in the midst of wind and dark night sky, dancing for stars and the small, brilliantly white slice of moon, I found myself inside a groove that showed me my place in the web that is this world and the worlds underneath and behind and above it.

Shamanic soul retrieval. Florence and her fantastic Machine drilling down deep through layers of No. Calling me to dance the surface of skin and the musculature underneath and the current of prana as it unleashed the Yes inside.

 

Florence And The Machine - Breaking Down - Ceremonials Vidéo MrMusic sélectionnée dans Musique

Florence and the Machine "DOG DAYS ARE OVER" Music Video from LEGS MEDIA on Vimeo.

Dammed

(and because they haven't said howdy to you folks in a while, gratuitous weasel pics at the end of this post!)

I had an epiphany on the acupuncturist's table Friday afternoon that writing is what this being has used and still needs to keep flow occurring in heart and mind, saw so utterly clearly that in this personality, writing is medicinal, and that without it, the sh*t, the waste, the No tends to build up inside, creating blockages - much like an unwashed cut is more likely to become infected.

And continuing with that metaphor, what's really occurring is an overhaul of the immune system than powers this body-mind-heart. Instead of turning to pharmaceuticals to create a sensation of health, the focus has been moved to diet, exercise, content of actions and duties that make up the daily life.

Okay, it's not just metaphor, that's what's really happening. Instead of energy being spent on formulating a career - public health, holistic or otherwise - or maintaining a blog based on keeping readers engaged, or maintaining relationships to cultivate friendships or soulmates or mentors or mentees - energy is building up inside, not in height, but in depth. Energy that normally would be extending outward to keep all sorts of life components going, is being used to clear the decks of No down to the wood grain. 

And yet there is no more big push of burning, no more dramatic Torch This Muthaf*cker to The Ground. None of it matters. Whatever. And yet if presented with the choice between more pain or less pain, I choose less pain. And yet when I see an opportunity to choose more pain that leads to less pain in a fraction of the time, I'm still taking it, much like during the time of big torching. 

Like acupuncture. Really good, authentic acupuncture. The kind that hurts in a way that causes shrieking, deep inside the body and mind. Especially when combined with Tui Na, which is a kind of oriental/chinese medicine massage which is not unlike having muscle fiber and fascia ripped apart, which is probably not far off from what actually happens. The day after treatment, there are real bruises, and it hurts to touch even the skin, like after a car accident, or a bad beating.

And yet, the healing occurring in body and mind in its wake is astounding. Yoga hurts, too. And between the two - acupuncture and yoga - my body is becoming free again. 

I'm still fat. Still in pain. But where this body is is light years from where it was even six months ago. And there is a spaciousness in the mind that allows even thorny predicaments to fall away like a sigh. 

How do you free yourself? It really is about just saying no to drama. That's such a buzzword - drama. But it is a real symptom of western living. And you really can opt out of it. How do you opt out? Just say no.

Why don't you just say no to drama? Is it because there is some belief inside of you that says you're suppose to deal with it, or accept it, or not walk away, or that you have to because it's a boss or neighbor or child or mate or friend, and this is how a good person is with these sorts of people?

Why do you have to not walk away from these people, either as a one-way walk away or simply a walk-away in the moment? Is it because you believe these people give you, provide you with something - a physical or emotional or mental resource - that you can't live without?

But is this true? Do you really need what they offer, or is that you keep waiting for them to cough up their end of the bargain but they never do, or never to the degree they've promised or you expected? Or is the resource just another one of western culture's shell games, delusions? Like 99% of Face*book or country clubs or hobbies or the "food" in grocery stores or the "medicine" doled out in doctor's offices?

And what is walking away? It's genuinely saying adios mutherf*cker, sure, but at its simplest it's saying No Thank You, and watching as the other person finally, finally understands that they won't be receiving what they're demanding, and they get bored or peeved or whatever and they wander off to find someone else, someone who wants to do the drama dance in the same twitchy, frenetic, howling way they want to, too. Or in stilettos, or with this season's fashions, or in full face makeup, or while chanting the right tone of Om.

And does this mean that we have to be selfish assholes who refuse to help anyone else? Or does it mean that, in the moment, we have to listen to the energy, and then follow what it says, be it move closer or move away, regardless of what mores or rules or shoulds are squeezing our minds and hearts? 

Can you see the commonality, the through-line in this post? Can you hold the seeming dichotomy up to the light of your brilliant beam of discernment and see the truth in that ray of Yes?

