Katrina's Joy - Share, Grow, Embrace & Discover

Living a balanced life

katrina — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:45:04 -0500

I have been holding the question, “What does it mean to live a balanced life?” in my heart all week. And though the question is more like, “What does it mean for me to live a balanced life?” it still seems bigger than me or my day-to-day challenges.

It is as if I am standing at the front of the class at the blackboard looking up at this hieroglyphic like equation with chalk in my hand. And when I turn around, everyone else is looking up expectedly with pencils raised and ready in case I stumble upon a solution.

Are we all in this together?

I sure hope so.

I am convinced that the struggle for balance in our lives is a modern predicament. It is born of media overload, overblown expectations of what “life has to offer” and the breaking down of the strict social and cultural caste system we call western civilization. It is both very disturbing and very exciting. So many of us former peasants and slaves expect so much more out of life than our parents, grandparents and ancestors.

We expect to enjoy life. We expect to be amused. We expect to be famous for 15 minutes. We think all this hive like activity must have a larger meaning, context or purpose.

What we forget is that most of us were never meant to have time to consider such grandiose ideas. Our socialization prepared us to be cogs, wheels and overseers, not artists, visionaries and dreamers. We are ill prepared for a life filled with meaning, divine inspiration and mystery.

I was raised to be a worker, a leader amongst workers and if I was lucky either a teacher of workers and their children or to escape to the managerial strata … to manage workers.

I was not raised to be a mystic.

So whenever I try to make sense of my life, I look at it through the lens of my working class roots.

Well of course, I work really hard for long hours … that is because I am a good worker. What do you mean I need to make space for thinking, writing, meditating, resting and self care? I should be working! And working … is hard! Sitting and thinking is not hard enough. I need to get back to work.

So when I read, write, meditate and rest … I feel like a lazy bum. But when I am teaching, designing software, cranking out web sites and traveling all over god’s creation, it is difficult and so it is good … because it means I must be working!

So I feel like I am working all the time – because I keep filling up my schedule so it becomes difficult to just sit and think. And as much as I feel unsatisfied with all these life balance challenges – I also feel like myself when things are challenging.

I am nervous when I have “too” much time. What if I get caught … lollygagging? What would the other workers think?

Heh! So it comes down to this …I work hard …because I was raised to work hard. I am punishing myself because of a societal imprint.

Enough.

More later …

Finding Balance

katrina — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:00:00 -0500

I often feel out of balance in my life.

I feel like I am working all the time.

I feel like I am missing out on the simpler pleasures.

I feel like I need more XX in my life. Where XX stands for (amongst other things) enjoyment, relaxation, self-nurturance and social connection.

However, the real issue is ... am I really as out of balance as I feel?

This is an important distinction ... I have felt lazy when I was doing the work of twelve people. I have felt incompetent while experimenting with technology so cutting edge only four people in the entire country understood it ... besides me. And I have felt unacknowledged when people have showered me with sincere praise and recognition. So the fact that I feel out of balance does not mean I *am* out of balance.

Over the last few weeks, I have been working along with other free-lancers, knowledge workers and non-traditional artisans to devise a methodology that would help us is to illustrate whatever balance that is already present in our lives and nudge us in the moment of decision making toward improving our sense of balance.

We have crafted incredibly beautiful balance bots, mandalas, diagrams and tools to help us track this elusive balance. And we have discovered a great deal about all the ways we differ and the many, many ways we are the same. One very smart fellow even did a tarot reading to help us in our quest.

But here we are, weeks later, still scratching our collective heads. We are oh so close, but it is starting to feel like it is time for that intuitive leap to reveal itself, that qualitative jump that will transcend all our individual assumptions and blow all our minds.

Because, I am starting to wonder if it is not our lives that need to change so much as it is our conception of what it means to live a balanced life.

What if … my life already has a dynamic, Two of Pentacles, kind of balance … and I fail to notice because I focus all my energy/attention on working hard?

What if … I dismiss the importance of all the openness, the relaxation, and the social connections that I already have abundantly in my life?

What if … I attached as much importance and visibility to the lunar, yin and watery aspects of my life as I do to the solar, yang and fiery aspects?

Hmmm …What if the balance I seek … is within?

That would make so much sense. I have been focused on balancing between self-nurturance and sharing. This has been helpful in many ways. It helped me to restart my yoga practice, encouraged me to rest more often and it allowed me to began reading my mystical texts again without feeling guilty about “not working” … whatever that means. But the renewed balance in my life has not sated that thirst for balance within me.

