Each Day R/Evolution

Paulo Coelho asks: Does context make art?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulo_coelho/3180151696/

Context is EVERYTHING.  The reality in which we frame our perceptions and the filters we apply to the sensory data we receive - we create according to our context.

What is trash to one is art to another.  What is sacred to one, to another is profane.
Belief structures are a context.

A concert violinist is lost in the context of a busy subway.  His skill at coaxing the violin's tone is acknowledged by few, because there were no "cues" that he is special, no stage, no backing orchestra.
His concert-level virtuosity does not penetrate people who do not expect it.

Shared context = love.
Shared context = art.

Offering and acceptance of worldview/perspective/context.

The Purpose of Emotion

The Purpose of Emotion ( Rumi )

A certain Sufi tore his robe in grief,
and the tearing brought such relief he have the robe
the name faraji, which means ripped open,

or happiness, or one who brings the joy
of being opened. It comes from the stem faraj,
which also refers to the genitals, male and female.

His teacher understood the purity of the action,
while others just saw the ragged appearance.

If you want peace and purity, tear away
the coverings! This is the purpose of emotion,
to let a streaming beauty flow through you.

Call it spirit, elixir, or the original agreement
between yourself and God. Opening into that
gives peace, a song of being empty, pure silence.

Emotions are signals - from the consciousness and spirit through to our conscious awareness - they are materialized messages from our intuition meant to awaken attention to our present experience.  Emotions are gifts - they are experiential proof of our soul's experience as we interact with others and the world.

Although I allow my heart to guide me, I do not let my emotions - especially those of anger, bitterness, regret, etc. do anything but watercolor my reality. Holding on to perceived slights, voids, dissatisfactions, and even "righteous indignations" only manifest dis-ease.

Emotions are meant to be fluid and ephemeral markers of experience, but are not the lessons themselves.

R/Evolution June 2008 - CDJ Updates

Six months into this year. Almost 12 full months since I gave birth to Phoenix.  Worlds of professional projects and logistical movements and now I find myself in the middle of yet another Mercury Retrograde and I tell you, life is still whirling around me, offering me all sorts of tantalizing options.

Trajectories implore me to choose them.  Opportunities are everywhere.

But my main focus for this past year, of course - the "maternal preoccupation" that overrides all else - has been my baby son.

I will always be able to manifest new opportunities, pluck out new threads from the quanta.  But these are the days where he is being shaped, where he is looking to me to know what to do, and how to be in the world.

This is a big responsibility - none of us wants to consciously pass down a legacy of fear, limitations or emotional baggage to our children.  We want them to embrace all the possibilities of the world, we want to give them the world, as much as we can.

I know this - that I would rather train his mind to be disciplined and determined than buy him toys.  I will encourage his problem solving and strategy skills, his cleverness, his strength, his freedom to express. I will teach him that there is always a way to get what you want - when you know what you want, and you want it enough.

My in-laws are visiting from the UK - and spending time with their grandson, finally.  It's so lovely to make memories together with family.  And I am so blessed and thankful to have such closeness and unconditional love in my own family. 

I feel as if I've been sleep-walking for the past few months - and finally, perhaps as a result of my recent illness, the fever has finally broken and I can see more clearly my purpose and my goals, my true allies and the best uses of my energy in this lifetime.

Hair Brushing Satori

I had a mirror moment today, the kind that activates and sends you directly into the council of your Meta Self godhead - where you know you're looking directly at your most intimate, authentic, and infinite self.

I thought about the pain i hold on to
and how its so hard to express "being/feeling" hurt in a constructive way
when we are hurt
We ARE desperate, cornered, vulnerable and irrational animals
needing help, looking for someone to tend to us, mollify and nurture
Compassion calms, soothes, heals and encourages

I see it with Phoenix when he falls and gets hurt
He comes to me, just to be held, and cooed at a bit
He feels comforted, regains confidence, and ventures out again

We never really lose this need, just because we age physically.
Emotional maturity ripens only from experience and not time.

So that's the truth, that we are all just hoping that we will do this for each other
Allowing us all to feel vulnerable, safe and invincible at once, supported to explore the edges
To share hurt, to share comfort, and then joy, risk, rinse repeat.
There's humanity, the gospel truth.

We follow patterns of thinking, beliefs and values
These thoughts become our map of reality
Unique pathways we carve out from the quanta

Relationships happen when you find someone who thinks, believes and travel parallel to your path, and with whom you either float or choose direction
True love is an intricately shared reality created with invisible links of electrical impulses
And is happening all the time, everywhere.

