Practice

Saturday 8March08 12:26pm

Some of the pieces I have added to my daily practice include which began on my writing retreat:

Rumi Wakeup – I got this from Wayne Dyer’s book Inspiration, Your Ultimate Calling (one of my favorite books). He discusses that time in the early morning when you wake up (between 3am and 4am) and you don’t have to get up. The thing is to actually get up. It’s based on a Rumi poem that says something along the lines of, “The morning breeze has something to tell you, don’t go back to sleep.” I’m not always religious about it because I love sleeping but eventually I will be. I love the 4am hour for its peacefulness. I do stream of consciousness writing and record my dreams from the night before.

I do the Adi Mantra from Kundalini Yoga – Ong Na Mo Guru Dev Namo. Which means I bow to the Creator, to the Divine teacher within. From that I move into my stretches and a Kundalini Yoga set and another chant. I’m slowly starting to add 15 minutes of silence, that I want to do twice a day before I write. It’s kind of hard to sit silent for 15 minutes straight but I’ll get it. As Quincy Jones would say, “It’s ragged but I’ll get it.”

I’ve been doing a couple of writing exercises to get the words flowing. One is from 30 Ways to Help You Write by Fran Weber Shaw, which I used to do years and years ago. You write “Now I’m Sitting Here and…” at the top of the page, then relax all the muscles in your body and listen to the sounds. Then you write nonstop for two or three pages and stop. That was how I used to do all of my writing, so needless to say, I’m getting back to beginner’s mind as Natalie Goldberg so aptly calls it.

And another exercise that I got from a writing newsletter where you write down three random words like ‘pimps, women, black music’ and with those words write a scene for my novel. You basically come up with three words for 15 scenes of your novel and write each scene starting the first sentence with one of those words and including the other two words in the first paragraph. I guess it gets your mind away from thinking about how to start. It’s crazy but it works.

I also write a series of affirmations in my steno from an article I read on manifestation in Mind Power News, an email newsletter that I receive. I’ll look for the article and post it. Basically it’s 4 affirmations: 1- What I am doing now (some goal that I want to realize) 2- How I support myself in realizing that goal 3- The good feelings I have for realizing that goal and 4- A Thank You to the Universe or God.

And overall, I’m enjoying the abundance I already have in my life. I have books galore and enough inspirational CD’s and meditation tapes and CD’s to cure all of Toronto. Ha Ha! So I’m making it a point to listen to and enjoy what I have. I belong to the Spiritual Cinema so I have all these great movies and short films. I’m building a DVD collection because my breakfast buddy buys me DVD’s for birthdays and Christmas. And Music? Well anyone who knows me knows I have an insane amount of music, what with working at Sam’s years ago and having that itunes addiction and importing anyone’s music collection that I can. And I also belong to Simply Audio so I have a decent amount of audio books. If I didn’t leave my house for a year I still wouldn’t make it through all the stuff I have. And with my comfy bed? Praise God I am blessed!

I’ll see if I can find the manifestation article…

SW

Building Momentum

8March08 Saturday 11:46am
It’s another snowy day in Toronto. I can’t believe how much snow we’ve had this year. Most people are complaining but I don’t really have much to complain about. I really do enjoy when we have distinct seasons. It always bodes well for the Summer. You have to live through the dark in order to enjoy the light, or something like that.

I am finally feeling like I’m living in more light and less dark, which is always a good thing. And the best part is that I’m feeling grateful for the light. So snow schmoe, no worries!

I made it past another birthday. I wasn’t sure how that was going to pan out since the money is still funny from the big pain of 2007. I had no ideas what to do for my birthday and I was contemplating letting it pass by unmentioned. My friend frogs legs had the brilliant idea to go to Southern Accent for eats and a psychic reading on Feb 29th, the day before my birthday (otherwise known as my alternate birthday). It was six women and a very cute, flirty server and lots of laughs. My girlfriend Jojo provided most of the entertainment regaling us with her stories. It was great being in the company of all strong minded women. And the psychic reading was stellar! That never hurts. Plus what she said fell in line with my goals for my personal 2008, which began on March 1st. The night was ended with a few hours of Karoake, the Carpenters (Thanks frogs legs), much laughter and a promise to do that shit again!