What is missing is a sense of balance, core balance if you will. So how do I encourage core balance? My yoga, walking, meditation and canonical prayers are part of my overall practice to build core strength.

What if the balance I seek is simply another facet of core strength?

…

I promise myself to care for this inner questioning as I move through my week. I will allow these ideas and questions to settle into my prayers, my yoga practice and my breathing. I will give this process the time it needs and nurture this unfolding mystery so it can eventually sprout and bloom. I hope to share its fruit in the coming days and weeks.

But in the meantime … I ask each of you … how do you find balance in your life? How do you acknowledge the balance already present? And how do you strengthen your physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional core?

Yoga Musing

katrina — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:02:37 -0500

Yesterday was filled with so much delight. This year’s Connect DC summer solstice ritual will henceforth be known as the laughing ritual. That is what happens when you invoke both Coyote and Hotei, the laughing Buddha. My cheeks were already aching from the London bridges falling down grounding, the hokey pokey circle casting, and the nursery rhyme calling of the elements. By the time we got to the laughing yoga meditation and later the coyote dance throw down, oh my goodness, several of us were holding our bellies as our grins stretched all the way back to our ears. It was glorious!

But this morning I woke up tired.

So after stumbling through the morning service to the feline deities, I reluctantly rolled out the yoga mat. I was convinced that it would be near impossible to squeeze in more than three salutations. Heck I thought as I settled down to chant the invocation, I will be lucky to do one.

So as I started my sixth (!) salutation, I felt such gratitude to my yoga teachers. All these years of stumbling into yoga class, holding on to hope when my muscles seized and joints ached, all those blessed props and adjustments to help those muscles and joints, and here I am joyfully completing six salutes … on a Monday … after a public ritual … when I would have rather slept till noon. Wow.

As I laid down for savasana, I remembered how even the thought of yoga use to frighten me. I had thought that yoga was all about those incredible poses you always saw on book and video covers. I thought yoga was for the fit, the flexible, and the strong. I thought yoga was for slim people who ate nothing but petals, seeds and fragrant rice. I thought that yoga was out of the question for a fat, sick, stiff jointed old reprobate like myself. I was so incredibly wrong.

Yoga is so much more than poses, it is a system of philosophy, a worldview – some would call it a spiritual journey. I read at some point that all the poses are about teaching you how to breathe. Most folks who feel good after a yoga practice do so because they finally got all the oxygen they needed.

But what about those poses?

There is no requirement, at least in Anusara yoga, that you attain the “perfect” pose. What you aim for is your pose, your own variant that expresses the ideal of the pose in your body. But it is not just a game of improvisation. Your pose consists of applying the principles of yoga to the unique abilities and capacities of your body. And the principles, although you can read about them in a book or listen to them on recorded media, are best learned at the hands of an experienced teacher.

A yoga teacher can help you attain your pose by teaching the principles, demonstrating the poses, and illustrating adjustments and props, but more importantly by adjusting your pose. And this is crucial. As I said above, your pose is found by applying the yoga principles to your body. So a good teacher will help you to examine your edges and respect your limits. It is only in this container of self-examination and self-respect that your pose can be defined.

It is a lot like life.

I have had such incredible teachers throughout my life. They have demonstrated the principles of vocation, self-sacrifice, joy filled living, devotion, continuous study, delayed gratification, self care, gratitude, right livelihood, leadership, humility, service, discipline, independence, interdependence, compassion, tough love, resilience, ambition, recognition, and confidence amongst many other gifts. My teachers have illustrated how to move toward these principles by taking one step after another. And they, like my yoga teachers, offered me the assistance I needed to examine my edges and respect my limits so I could discover how each of these fundamental ideals expressed itself in my life … on my journey.

And so this morning I am filled with gratitude. To all my teachers and to all my students who teach me as well, thank you. Today, this very morning, I am grateful for finding my pose.

Mid June Glimpses

katrina — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:29:53 -0500

Well that was a long period of silence!

I had meant to post so many times over the last few weeks. But life kept surprising me. And I needed to focus on maintaining my footing as it seemed that the very ground itself kept moving, shimmying and quaking.

So I am surfacing not so much because life has quieted down, but because my need for expression has bubbled up. So I offer a few quick glimpses from my life in the midst of madness, mystery and other oddities.