Onward into 2008

Thoreau to kick off the year - "If you advance confidently in the direction of your own dreams and endeavor to live the life which you have imagined, you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

I am reimagineering my life, in a very quiet and profound way, carefully weighing and assessing each world I have in simultaneous orbit.  Having my end year/ beginning year identity crisis.

My personal "new year" does not start until my birthday on February 13th. I have until then to craft this year's reinvention of my Self.

Until then, my activities include immolation, ablution, rejuvenation and then, rebirth.

Post-Midnight Litanies summon the earthquake

Feeling the strain and the pressure of multiple responsibilities.  Make me a diamond, pressure.

Just now, as I was awake at 1.30am-ish, I began to break down - the tears flowing out of the cracks in my tightly bound shell.  Too focused on "How." I forget.  Do not focus on how. Focus on the intention, big, bright and clear.  Nothing can penetrate the laser focus trajectory of a well defined intention.

Desert winds blow strong outside. I hold the baby in my arms. The Podfather is away from us tonight.  So tired, so much data whirling in my mind, the hierarchy of my priorities holding fast even through the maelstrom of competing desires and demands from the outside world.

The reset begins, the litany - wherein I rock and sway, the prayers of thanks and humble acknowledgement of the generous, compassionate and abundant blessings bestowed upon my life.

Thank you for my son and his perfect health. Thank you for my mate and his love. Thank you for my beautiful family and their support. Thank you for the love, support, guidance and protection of my loyal friends. Thank you for my purpose and the opportunities to fulfill it. Thank you for the experiences that have helped me to build the strength I need to approach my life with courage and resolve.

I let the gratitude and the abundance flow through me until I feel cleared of shadow, until my consciousness is filled with the feelings of blessings, fortune, grace.

Focus my intentions. Align my values and my priorities with planned action. Set determination.  Breathe in strength. Exhale tension.

The earthquake came and went, during this ritual.

Words to calm. Words to create worlds. Words to soothe. Words to build bridges. Words to set boundaries. Words to express love. Words to summon. Words to invoke. Words to broadcast and bind intention. Words to cut through conspiracy.  The power of words, the power of the tongue. Words to say thank you. Words to mark and manifest from the quanta. Words to order chaos. Words to prompt and expose.

I sequence my words to reflect the sequence of events I desire. 

I remember who and what I am, and give thanks for all my Selves.

Feeling Yourself Disintegrate

Sometimes, the wanderlust surges to be unbearable.  To travel, to get lost, to assimilate and wander, to sidestep this current life trajectory and be another me.  I am envious of travelers. I feel a loss of mobility.

Home is where I do my chores, where I raise my child, where I work.  I am here 99% of the time, 24 hours a day/7 days a week. I spend most of my time online, "goggled into the Metaverse" as it were, while my meatsuit, now executing the primary mode "Mominatix", sits in the same rooms, all day, each day - thank God for social networks, online shopping, twitter, email and IM. The internet is the only place I am free to roam, the playspace to match my mind's need for data and stimuli.

When I am not staring at a computer screen for work, I am looking at/after my son.  When I am not washing bottles, doing laundry, feeding, changing diapers, rocking to sleep, singing, baby-talking, or grousing to my husband about the perceived perpetually imbalanced division of parenting responsibilties, I go to the Net because it's the only "me" time I have left.  I can't visit friends much anymore, nor do they visit me. No one wants to bother me. Everyone assumes I am "overwhelmed" and "swamped" and "doing baby priorities" and it's true. And I have to remind myself that there's nothing wrong with being where I am in my life, that raising Phoenix is a worthy and important job, and that a mother should dedicate her life to raising her children.

But I have heretofore defined myself by my independent movements, my agility, my multiplicity, my mobility, by the dedicated maintenance of a network of profound long-term friendships.

So this current reality, laden with new responsibilities and priorities, cuts.  Clipped wings hurt. I can't do much of what I used to, I can't be as free as I once was. So *I* can't be who I used to be. I can't get on a plane and lose myself in alternate realities as I love to do.  I am bound to this life, now.  Yes, I know I chose it.  Yes, I know resistance is futile. Yes, I know this is my "next level" and "unexplored territory." Knowledge never really cures, it consoles at best. Weary sighs of resignation, useless tears, staring blankly at wall.  Face the baby.  Initiate blessings-counting sequence. 

Are these unenlightened thoughts?  Have I not yet completely surrendered to my own evolution?  I look at my baby and know  there is no other path other than being his mother, with all the selflessness and sacrifice of selfhood that entails. 