Can you see how it changes your living forever? Can you see it's the only tool of enlightenment you really need? Can you see how this world would utterly transform if we all just started walking away from the buttheads, just collectively said No Thanks?

You want to change the world? Then do it in a way that you absolutely can do today, most likely in the next few minutes. Just say No Thanks to a butthead. Just opt out of someone's screeching drama. Just take a deep breath and allow yourself to put down that action you're pushing yourself to engage in because you think you should, or because you're afraid you'll miss out on something.

Absolutely do what Life is beaming Yes at you around. Push through the pain if you know it's about breaking through scar tissue. But seriously, it really is okay to just say no to a bad time.

How do you tell the difference? I have great faith in you. You'll figure it out . . . 

The Sweetness

Day 1 of a cleanse. Yet another cleanse. The latest in a long line of hundreds of them, stretching back over 25 years.

The first impulse was to deem them all "failed", but they all served a purpose. I dumped some of the toxic load in the body, heart, mind. Lost some weight. Gained a fresh perspective of food and eating and the emotional ties I have to them.

Yet none of them ever were part of a big breakthrough, a big enough breakthrough to hold and not go back to the patterns of dis-ease, the dark ignorance that lies between desiring a refined carb and putting it into my body. The Big Breakthrough where the light goes on and stays that way.

It seems like such a simple thing, and it is. But it isn't easy.

Just don't eat refined carbs.

But for 40 years now, I can only do that for small amounts of time.

I'm facing something at my current job that I faced in my holistic work: I can't go further, can't really do the work I was meant to do at the level I'm capable of if I don't break through this wall of illness, dis-ease, discomfort, fogginess, emotionality, addiction. 

By most anybody's ruler, I'm doing good work, sometimes even excellent work. But I know this body-mind-spirit is capable of so much more, like seeing a door cracked, brilliant light pouring through. Would you be able to resist the urge to open the door, let the light fill the whole room?

And so: cleanse.

Yoga. Green smoothies. Green vegetables. Raw eggs. Herbs and supplements to assist - olive leaf and triphala, ground chia seeds and probiotics, green powder and digestive enzymes. This is the plan for this cleanse.

Will it work?

Even now, as I sit here typing this, it occurs to me that what I most want to do is go into town to try out that locally famous diner that serves amazing omeletes and home fries and coffee. Yes, that would feel good.

And it would. For a while. Til night time came and the desire for more hard core Up kicked in, and I moved on to key lime pie and gluten free pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms. And then wake up the next morning with heaviness in body and mind, a swollen face like I did this morning.

Food is my great comforter. My favorite thing to do is what I did last night: eat pizza and pie, snuggled in on the couch with the kitties, watching SG1 episodes, the sound of life in the country - trees and wind and small scurrying  and flying beings settling in for the night too. My whole body and being relaxes. Kitties prrp. Daniel Jackson discovers the stories of The Ancients. Dinner is delicious.

But then, as I go off to bed, belly swollen and back aching, I get that this is just another favorite thing that comforts me that is rapidly reaching the critical point of having to be jettisoned. If I could just do this one night a week, maybe it would be okay. But I don't seem to have the desire, the will. 

All I want is to hang with my fuzzy guys and snack, watch stories. Just drift.

During the day I do work that brings change into the lives of other people. I always have. I make big changes in my own living. I always have done this too.

Just in the past few years I went from being a feng shui consultant to academia, then to the state and social work while simultaneously working as a shamanic healer, now as a health care reform chronic disease research fellow. Since 2005 I moved from Chester, NY to Kent, OH to Pulaski, VA to Albany, NY to Troy, NY to Wilmington, NC to Chapel Hill, NC.

I'm as afraid of change as anybody. But I'm more afraid of stagnation, inertia, settling, giving up on having an adult life that is enjoyable to live inside of. 

I'm grateful for the family I was born into, the life I've lived. So grateful for how strongly forged I am from living in such close proximity to roaring fires. And I've spent my entire life working so hard to shed the darker parts of my familial birthright: shards that reflect physical and emotional abuse, drug addiction and mental illness, ignorance and unwillingness, violence against self and others, a distaste, disdain for work and love and honesty and forgiveness and spirituality.

It's as if I looked around inside of me, my head, heart, body, life, and saw what wasn't Yes, what I could feel wasn't me, and I spent four decades aligning myself with people who could help me jettison those shards. But then I reached a place where the only person who could go on was me. The teachers and fellow students grew smaller and smaller in the distance. The solo journey began.