Just as the emotional side effects of the prednisone significantly calmed down, my doctor had me lower the dosage due to the physical side effects. I had not realized that it was the prednisone that was making me sweat profusely and had me up four or more times a night to pee. The latest lab tests are inconclusive, so I now have a referral to see a rheumatologist. It seems that Eridanus and I will continue our game of leapfrog in our respective medical journeys.
Apparently my life was not full enough so I have decided to go back to school. I have decided to apply to the Assisi Institute (www.assisiconferences.com) for their certification program in Archetypal Pattern Analysis. It is a two-year program, but my plan is to do it in three years so I can spread out the cost. So on average, I will spend three long weekends a year in Brattleboro, Vermont. Now I have to decide if it was actually a good idea to agree to teach at Cherry Hill this fall. Ai yi yi!
I have been feverishly working on the issue of life balance these last few weeks. I have been participating in an experiment with one of my favorite bloggers, David Seah (http://davidseah.com). David with the help of his avid readers had been trying to find ways to model, track and maintain balance between various aspects of our lives. I was happily building little balance bots, butterflies and grids as I joined in the fun. I have come to the conclusion that what I needed was not a balance between work and life, or between creativity and conversation – what I needed was a balance between self-nurturance and giving to the world. I want to write more about this topic, so look for some ranting on this in the near future.
I have been slowly reading a wonderfully dense book called Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill. It has been slow going partly because of the prednisone but also, Underhill packs a lot of punch into every sentence and paragraph. I also want to write more about this topic too.
I have restarted my (almost) daily yoga practice and weekly walking. Last week, since I was missing my yoga class, I upped my practice to six sun salutations instead of the regular three. It was glorious! Apparently the first three were more like a good warm up. And going past them produced such an incredible rush of endorphins. I could feel it because of how the prednisone allowed me to feel how my muscles responded to each pose. Now I do six salutations daily and as a result I have improved several muscular skeletal issues with my shoulders and hips! Even Dr Z , my (Romulan) chiropractor, was impressed. Yay me!
I have hit a major snag with the editing of my book. No big deal, I just have to print out another copy because my first reader misplaced hers -- y’know, the one with all her edits and feedback …sigh. Hopefully, I will finish the edit phase real soon. I promise there will be more updates about my book progress as warranted.

And that is it for now. I will try not to wait so long to post here. Although I have been writing, it has been almost entirely in my paper journal or on someone else’s web site.

I definitely want to write more blog posts. I have a lot of ideas, musings and experiences I want share. After all, writing is one of the ways I make sense of life, the universe and everything. So you can expect more wild-eyed rants from this crazed mystic.

End of May Check In

katrina — Sun, 31 May 2009 15:15:54 -0500

I have been living with an expanded awareness of pain levels, painkillers, emotional roller coasters and subjective reality for the last two weeks. After noting the heavily feeling-toned prose of my earlier posts, I decided to put my critical analyst cap snugly back on and engage in some dosage experimentation. After successfully determining the patterns of my emotional, physical and mental responses to prednisone under varying dosage levels, I began a regimen that minimized my discomfort while sheltering my loved ones from the worst parts of my emotional cross hairs. (One dose late at night followed by one late in the morning – 5 mg each.)

So as long as I time it just right, each day I can have 2 periods of lucidity bracketed by complete loopiness at one end and a hint of homicidal rage at the other – oh the fun to be had! I also figured out that the loopy feeling did not actually get in the way of my doing highly technical work, I just need to work at a slower pace than usual – more human like in fact.

And although I am not exactly pain-free, the level is low enough that I can function somewhat normally – from a 7 to a 3/4 on a scale from 0 to 10. The remaining drawback is that I feel stilted, disconnected and unable to read anything requiring deep concentration, i.e. all my normal “recreational” texts. I also was less willing to be around people so I have spent a great deal of my time alone. Even for this introvert it was a bit more than I liked so I decided to take a break from the pills. So I backed off the meds slowly over the last few days … till of course the full level of the pain came screeching back. Ai yi yi!

Sigh … Angela picked up my refill a few hours ago. I do not really have a choice at the moment; I have lost the ability to repress my awareness of the pain. Ah … the sweet smell of defeat … or is it success … I dunno.

I am frankly tired of talking about this current misadventure. I want so badly to share some other insights that have been bubbling up lately. So I am going to change focus for a short while at least. I promise I will keep folks posted as to any progress (or lack thereof) during this healing crisis. But for now, I am moving on.

