Oh Vermont. Just back from hippie yoga and we did a meditation which I actually found really useful. It’s the basic concept of feeding the things you want to grow, with an autumnal twist – visualize a tree (or you know, if you want to hippie it up a notch, visualize yourself as a tree) where the roots are your ancestors, the base of you being here, and the branches are filled with the fruit of the past year. Some fruit is all nice and shiny and good and you want to pick it and some is all rotten and worm-filled and you want to let it fall to the ground and compost. & then the nice apples you can take and plant the seeds so the good things of this year can bloom and grow. BLOOM AND GROW, FOREVER. Ok, seriously though, I said it was hippie. Still. I’m so wound up and tense & holding on to the rotten shit that trying to put abstract ideas into a visual bucket is actually really helpful.

What are you leaving behind this winter?

The more I hear about the Occupy Wall Street movement that’s happening, and especially the “We Are The 99%” piece that’s come out of it, the more hope I have for this country (even while it breaks my heart.) It’s imperative that we have a voice, an inclusive & united voice to counteract this Tea Party nonsense that threatens the very fibers of our existence on this planet. It’s hard to not feel hopeless when the only politician who seems to care / is outside the money game is Bernie, when voting seems like a joke, and when the corporations feel like a juggernaut that will crush us all to make a buck.

But rather than occupying Wall Street, I find that my impulse is to abandon it. Occupy my own damn street? Sure. Wall Street? They can keep it. I’m swapping my big bank account from California for a locally run one that’s entirely self contained without outside interests. I’ll keep choosing local, handmade, secondhand, and independent companies for my purchases, keep looking for ways to barter and create alternative economies. At this point, it’s not just a statement, it’s a safety net. We need to build a system of likeminded people & support, resources for self sustainability, food swaps and co-operatives. Yeah, I’m not going to die wealthy,  but I think I’m ok with that. I’m still working and doing what I need to do to survive (vs my crazy anarchist teen years) & have a family. But I want to do it with my own rules. I know it’s not that simplistic, but it’s what I can do.

And yeah, the Koch bros. are making way more off selling petrochemical equipment to Iran than they are selling me some Brawny paper towels, but at least I feel like I can do something by taking myself out of their game as much as I can.

The corporations are going to do everything they can to make you think you need the shit they’re selling.

DON’T BUY IT.

A simple directed action suddenly manifests into exactly what I’ve needed for the past year. There’s a clarity around decision making lately that hangs crystalline, ready for me to go back and to look through again if I start to doubt. This clarity was much harder to engage with in years past, something that before only happened like a flash of lightning & was elusive and wavering. Now, it’s almost as if I can put certain decisions into a bucket of Knowing and let go of them, with full confidence that the decision and the direction is where we need to go. Is this what age does?

& of course I still don’t know, where these seemingly right decisions will lead us. Will lead me. This past week I have felt extremely stressed, panicked, afraid. But we have to trust our knowing selves, our gut instincts, and our crystalline moments, or we can’t trust anything. So. No terror, only trust. Onward and upward.

I recently re-read this post about seeing Diane DiPrima speak, and it reminded me that we have our answers. The doubting, treading water moments – there’s nothing there to learn from. Silence it & just listen.

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
- WB Yeats

When I let the concept of “success” kick around my noggin, what floats to the surface are thoughts like:

knowing without being told
cosmic hum
expansive view of reality
being open to potential
released from boundaries
solidly intangible

Success doesn’t have to be a series of things happening, it can be a state of being. Achievement = being grounded and checked in. It’s not about a bucket list or finally taking that trip to China. It’s about being the most tuned in version possible of the little fizzing chunk of matter that is Me.

People like to talk a lot about luck, and the traits that make people lucky. But if you’re awake and following your intuition, you’ll feel grounded, secure, and like you’re on the right path. Sometimes this means doors open without being pushed (“luck”) and sometimes you have to push (“work”). When I know I can trust my instinct, I will not steer myself in the wrong direction.  I don’t need to spend so much time thinking about what I want to do, I just need to be present, and trust that I will pick up the correct threads.

I started reading this book, Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art – & there are so many little messages that have me saying “YES YES THAT IS IT” that I may need to actually type out the whole book here. A handful of favorites:

The Yoruba believe that before we are born we meet the High God and request the life we want. Although the too-greedy may find their requests denied, within limits we can choose our fate. Unfortunately, at the moment of birth the soul forgets all that has transpired; therefore, when men and women feel they’ve gotten off-track, when the way seems confused and knotted up, they go to the diviner in hopes of seeing once again the design of things as it is remembered in heaven.

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Turning things over to chance, letting them fall as they may, means in this case “forgetting the hand,” which in turn means, first of all, getting away from the hand’s acquired and habitual gestures.

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More conservative minds deprive coincidence of meaning by treating it as background noise or garbage, but the shape-shifting mind pesters the distinction between accident and essence and remakes this world out of whatever happens.

It’s all flowers and geriatric living up in here lately. Brunch and Sunday drives, looking for treasures. This pewter jug was strangely appealing to me, &  totally something my mom would have.

A set of 4 champagne coupes, for fancy living.

A glass and silverplate container to keep the cat from stealing my earrings and rings while I shower. A cameo earring went missing the 2nd day I had it, and it still hasn’t been found. Devil kitten.

Way too many bags. I don’t need them, but can’t seem to leave them. $2!! Come on! Treasure hunting without a shop to toss the overflow is a world of danger.

& a wee tusky necklace.

That was the treasure part. The hunting part is harder. I’ve been really listless and depressed, still. I still don’t know what sort of things I want to be doing. So much I read these days seems to expect that a lady of my age and means one should 1. have a self-owned business (etsy, etc) 2. be a pro-blogger or 3. make some babies. Or all 3, ideally. These are not things I want to do.

I’m used to having a certain cosmic clarity around my next-steps and path in life, and for the 1st time in a long time, I feel pretty floundering and lost.

I know much of my fuzziness is due to literal eye fuzziness, but it’s crazymaking to not have a focus. In the past, I’d make art or music or put on a show or start a new venture – but now, at 35, I feel like my decisions need to be BIG LIFE DECISIONS, like I’ve done all these one-off things & now every step has to be a major foundation for family and future. Is that married-head thoughts? Where is that coming from? It’s paralyzing because nothing feels like the right thing, like the right steps.

What I do know:

Financial security is important to me
I do want a family, though the idea of one right now is panic inducing
Vermont seems like Home
I need to start creating again – my fingers have been itching to paint
Maybe I don’t need a life plan through age 70 right now

Has anyone else experienced this? It seems like people are just chugging along with their ideas and life plans & I’m just like “Well, guess I’ll take a nap.” It’s pretty different from my usual mode of thought and has been happening for a year, and whoa. It’s really effecting my happiness.