It all sounds so self-absorbed, so egotistical. And it is. This ego inside of me has grown monstrous. 

But I don't know how a person could survive what I've been through without having such a huge, mirrored ego. Maybe it is monstrous and should die. But I feel grateful to it. From the perspective of inside looking out, it has a certain billion-faceted radiance, like an emotional prism. And it's carried me to the place I now stand.  

Maybe other places have been more still and quiet, more fun, more "spiritual", more happy, but this life I now inhabit is more self-sufficient, more honest than any other. It's fierceness, it's utter coldness in divvying the landscapes - both inner and outer - into Me/Yes and Not Me/No has given me the gift of living with a lot less Untrue than probably 99% of the population. The sheer bullsh*t quotient is now so low in this living it's like an extended bass note of Yes as backdrop to everything.

Which is maybe why the ego now shows up in all its vibrant monstrous glory. The very vessel that brought me here, is now the vessel I have to move on from. Maybe ego is a boat and from here on out it isn't a journey by sea. Maybe I can break it down and use its components to build a nice house in this pretty land whose shores I now walk on. 

Or maybe it's bonfire time...

And so this all brings me back to the cleanse. It's really so very basic, so very bottom line: if I don't empty out, there won't be the room, the energy to do the next part of this journey.

It's so simple. So straightforward. 

Yoga and 5 Tibetans and Tabata to gently, fiercely break open the physical and energetic bodies from scar tissue and rust.

Clean, pure, vibrant, simple fuel to nourish the tiny organic machines and systems that power this living called Katherine.

Simple. But not easy.

Unless it's time. When it's time, the path clears.

Is it time? 

I stand trembling at the gate. Scared, alone, but here. Scared, but standing at the gate.

More of The Wash On Wash Off Game

Whether this is Waking Up or not, I sure don't know. All I know is that there are a few themes going on, and they repeat over and over during each day.

Dreaming

Off and on, at different times during the day, I'm conscious of the fact I'm dreaming, even though it appears I'm awake, and my mind thinks I'm awake, and there are other folks around me who believe they're awake.

Each time, it takes my breath away. It's so incredible, so wild, that I know my eyes widen as I stare at the brilliance of color, of content. I've always had a child-like energy going on, an enthusiasm and delight, but now it comes on like rainbows bursting out of my heart and I want to sing arias of Yes . .  YesYesYes . . . Yes! in the middle of Trader Joe's over by the fizzy water section.

My brain is having tiny hiccups of whaaaaa? as I move through my days, at how outrageous Life is in its attempts to delight me. I need things, and they just appear in front of me, or I need for things to not be there, and they miraculously disappear. I want to give examples, but it'll give your minds the cud to grind them into bs, so instead I'll just say: hot holy freakin wow.

(& this isn't wanting {which pushes stuff away} or fear {which cleaves things to us}. just some sort of connection to Life that's forged a strong enough bond so this delight thing is appearing very regularly.)

Passage of Time

My whole existence, for many many many years, has been about pushing, shoving, racing. And it showed up as running yellow lights, both hands on the wheel, trying not to be late, or trying to get home as fast as possible to the kitties and the supposed chillville that lay at home. It appeared as doing several things at one time - filling a jug with water while feeding the cats, while fixing dinner, while trying to plan for the next day, in between back and forth doing laundry.

I've worked 60-70 hour workweeks for the past six years. For three years of school, taking a 4 class full time course load (even in grad school) and working 15-25 hours part time or internship each week, then launching Integral Shamanics for a year, then working in Hiveworld/Cubicleland 45 hours a week while putting in 10-20 hours a week still doing the shamanic thing (~4-8 hours of session time + all the admin and emails and phone calls that go to support it).

I have no kids, no husband, so really, all this work just meant that my life in terms of demands and time and stress, was much like what most of you working moms out there (and working dads? not sure if it translates) deal with on a daily, yearly, never ending basis.

I loved all of it - so much good work to do - the holistic work, such a gift, and even Hiveworld just so lovely in how it took care of me and gave me freedom inside of its boundaries. And yet I never really had time off. Ever. It's been years since I had a real vacation. And my rare day off - maybe every few months or so - a single day, usually a Sunday - was some variation on catching up on cleaning the house and running errands and then napping with the kitties in the afternoon sun for an hour or few. 