The key to not feeling tired is not letting oneself feel, at all.  Feelings are an indulgent luxury. Now is not a time to be bogged down in feelings.  Not when there is so much to do.

Productivity & Spacing Out: A 10 Step Primer

From reading his books, and attending his Roadmap seminar, David Allen's whole point of putting things in the GTD system is to give oneself as much time as possible to relax, goof off, and space out. That's what "stress-free productivity" means.

There's a high associated to kicking ass under high-stress situations, a rush to the ego and self-satisfaction of multi-tasking efficiently. One feels superhuman, pushing limits of time and energy to the limit and expanding one's limits.  I used to be prideful about this kind of plate-spinning-split-attention-multitasking proficiency.  But what am I busy with?  That's a Tim Ferriss-kind of question, to evaluate the "busy work," and if what I'm doing is worthwhile (also David Seah-style). 

Sometimes, coming off a binge of hyperproductivity and an extremely fast-paced, high-octane stretch of work focus, it can be difficult to wind down.  The mind's machine whirs and clicks and becomes greedily accustomed to crunching tasks and data. When the work is done, it becomes hard to relax, and in the absence of "problems to crunch" the mind troubleshoots even the most silent, content moments, for some new problem to solve, even inventing or exacerbating problems just for FOOD.

My point, and the point of all the thinkers below, is that the goal of efficiency and productivity is to create more space/time for higher level creative thinking, pleasure/leisure-centric activities and RELAXATION!

Let me summarize what I've grokked from these guys below:

David Allen: capture data in trusted system and set times/contexts to execute and review - goal of stress-free productivity; clear psychic RAM and be focus-efficient with the details, free up mindspace for abstract, genius, creative thinking. Goal: Chill time.

Tim Ferriss: Energy and time-efficient clients. Paring down to sparest and most effective actions, outsourcing, automating or eliminate all else.  Work smart and efficiently to be more productive in less time. Goal: Chill time.

Malcolm Gladwell: Blink. I decided. Trust intuition about decisions and eliminate inefficient struggle or self-doubt. Goal: Chill time.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: 
"It is also important to develop the habit of doing whatever needs to be done with concentrated attention. Even the most routine tasks, like washing dishes, dressing, or mowing the lawn, become more rewarding if we approach them with the care it would take to make a work of art. "
Likens the Flow state to the basic concept of Zen mindfulness. To summarize: GO WASH YOUR BOWL!
Goal: Chill out time.

Jim Loehr: As a corporate athlete, the most energy-efficient way to work is in sprints of hyper/productivity. Focus sprints allow for long periods of downtime to rest, recover, relax. Goal: Chill time.

David Seah: Be aware of how you spend your "billable hour" and if what you're doing is the best use of your time.  Do what's the best use of your time and skillset, don't waste time doing what's beneath your skill level if you can help it. Goal: More chill-time.

Lesson: It's all about chill time.  Being productive, getting tasks done should make you feel relaxed as your reward.  As you are rushing about, crossing off your action items, remember to not only enjoy the moment of closing the open loop, but also consider that the elegant, efficient execution of tasks CREATES space for pleasure-centric activities!

So when your work for the day is done, don't seek out more work.  Enforce a quota for "work time" with yourself, and protect and defend your pleasure-centric hours of the day, however you choose to spend them.  Is there a switch to turn off hyper-productivity and multitasking anxiety? Yes. It's the same switch that turns on your thoughts of pleasure and leisure.

Here is Carmen's "Optimal Mindset" "License to Space Out" recipe, this is what I use to unplug and fall back into full possession of myself:

1. Stop all action.
2. Be alone in a room.
3. Lock the door.
4. Close the laptop.
5. Turn off the phone.
6. Hide the clock.
7. Drink some water.
8. Lie on the floor and be still. Stare at the ceiling or close your eyes.
9. Take 10 deep cleansing breaths.
10. Don't move until something really COMPELS you to move. Observe what motivates you to get up, besides eating and going to the bathroom.

Be still for as long as you can until something COMPELS you to movement.  What's compelling? It's what YOU want to do. It's what you WANT to do.  Not because it's expected, or you're obligated, or you want to prove something. 

This is how I sort my priorities.  By reminding myself how I choose my Next Action, based on what is important to me, and how I want to do things that concern what is important to me.

Breaking down and finding purpose

Today I broke down. It is painful to my ego to admit that I might be suffering from some kind of post-partum depression. But I have been a self-diagnosed "dopamine junkie" since 1999 - and I just realized that I am so Pod-focused, so depleted in energy, that I have no source of dopamine-production stimuli anymore.