Thank you everyone for your prayers, love and understanding. It really means a lot to me.

love,
Katrina

Reality

katrina — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:56:11 -0500

Well, after writing about my pain, I realized that Helena and Northlight were right. I could still compose my thoughts; I just had to acknowledge the lens through which my ideas are currently being filtered. I had meant to write about this very topic before the current misadventure, and besides, it bubbled up on its own during my walk. And thank you to all who have sent their prayers and love. I truly appreciate it.

I have just finished my walk and am now sitting in a Takoma Park café. Not quite on the sidewalk, but hey they have wifi. I was thinking about the nature of reality. I have been reading several mystical texts and this subject comes up frequently.

As I walked, I had observed the interiority of my experience. I was forcing myself to really look at the trees and plants. During the pain-free window, I was delighted to discover just how beautiful this park really is when you open to it. I always knew it was beautiful, but I had no idea how much of the beauty was unknown to me. Now with the pain pushed just a bit away by the prednisone, I was able to briefly access the reverie. There is still too much pain for me to completely open. I could feel it acting like a dirty lens over my senses.

I despise this crippling. Now that I know what is possible, I want to drink in the beauty and allow my soul to take flight.

I equally despise pain pills however. Back in 1980 when I initially injured my knee, it was the pain pills that caused me to do so much harm to my body. I thought naively that the pills were a cure. All they did was mask the pain, so I kept running, lifting weights and climbing ladders. And oh my god … by the time I figured out what was happening I had ruined not only my left knee but also my right one as well. So I do not trust pain pills.

But, that is also not the complete truth. I also despised what they do to my perceptions of reality. When I was recovering from my emergency surgery of a few years back, first the nurses then Ishtar had to force me to ingest my cocktail of drugs. I was on oxycontin, percasec and vioxx all at the same time – and I was still in pain! The only thing that made me take them was the knowledge that the extreme level of my pain was actually interfering with my recovery.

Still … I hated how loopy and out of touch I was with reality. This probably sounds odd considering how much time I intentionally spend in a spaced out state as a mystic. But I know exactly where I am and what I am doing when I cross that boundary. The drugs took me there without any of my hard won self-awareness or self-control.

So I intensely dislike how the prednisone is messing with my emotions. Dr. H says I can double the dose, but I am reluctant. I do not like how it disrupts my almost Vulcan-like self-composure. Now I completely get how my subjective perceptions do not match up completely with how folks who know me might describe my emotional flexibility. I am fully aware that I am quite capable of expressing a wide range of emotions and the overall healthy way I can access my emotional core without a lot of prompting. Yet, I do have a sense of what does and what does not disturb me. So I do not like how my emotional balance seems to be at the mercy of every insufferable passer-by. And yeah, I know that it is a subjective assessment.

Subjectivity has its place along the spectrum of perception; we each in our own ways can provide a slightly more objective assessment for each other. But even as we mirror and validate, or correct and inform each other’s subjective assessments, we too are victims of our own subjective filters even when we view each other.

We exist and intermingle alongside each other at the subjective end of the perception spectrum. Further along is what we refer to as objective reality, which is just a tad ahead of what we laughingly refer to as consensual reality. We call it consensual as if we have a choice – we don’t. Consensual reality is more like the gates parents erect to keep their children safe. It provides a safe place for us to grow, evolve and transform. The edge is “sanitize for our protection.” Beyond this consensual barrier is what we mystics call the Absolute Reality. It contains the building blocks of life, the playground of the gods and the essence of existence. We are not supposed to live there. In fact, we developed as individuals so we could populate the subjective end of the spectrum. That is our domain.

But realizing there is something beyond our subjective sense is one measure of evolution, and dare I say it … of maturity. Not just as individuals, but most especially as a culture, a nation, a species and as a planet. So the call from the divine we hear is actually a call from the other side. It is a call to awaken and a call to return. To get there however, we have to climb back along that ladder back towards the real.

And so I acknowledge that I am stronger than I have ever been and healthier than I ever dared to imagine. And … I am in pain. I want enough of a break from the pain that it no longer blunts my living in beauty, but not so much that it wreaks havoc with my emotions. Ultimately, I want to be rid of this constant pain. I am willing to undergo the journey, but I will do it on my terms.

So for at least today, I will enjoy the beauty that peeks through and allow my Vulcan side a bit of peace from the storm. And I completely own that this is my subjective view of what we call reality. I heartily encourage all of us to do the same.