Now I have so much time off. Outrageous. I leave the house at 8:10 am, am back home before 5pm. Because of the "wellness benefit" at work, I work out during the day, so coming home is just about chilling, hanging with the cats, making something healthy for dinner, watching my latest tv obsession - The Stargate series from the 1997 pilot episode up til it's 2007 ending. Bed time by 9:30 or 10.

Weekends are a gentle wandering around. I wake up and hang with the kitties, then get up and do the regular routine stuff. Then: what do I feel like doing? Mostly I'm just exploring the local food environment - dozens of farm markets and farms - yesterday I picked strawberries. Today: lots of coffee and this writing, then some vacuuming, then maybe yoga. 

Time seems to have both compressed and expanded. I don't how to say it otherwise. There is a sense, in my body, that I have all the time in the world. There is nothing to rush for. Nothing needs to be done except what I feel to do, and then it just happens, it gets done. When the "push" feeling arises, it's so noticeable, and I'm confronted with the fact that there isn't an outside agency telling me I have to be somewhere, and I'm forced to acknowledge that the "reason" for rushing isn't real, and so I disconnect, and relax, another cord severed from the "unreal".

Even work - I literally make my own schedule on a day to day basis. I do a regular one, 8:30-4:30, because that's what I'm used to, but literally, no one follows up on me, no one is looking for me. I have meetings each week, that sort of thing, but beyond that, as long as I do my 40 hours (5 of which are free for lunch & exercise and can be used however I feel to) and my online schedule is listed and I note day-totals on my biweekly filed time sheet, it's fine. There is no "running late", only coming in and then adjusting leaving, or moving the time to another day. There is no "leaving early", only adjusting time another place. 

And I went from dealing with a couple dozen influxes each week of folks needing holistic work of some sort, dozens and dozens and dozens of phone calls and emails, to only one or two. Mind blowing to me. It all just fell away. I haven't done a formal session in a month. Just a few folks dipping in to ask a few questions, ask for some directional guidance then away. 

The phone doesn't ring. The email box stays quiet.  

Time. So much of it. And sliding by quickly, like a river, like faster-than-light, like Nothing.

Wonderful. . . 

Metastasized Fear

Which leads to what's happened to my nervous system. This push, this shove, this pressing of the mind's will to the belief that time is short results in fear wreaking havoc on all of my bodies - physical, mental, emotional - like an electrical charge that's kicked the circuit breakers off and on so often for so long that the wiring is kind of shot.

I've been pretty dang sick for a really long time now. And now it's very acute. The pain is so intense some times that it's like my CNS is lit on fire. And then it's gone. And then it's back. And then it's gone again.

Grains of any sort are sure to set some of this off. And dairy, too. Sugar, less so, but when in combo with either of the previous two: muthafrakkin argh.

A smart, balanced person would simply stop eating grains, dairy, sugar. But the fear inside of me, utterly metastasized now from years of virtually unchecked growth, has me addicted, bound, cleaved to them. Poison as medicine: soothes one aspect, as it tears another apart. Even simply by my stating this as "a smart, balanced" person shows how deep the wound goes, how prevalent, virulent the infection.

I do a restorative yoga class on Wednesday afternoons that have my body humming with well being, pain free. Sunday evenings is a "medicinal yoga" class that has me detoxing for a day or two, and then opening up pockets of freedom in movement and range. Daily green smoothies help keep the colon functioning, bio-available nutrients flowing. Pasture-raised, locally grown, humanely slaughtered meat. A big box of veggies and local, organic eggs from my CSA each week. Greens three times a day. Two or three rounds of The 5 Tibetan Rites each day. 10-20 minutes of self-massage and stretching before I go to bed. Energywork on myself 10-60 minutes a day. Random, spontaneous, full-bellied singing. It all helps, is all unwinding bits and pieces of No that lives inside of me. 

And I do all of this even as I understand on some deep level that it has nothing to do with grains or dairy, or even exercise, green smoothies, or yoga. These are all symptoms, vapors, of something more pervasive, of something I can't quite see clearly, don't really understand. 

Maybe it would be better to simply stop doing everything. But it doesn't feel that way. What it feels like is that I've become conscious that I'm buried underneath several tons of some hard granular substance - like energetic stones or packed earth - and I'm slowly digging myself out. 