The ego leads me back to thoughts of pleasure. Where are my selfish pleasures now? I have no pleasures of the body anymore, and when I even meditate too long on the lack of pleasure my only release is weeping.  I weep as Phoenix cries.  It is my only physical release and one of my only selfish acts these days - the mourning of my "old life," my freedoms, my mobility, my pleasures.

Ah, but there is the trap again - the backward glances, the focus on the lack.  My friend Myke today reminded me that I should be creative, and not just online - but something physical, tangible.  I could argue that I've just produced the most exhaustive and complete creation of my life.  But he is right.  It is imperative that somehow I muster enough energy and focus to be generative. Not just thinking of business/money - but artistically generative.  This is critical to my soul, and to the nurturing of my Pod.

I've been worried about what effect this maternity sabbatical and shift in priorities is having on my career.  I am anxious about how I will manage to return to full-time work focus mode and raise my Pod.  How can my career advance if I can't take client meetings, or if I can't work overtime on innovating solutions?

I look at my tiny son, whose connection to the infinite was so reassuring when he was in my womb. I search his eyes and open my port, willing him to open up our telepathic link and send me glimpses of the future.

"How is this all supposed to work?  How do I make it work?  How do I find ease and balance in this newest level of responsibility and consciousness?"

He stares back. Clear grey eyes. Smiles, wiggles, looks around, distracted by the light. Pouts. Furrows tiny brows and grunts. 
I weep as he watches and listens to me.  The lyrics to "This Woman's Work" loop in my head, triggering fresh onslaughts of tears. . .

"I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking
Of all the things I should've said,
That I never said.
All the things we should've done,
That we never did.
All the things I should've given,
But I didn't."

No time for thoughts of self. Self-care limited to that which is for the sake of the Pod - keeping my energy up, keeping my milk production up, having just enough patience to respond as much as possible to his needs with gentleness, sweetness, nurturing - because that is what he deserves.  No time for thoughts of romance. Fresh tears. Dark, unenlightened, sub-optimal word forms and thoughts conspire with sleep deprivation and materialize resentments for which there are no cures nor justifications. I aim to just let the thoughts pass, flow through me, letting them pass.

Dining out on memories now. The dopamine junkie in me is starved, begins to loop back to old memories, if only to squeeze out any leftover chemical reaction to soothe myself.  Then I berate myself for looking back. Then I berate myself for berating myself.  Then I breathe and jolt myself back into the present moment. Must be present in the moment, musn't miss a precious minute of these early days of Pod's life . . . slipping away like wax melting off a candle . . .

I rock Phoenix in my arms, he quiets, I keep crying, a spontaneous force-restart litany of offering/acknowledging abundance. . . my litany of Thank You's -
Thank you for my healthy perfect son, thank you for my health and recovery, thank you for all the love that I am given, for friends, for family. Thank you for the sentience, thank you for this life, thank you for all the challenges which are so minor in comparison to the lives of those less fortunate, thank you that I have food for myself and can provide shelter and milk for my son, thank you for all my needs which are provided for. Thank you for my son's life and purpose. Thank you for my life. Thank you for my purpose, my purpose, my purpose. . . .

My purpose is not to satisfy my ego and its to fall into its traps of comparative successes.  My purpose is not to be a career oriented over achiever, or even to be acknowledged or lauded for my achievements. 
My purpose is the transformation and utmost evolution of my soul and awareness, to live with optimal energetic balance to give and receive love, to transcend the traps of the ego by living simply but with maximum sentience, to use my intellect, experience, compassion, skills and interpersonal intuitions to provide for my survival and the survival of my child primarily, and for the support and betterment of my loved ones/mutual arising, secondarily.

As an individual human on this planet, in this life, this is my purpose.

New Moon in Leo

As I begin my lunar ritual tonight, I have a lot to reflect/meditate on, as usual.  But the excerpts below are particularly apt. . . sigh. . . must. check. self. before. wreck. self.

New Moon Message from Astrowisdom.com

If you tend toward the Leo drama-queen spectrum of emotional expression, you could use this Moon to do some powerful healing work with your inner "enfant terrible". Reality-check Saturn in Leo makes this a very good New Moon cycle to take a hard look at your own emotional reactivity; especially if you suffer with mood swings. It is possible to love deeply, feel deeply, and create deeply, without wreaking havoc in your own life and the lives of those around you.

Leo often gets hooked into the importance of keeping up appearances (especially with Venus (beauty) in Leo; how we look, what we own, what we do, become, for many people, the definers of self. More than anything Leo wants to be noticed and appreciated.