On the Wednesday before my birthday, I had the brainwave to extend my weekend and turn it into a writing retreat in my apartment. That I could afford. I used to do them periodically but with the big pain of 2007 and all the other dramas it sort of fell by the way side and then some. All of a sudden I was super excited about my birthday. I worked on my itinerary (writing, meditations, juices and healthy foods, inspirational CD’s, and mild workouts like stretching and Kundalini Yoga). It was a fantastic weekend which helped me to ground myself, get back in touch with my novel in progress and make a commitment to the practice of Kundalini Yoga. After several years of following/reading Guru Rattana’s New Millenium Being and doing some of the chants she recommends in it and really feeling the benefits of it, I found that it was time to make it my daily practice.

My three day weekend was a perfect way to build momentum for my goals and get away from the chatter. I didn’t watch television, no telephone and no internet (although I did go on Facebook a couple times to check out the birthday wishes, but it was mere moments.) On the Monday, I went to the book store and bought Kundalini Yoga, The Flow Of Eternal Power by Shakti Parwha Kaur Khalsa as taught by Yogi Bhajan. And I went on to itunes to buy various versions of the mantras that I wanted to practice. I burned a couple CD’s of the mantras. I’ve been sleeping during the week with the main CD on and find that I have calmer, more peaceful sleeps and I feel more able to deal with the frustrations that come up at work and in life. So it’s all good.

My next thing to save up for is the offerings at Guru Rattana’s website www.yogatech.com. She has packages with DVD’s and books that I would sure love to order. I’ve been finding that the exercises (sets) that I’ve been doing each day have been relieving my arthritic feet which is a huge bonus. And my writing focus has been great.

Life is always going to have it’s elements of frustrations, I figure, but it’s sure nice to have a practice that helps me to cope without sabotaging relationships or being a total shut in.

SW

Jane Fonda

Note: previous entries mentioned in this entry are on my writing2live blog.

Wednesday 5:34pm

Have I said this about a hundred times? I’m slowly going through my tapes and when I get to Inside the Actor’s Studio there is always someone who I think, ‘I don’t have to watch this one. How interesting will so and so be?’ Then I catch the beginning and am engrossed in the whole interview.

Of course that just happened with Jane Fonda. But even better, I watched it this morning and it was so good I rewound the tape to watch it again this afternoon and write notes.

You know so many questions are popping up and out of me lately. Between the Pisces kiss and the subsequent revelations and what made me so mad about it all. I can recall hearing someone saying something along the lines regarding depression that she wanted to make her life less about not being depressed and more about living an intentional life. I can’t remember who said it and I never wrote it down because some things that are said just resonate so wholly within my being that I know I don’t need to write them down. It’s like it inhabits my subconscious in a magnetic sort of way and the right ideas start to stick to me. That’s where my idea for embracing my singleness came from.

I don’t know if I’ve expressed embracing my singleness well enough. It’s not that I don’t want to be with anyone or that I’ve been overly unhappy alone. I basically said to myself, “what if this is the last time, for the rest of my life, that I will be fully alone? How can I make good use of this time and be able to look back with fondness?”

When I was in constant survival mode and I was between jobs I was always so stressed about finding another job that I never enjoyed the time off work. Then when all worked out and I got a new job I’d always wished that I just relaxed enough to enjoy the time. That’s what I’m trying to do now with being single and not having a group of friends to hang out with. Enjoy this time. Discover the things that I really like to do whether I have company or not. Live and enjoy my life despite not having a closet full of money.

Smoking to some extent falls in line with that. There’s something that I feel is missing that smoking fills. It’s something to focus on to take me away from discovering what that void is that needs to be filled. Jane Fonda talks about addiction and the space that is left when you give up an addiction(s).