Do you remember that scene in Kill Bill 2 when Beatrix escapes? That's what it feels like, in those moments of super clarity: I know where I am, and I don't have to be here, even though it appears hopeless, and I'm horrified, scared out of my mind at the predicament, but what else to do but use the skills I've honed for several decades now to punch through, dig? 

And the last piece I'll add is this: over and over I acknowledge the fact that everything I'm doing might be about Waking Up, or maybe just be some sort of mental illness, fantasy, more of Maya and her games.

But I understand, either way, if it stays like this and never changes, never empties out into some sort of "enlightenment" thing, it's okay. I ask myself over and over: are you okay with this? that this is it? this right here, right now? no regrets?

That's what I go on: if this is all there is, this digging, this letting go, this life with kitties and silence and time and dreaming, is it enough?

It is. 

Katherine is still alive, but she's fading. And nothing steps forth to save her. Nothing that makes sense anyway. 

Maybe this is what mental illness looks like, when someone gives up on their life. 

Or maybe it's Waking Up, where a fictitious being dies so that something else can shine through.

But it doesn't matter what I think. Or you think. It's all that makes sense in this life anymore . . . 

And the outrageous pervasive joy as I move through my days . . .

And the acute pain of back and belly and CNS and joints . . .

Is all part of it. 

What to do but what's next?

And this is what's next . . . 

Jack Lalanne Drops His Wonderful Body

Good lord, what a hottie, and how incredibly ahead of his time:

 

For more video clips like these head over to Traceless Warrior.

Oh, The FEELINGS

It's easy for me to give myself grief for still not regaining vibrant health. For the ridiculous amount of excess fat. For the back pain. The lack of consistant exercise. It's been a long ragged struggle the past few years, and so often it seems to get down to the place where all I can see is that I'm a comfort addict with no willpower. And there's truth in that. But I got a hit last night of something, and in reaction to it, I wrote on the bathroom mirror, in lipstick no less.

I've felt this several times, but last night I GOT IT. It was like I was trying to take flight with a fifty pound weight attached to my belly. The experience of it, that moment of total clarity of the reality of it felt just terrible, like being trapped, caged in fat. But even as I stood there, feeling the truth of it, the weight I drag around with me, I knew that the awareness of it would pass, and that there was nothing I could do about it. I ran to the bathroom, scavanged through drawers for makeup, found a tube of lip tint, and wrote:

And then I went and ate four large sesame rye crackers with olive oil butter.

I keep thinking it's about the food. I keep trying to manage the food. No Nachos! I scream at myself. Back away from the millet toast, muthaf*cker! I buy organic produce. Faithfully spend a half hour each morning making my gallon of green smoothie in the pre-dawn light. I swear I won't go to the coop and buy cake, and then I go buy cake, convincing myself that at least it's gluten free, and made with organic ingredients. I make roasted broccoli for dinner. Then make a baked potato too and smother it in sour cream and salsa.

But it's not about the food. What I got last night is it's not about the food. It's about the fear and pain, that wall I hit where all I know is that I want to sit down with a book or a tv show and eat something yummy. It's the great comforter, and there's simply nothing else in my world anymore that is simple and straightforward and comforting like food is. And although I have the intellectual knowledge that my body doesn't want anything much other than green smoothies, in the moment, I can't make the jump from addiction to reality.

It's Groundhog Day every day in relation to food. During the week I eat because Hiveworld is Hiveworld and I don't want to work in this environment with these folks anymore and so I focus on food instead. On the weekends I eat because I'm free to do what I want, and what I want to do is cook and eat delcious healthy meals.

But it's not about the food. It's about the feelings. And I absolutely do not know what to do. It doesn't do any good to keep hassling myself, or leaving messages for myself, or trying to get myself to do anything. In the moment, it won't matter. In the moment, my mind is not my own, and the choice gets made based on something else.

And of course, no one can help. This thing I crossed over a few years ago means no one can tell me what to do (because it won't translate). I can get a session that'll have energy flowing along my spine again, or get a soul retrieval via telephone from a shaman in California, or an email from an Enlightened Guy, and they help, but only in a kind of buying-me-some-time kind of way. This portion of the Waking Up program is solo. It's a hard transition to make, but once it's done, it's done. There's no going back to turning over power to someone else. (Of course, you never know where the next nugget of Next is going to come from. But be assured that it's very rare for two nuggets to be coughed up from the same source. In fact I've seen the opposite, though this is most likely simply to keep me from getting even a tiny bit attached to anyone or anything.)