Thanks for all your prayers and thank you everyone for listening.

The Epic Burn

katrina — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:24:47 -0500

I have not been able to describe what I have been facing because I cannot as of yet get enough emotional distance from it. Every time I pause on the page, my eyes begin to tear up and I have to abandon the effort. It is too close, too present and much too raw.

But dearest Northlight says she wants to read about it. So I will share where I am at the moment. My hope is that my sharing will inform, validate and/or educate folks about invisible illnesses such as mine.

I need to find a place to start, and that has been a large part of the problem. So I will try and start at the beginning … no not the beginning, maybe more like a few weeks ago.

As most folks who know me are aware, for the past couple of decades, I have pretty much been in almost constant pain. However, the full extent of the pain was apparently a mystery even to me. This is the story of how I came face to face with this mystery.

So … every winter I face a really bad outbreak of my eczema. I call it the creeping crud. This winter’s version was particularly bad since I never fully recovered from the previous winter’s scourge. So I decided in a rare case of exasperation to ask my doctor for help. She prescribed a steroid pack to knock out the infection. The steroids would stem the inflammation and give my poor skin a chance to recover. I would take six pills on day one, five on day two, till I finished off the pack with a single pill on day six.

Well, you can guess what happened next.

I started the pack the morning after one of my all day classes. I was exhausted, drained and feeling like I was swimming through pea soup. I swallowed the first two pills, ate breakfast and laid down for my usual morning-after-teaching coma. And suddenly my eyesight improved and I even felt a jolt in my energy. I sat up shocked as I suddenly could think and breathe fully. I stood up and suddenly I could feel the muscles in my legs.

As the day progressed, I found that I could read and comprehend complicated text, my bra stopped feeling like it was biting into my skin, my shoulders relaxed enough to not need pillows behind me as support, and I even played with my kitten. My taste buds were able to discern the subtle flavors of the fruit, cheeses, teas and olive oil. My whole world opened up and I felt more alive than I had felt in years, decades … lifetimes.

And then reality hit me. I finally realized just how much pain I had been enduring all these years, and more importantly I finally knew how much it had cost me. As each day brought more and more revelations, I would find myself crying as I began dreading the return of what I now knew was a terrible burden in my life.

In yoga class, I finally understood how all those poses affected the muscles in my body. I had never registered how much each pose both strengthened and challenged my body. I could meditate at the drop of a hat since now I did not have to first use such a commanding will to force myself to relax – I just relaxed.

Folks kept saying how I even looked younger. I also discovered what everybody else was complaining about with tight muscles, being worn out from exercising and even … just being hungry. I ate better because I could actually feel when I was hungry. I knew when I was tired, thirsty or even just content. All my emotional, physical and mental responses were based on being able to sense my own body without all the clues being masked by pain. I danced with glee after a day filled with yoga, walking and writing.

A few days before I finished the pack, I fell into a deep awareness of just how brutal I have been with myself. All these years, I have beaten myself up for not being able to keep up with the rigors of my life all the while completely unaware of just how much of my life had been obscured by pain.

I was deeply humbled by all I had been able to accomplish in spite of the pain. I also spent a lot of time forgiving myself for all the self-abuse I had engaged in unknowingly. I also allowed myself to grieve all that I had let go of because of the pain – all the dreams, the opportunities and even my corporate career.

Then I finished the pack. And just as I feared, all the pain slowly roared back. And oh my god … it was far worse than before. Because prior to this regimen, I had been able to bury my awareness of it. But here it was, front and center – it was excruciating. By day three off the pills, even my face was on fire.

My entire body was engulfed in flames. There were some vestiges of the reprieve still present. I could still inhale deeply at times. I could concentrate and read detailed descriptions early in the day. Meditation went back to being a real struggle. But the worst was yoga class. I had lost the ability to feel anything but constant pain. Every pose, every breath and every turn elicited just more pain. I could do the poses, but nothing felt good about it. At the end, I laid down on the mat and finally just let myself weep all the tears I had fought back during the session. It was horrible.

So now I am on prednisone till my doctor can figure out what can be done to help me. Prednisone affects the emotions among other things, so the slight easing of the wall of flames comes with a fiery emotional response – oh goody!

I have gone this route many, many times before. Test after test comes back inconclusive, till I finally just give up and stop complaining. I do not want to live my life on painkillers. But I do not want to go back to that level of pain. It is infuriating. It is maddening. And it just makes me want to shout, scream and … cry.