My early notes from the first viewing were about her discussing, ‘entering my truth’. I had to ask, “what is my truth?” A big question that may take me years to discover a full answer to. Maybe starting off with What do I really feel?

Yesterday morning I caught some police drama on A&E and Anthony LaPaglia’s brother is in it and he’s trying to get his woman to come in but she won’t. I asked out loud, “Why did she bother going there then?” and I felt this ache. I had to ask, What is my ache regarding love? I have one, obviously, but how do I get to the meat of it and past the stories of, “I saw the kind of men my mother was with and what men can do to women” I guess the question is, ‘How do I live MY life now with all the love I have to give and actually give it?’

My madness toward the man and his kiss is that I am coming to realize that I feel good enough about myself that I know that what he is offering is bullshit and that he would think it’s okay to only offer me scraps that you give a dog. And because I can see different points of view, I’m even madder about the fact that he is with a woman who may or may not know that he is giving HER dog scraps. There’s nothing wrong with being a dog but be a single dog and give women the opportunity to say yes or no.

Jane Fonda talked about her first marriage to a man who regularly brought other women into their bed with them. I wrote quickly, “not feeling good enough about yourself enought that you would allow a man to bring another woman into bed with the two of you. Feeling that the only way she could keep this man was to accept that she wasn’t enough for him.”

It’s funny, it always brings me back to what I’ve always said since I was a kid watching my mother, “I’d rather be alone than suffer through that shit for the sake of having a man.”
Jane also said, “It’s in relationships where a loss of voice manifests.”

Ahh! A loss of voice. I write to give myself voice, even if it’s only my eyes that see the words…for now anyway. I leave men when I feel that I can’t express my true voice, what I need, what I want, what I feel is missing. I’ve always wanted to have a relationship, it just so happens, that I’ve needed to be able to hear my voice more than be in a relationship.

With all my insecurities and feelings that I am so fucked up (I’m not denying that I’m not fucked up) I am discovering that I am more than enough. I do not need to be with someone who convinces me that I’m not enough for his own gains. And isn’t there a piece of fiction following a man and a woman through that all? Where the man really sees what he has done to his woman because he could, because she let him, because she didn’t think she was enough to keep him.

It takes me back to that question I blogged several weeks ago, “Can I trust you with my heart?” It’s not that I can’t commit. I can’t commit to feeling not good enough and so I don’t.

More quotes from Jane Fonda’s interview, whose book I want to read, by the way:

“He would bring other women into our bed and it never occurred to me that I could say no. I assumed that it was that I wasn’t enough and I didn’t want him to leave me and being with him is what validated me. “

“I’ve come from a place where I would silence my voice, shut down my heart, betray my body because if he left me I would be nothing and fall down into a dark hole.”

“I couldn’t say to my husband. ‘I don’t want to anymore.’ I couldn’t say who I really was because I was scared of being alone.”

“the need to please, the disease to please, the need to be perfect, is so pervasive in our society for women… usher perfection out the door and strive for completion.”

“I don’t want to die without giving voice to my wholeness with the man I love.”

“What is more important to me is my authenticity. Being intentional about how I live.”

“I don’t want to have regrets at the end of my life. What will I have to do now so that I won’t have regrets and then it’s about being intentional about how you live, the way you live. It’s painful but it’s the right thing to do.”

She was amazing and can I just say that when ever the camera panned the audience the women were wiping away tears.

And she said it, she is a privileged white woman and she still felt that she wasn’t good enough. That’s pretty powerful when you really think about that.

EY

Angel at my feet

I conked out at 6:30pm last night and slept right through to 2:30am. I honestly thought I’d sleep for a couple hours and then get up and write. Fooled me. The only reason why I woke up was because my downstairs neighbours were banging a hammer or something. I figure their downstairs neighbours were making noise and they were banging their disapproval. Considered going down stairs to bang on their heads but thought better of it. Who needs a fight at 2 o’clock in the morning.