And things are better. Way better than a year ago. My joints no longer ache. There's no more stomach anguish in the middle of the night. Even the back pain is down to a minimal level. But the imbalance isn't cured. The symptoms have been turned way down. But the root cause is still diseased. Something inside isn't lined up correctly. Something is off. I can feel it. In my body. In my mind. And I've no idea how to get to it. No idea how to set it right. Because it's so deep, so intrinsic to who I think I am, it would be like pulling out a hacksaw and removing a leg.

Of course this gruesome image isn't true. But it is. That's the hilarious part. It's no different than any other portion of Waking Up. The leg is killing me, but there is no leg. Just walking around the wall, banging on doors and windows, still can't get in, refuse to give up, walk, walk, walk, bang, bang, holler, holler. Nothing.

Because on this side of the wall, I see a wall. On the other side, I'll laugh as I get there never was a wall.

Nothing to do but pray.

I do a lot of praying these days.

Blabber

I haven't written anything this week because there hasn't been a space of beingness that included both time and inspiration. Kiwi vodka is in a little glass beside me. Kitties play fetch with foil balls. The Mentalist waits for me on Side*reel. Dinner is on the stove. But I need to write.

The Hilarious Coworker has moved on for more money and better benefits. And I am left to do the job of two, plus train the new person, who is sweet, but crazy slow, and kinda computer illiterate, and her back is seriously out. I'm grateful for my job. And I was very very very very glad to see 5 pm roll around.

I am madly in love with my holistic clients. I made a conscious decision to meet them, where they stood, instead of asking that they come to me, crazy me, with my half-awake, half-asleep way of seeing The World and It's Inhabitants. I made a conscious decision to take a deep breath before each session and listen, really listen, for the energy thrumming underneath their words. I am also very conscious of where my line is, that line of what I need to be able to enter into this space of listening with them. I'm giving sessions away each week, I'm doing barters, and folks are paying for sessions. This is the criteria. It must be one of these three. Otherwise, it's just caterwauling via phone, voicemail, and email. Because I follow these three guidelines, I don't feel taken advantage of anymore. And all of sudden, I have this deep, deep well of Yes to draw from for folks. And I am having a dang fine time. And needless to say, business has really, seriously picked up.

Speaking of barters, I now have orange hair. Or rather I have orange and caramel and honey flashes of color in my hair. I have two clients  who work at the most bitchin, radical, technically proficient salon in Wilmington NC: Rockin Roller. They are amazing chicks - one who does shamanic healing via cut and color (Heather!) and one who plucks the vision of beauty out of your head in between jetting around the globe doing all sorts of music videos and fashion shoots (Rozy!). They are these gorgeous women who let me hang out with them to soak up the fiery edge of their Yes, and I get to slowly, surely beautify myself in the process. I am so grateful to these two luscious women who are slowly patiently helping me play with the whole beauty thing. Yeah, sure, they think I'm nuts, but they like me, and running around with no makeup, pajamas disguised as work clothes, and a bland I Belong To Hiveworld look doesn't mean that Waking Up comes any quicker, or is more fun. Pictures in the sidebar to the left - and more to follow in the next couple of days! :) . . . 

And speaking of clients part 2: I have to come up with an other word for client - it sounds so cold and stoopid - any suggestions?

Which leads me to The Story of Katherine. I hit a place that told me: work out your shit, mutherf*cker. And by sh*t it means the stuff stored in this being called Katherine, be it physical, mental, or emotional. I trust the process. I trust the wall I hit a few months ago that said: deal with your fat and your fear. I don't know how long it will take. And I don't care. I trust the process. I'm surrendered. Even if it means I go get orange sh*t put in my hair and I wake up the next morning, look in the mirror and understand that I am closer to appearing like Who I Am.

And a Oh Yes Let's Do This Now message to those lovely, sweet, well-meaning, buttheaded caterpillars with their delusions of butterfly, who like to send me emails detailing my many failures: kiss my wings/probiscus/far segment muthafrakkers. And I mean that with all the love in my poor, fractured, arrhythmic heart. Because, seriously? It isn't nice or helpful or even truthful. That sh*t is just cold . . . 

Yes, I need more vodka. And to get to my coconut rice, roasted carrots & broccoli, and toasted pumpkin seeds dinner before it turns sadly wilted. (Yum)

And you, if you were here, we'd laugh and I'd pour another as we settled into the cushions and I shared a kitty with you to keep you warm and toasty on this chilly Carolina night . . .