I have no emotional distance from this reality. Normally when I can write about my life challenges, I have enough distance from it that I can see what is there for me within the difficulty. Right now … all I can see are irritations.

But there is a deeper message here and I want so desperately to share it. Suffering on its own is not redemptive; sometimes … hell most times … it suppresses the life force. It is a lot like oppression. There is nothing noble or endearing about pain or suffering. Yes, it can make you stronger, and it can teach you a lot about what you are made of … but it comes at a cost. All these years, I had been unconsciously buying into all those stories from my childhood of Catholic martyrdom. Enough.

I would very much like to experience life on its own terms without the blanket of pain, thank you very much. And if *you* are suffering in silence, stop it. There is no reason, no good reason, for any of us to miss out on what life has to offer. Right now I am missing yoga because I do not want to spend my time on the mat in tears. But as soon as the sun comes out fully and it warms up, I am going for a walk. Because dammit … I *refuse* to miss out on life … again.

Snapshots May 09

katrina — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:07:28 -0500

I have a lot going on in my life as of late so it has been difficult to sit down and write.

But no, that is not wholly true.

It is difficult to compose, not write. I am having difficulties with my thought processes, so although I can think about complex topics and pontificate on them endlessly to anyone ~~unlucky~~ silly enough to come into my orbit, I cannot take these thoughts and coherently reproduce them effectively on the page.

I also get how that last paragraph seems to contradict itself.

But the thoughts I want share are way too cool and way too deep to just be thrown onto the page. So they will have to wait till I can untangle the rat’s nest settling into my mind at the moment. It is partially due to the medication I am on. I have been on low dose prednisone for about a week, which is probably the source of the following irritations. There is a long story that goes along with this, so I will save it till I can write it out to my satisfaction.

So instead I offer you a few choice rants from my life at the moment.

My accountant and I had a humorous conversation this morning about how last year a man who had never met me before had somehow determined that I needed advice on what computer to buy. As I was leaving her inner office, I was asking her about any special tax considerations that would make it preferable to buy a new laptop in 2008 instead of waiting till 2009. So it was a tax question, not a technical question. She had responded that I should buy it in 2008. She asked if I wanted to take her copy of Consumer Reports to figure out what I needed and I said no thanks since I was planning to buy another Mac Pro laptop.
And that is when this complete stranger began telling me all these reasons why I should not buy a Mac. At first I just stared at him as he went on and on, then I said I was familiar with computers and had made up my mind. That is when it became really strange. Lets just say, I ended the conversation abruptly by flipping open the magazine and displaying how Consumer Reports agreed with me and brusquely left.

This year, I shared with my accountant just how outrageous it had felt to me at the time. She was unaware of the details of my career as a telecommunications engineer, hardware engineer, system designer, smart phone technologies researcher and national expert, international video/caching/gateway/multicast protocol standards expert and internet architect. I became a web designer because I thought it would be fun to work with the easy stuff for a change. I still laugh at how Starhawk keeps referring to me as a software engineer. I used that title back when folks could not figure out what I did for a living as an electrical engineer.

I bring this up because yesterday Rose looked me straight in the eyes and asked me sarcastically if anyone had ever told me that I was a geek. I at first laughed very hard. She made the comment because Amazon had sent me an email listing all these mathematical books that were on sale and I was checking them out with interest. But then I stopped and thought about it. No, actually most people have no idea just how much of a geek I really am. That is why I usually have to bring it up. I am frankly tired of being a stealth geek. I want folks to know that this is what a geek looks like. I think maybe I need to make a T-shirt or at least a button.

Then I read Wil Wheaton’s critical comments concerning a web campaign to enhance the perception of geeks. And I have to agree with him with one caveat. I was always the cool one, I was always the tough one AND I have always been a geek. So like him, I completely resent the implication that we need anyone else’s approval but I also feel that being a geek is not mutually exclusive with being a bad ass. Just saying …
I have also never liked how the media continually portrays black inner city culture. I get how contemporary culture is defined more by what is “in” with young people rather than say us fifty-year-olds. But give me a break. I grew up in the ghetto, ran with gangs, been in a few fights and even use to carry a gun. But the entire time I used complete sentences, wore clothes that fit, did my homework, showed up for work and school on time and paid my bills. I am mentioning this not to assail the so-called unruly youth but to stop folks my age from acting like complete idiots in an attempt to pretend they are young again. If I see one more adult male over the age of forty wearing baggy pants and talking like a rapper, I may have reached back to *my* youth and stomp his ass. Just saying …
My last issue is with my hair. I keep holding off coloring it because without the grey all kinds of people seem to want to write me off. So let me just say this last bit as a public service for the majority culture – you know who you are.
Different people age differently. Many women of color look much, much younger than their white counterparts. Do not assume that I am appreciably younger than you. You can tell how old we are by noting several clues. Clothes, mannerisms and language are what we use to determine who is the elder in a situation. Notice who the black people are holding doors open for and follow suit. I know it is subtle, but we have spent our entire lives learning all about you, now it is your turn. Again, just saying …