It’s peaceful now. Just a nice hum. The cats all sleep on their separate perches. The tap is dripping. That’s the extent of the noises at this time. I get the odd whiff of Orange scented pinesol of which I mopped the floors with on Sunday.

Lolo made it safely to Korea and is stoked about her new apartment. Front loading washing machine… I’m jealous.

Was in a mood for most of Monday. Announced to a contractor, “I’m not feeling very patient today, so you need to get to the point.” Ado laughed and said he felt sorry for whoever made the mistake of crossing my path.

I don’t know what it was that made me so moody. My thoughts got dark. I could understand why some people end their lives in suicide. The feeling that the problems never end and thinking, why bother? I used that energy for Rachel and wrote a small segment of White Wishes with Rachel feeling that sense of defeat with her alcoholic husband and her children that she had to care for no matter how tired she feels or defeated. It helped. There are days when you want to get back to the Source, when you know it’s up to you to feel connected but you just can’t.

I went up to the management office to drop off some stuff. As I came off the freight elevator I saw a glinty token on the floor. I kicked it and figured it was an insignia off a portfolio or something and kept going. When I came back it was still on the floor and I decided to pick it up. On it reads, “Always with you.” On the other side is an Angel.

Ohh! Talk about an immediate mood change. Source connected with me by dropping an angel at my feet. I forget that my life is magical. I forget that I have so many good things to focus on. I have many things to be grateful for: a job and coworkers I genuinely like, a place of my own that truly is my sanctuary, my three cats that make me giggle (Picasso was grooming me last night, rubbing her head against my scalp and then cleaning me), interests and hobbies, life long friends, good health, ideas, more than enough resources (books, music etc).

My buddy who got me into my bar mess called me yesterday morning at 8:30am asking, “You want to meet up on Wednesday?” So I have another outing this week. I figure he’s got news. I also figure I have to prepare myself for the combined teasing that he and Fredo will give me since they like to tag team against me. Bastards!

Today is the new moon. A perfect time to start a new project or a new job and get a new attitude.

Picasso is crying her squeaky cry at the door begging to go explore the hallway. Might as well let her out.
EY

Originally posted on my Writing2live blog.

Six Traits

excerpt from the book Wabi Sabi for Writers by Richard R. Powell (an excellent book! If you want to be inspired, buy it!)

There was a wabi sabi man who struggled to express what he loved and who chronicled his struggles for his brother in a series of letters that allow us to see into his inner world. His name was Vincent Van Gogh. This artist was rejected and ignored during his lifetime but he kept painting through isolation, poverty, and illness. Van Gogh exhibited six traits in his life that are worth considering:

1. Perseverance. His art was unique and original but no one recognized it at the time. Nevertheless, he developed his own style through years of effort.

2. Wabi sabi… He understood the beauty of the ordinary, the hidden value of the everyday. He uncovered both its loneliness and the way it binds people to a place. He chose wabi sabi models for his art, simple farmers and miners authentically portrayed in their natural settings.

3. Simplicity. He lived simply and worked diligently to capture what he saw, forgoing a prosperous life for his art.

4. Expressiveness. He not only painted but he also wrote what he thought and felt about his work. He highlighted his writing with sketches and delighted in sharing beauty.

5. Independence. He lived his convictions in poverty, unappreciated and unrecognized, because he knew what he was trying to achieve. Like everyone else, he worried about his physical needs and wished he were in a better position financially, but his convictions and his strong sense of the value of his own perceptions allowed him to enter into the painting process with abandon.

6. Courage. He faced with resolution the exclusion he experienced from painterly society. He invited painters to visit him, sent correspondences to those he respected, and sought help for his illness, all while producing painting after painting.

Van Gogh lived a heroic life, and his story inpires me to continue writing when the rewards seem far away.

pages 105 & 106