/ rant

Man, these pills are making me feel more than a little bitchy. Hopefully I will be back to my normal eloquence and harmonious mood sooner rather than later. Hope, hope, hope …

Through the Eyes of a Mystic

katrina — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:54:52 -0500

It must be difficult being a student of a mystic. Often I feel like I owe my students an apology.

In my defense, I feel like I am in a single continuing conversation, and the faces all start to blur at some level. So I will begin conversations with, “As we were discussing,..” and then realize ten minutes in that this person who is now in front of me has no idea to what I am referring.

And I will say to the person to whom I began the conversation, “I was talking with a dear friend and …”. And only much later does it occur to me that this may in fact be that dear person standing in front of me.

I often say things that mean something different than how it first appears. I have noticed people correcting me then immediately repeat back what I thought I had said. I cannot tell if I had that part of the conversation internally or whether what I intended to say was spoken out of order.

I find myself confused often in conversations. I am hearing things that were not spoken out loud … or something. Sometimes it is as if I maybe missed part of the conversation.

This would all be frightening, disorientating, or depressing if were not for the almost constant flow of light, beauty, joy, connection and delight that permeates almost everything I do. I am reassured by every inhale, delighted by every blooming flower and comforted by every drop of water that passes across my lips.

Life is so rich, sweet, succulent, promising and full right at this very moment.

Oh yeah, did I mention that my book is finished? I am writing the preface and making final touches on the intro. And right now, that is oh so sweet and satisfying.

Blessings of the Waxing Moon as we turn toward Beltane’s Eve.

Continuous Learning

katrina — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:36:19 -0500

I am really enjoying Reflections' current book study of True Love by Thich Nhat Hanh. Although my personal practices are quite rigorous, I am always looking for ways to improve, deepen or invigorate them.

Sometimes when I hear about the practices of others, I find myself wondering if maybe my practices have become too shallow or hollow. But when I read mystical texts or sit at the feet of teachers both great and small, I discover instead that maybe I have reached a plateau in my current practices and perhaps it is time to deepen them.

Deepening a practice does not have to equate to dedicating additional time, or attempting more exquisite poses. Often it is the slight adjustment coming from a differing perspective or a new teacher. My yoga instructor Carrie replaced our previous long-loved instructor Sara. Sara, realizing that many of us were not progressing out of her class because of our love for her, raised the level of the class. And Carrie, oh my goodness, provides not only a rigorous training but also a wealth of yoga philosophy and eastern wisdom. We are all progressing in our yoga practice in ways we could not have imagined with Sara.

And it is similar with Hanh. My already laborious shadow work practice has deepened considerably. Just the notion of caring for your pain like a mother cares for her crying child has opened me in ways I thought unimaginable even late last year.

So I am stunned when I hear of folks eschewing further study as if there is nothing new under the sun. What planet do they live on? Everyday I am faced with such newness, such raw potential, how could you ever shut yourself off from this beauty, from this majesty?

My spiritual practices are not a replacement for study, as study is not a replacement for practice. As a Marxist-Leninist, I embraced both theory and praxis. And now almost 35 years later as a warrior mystic I am advocating much the same.

Study is in fact one of the threads of my mystery school. We are building spiritual scholarship alongside spiritual practice. And reaching outside of our comfort zone is one of the prerequisites for continuous learning. That is why I assigned such texts as Covey’s First Things First, Palmer’s Intuitive Body and Cameron’s Artists Way. And this year we turn to Buddhism to challenge our notions of what it means to open our hearts.

As a mystic, I can find truth almost anywhere, so I want my students to be familiar with truths outside their own. Like my beloved teacher Sara, if my students get stuck, I raise the level.

What is *your* practice? What do *you* study? And are *you* too comfortable?

Om, Namaste, Ashe, Amen and Blessed Be