Wisdom versus Adventure: How I Decided Not to go to AWP

Finally I get to write this blog post! Last Friday, both my computers developed problems. Yes, on the same day. You'd think having two computers would mean a backup plan. I spent hours trying to fix things myself and hours on the phone with Microsoft, and hours stuck with configuration failure reboots. Given the almost unique ability of computers to get the calmest person banging his/her head on the wall, I am so grateful for all this attention on wisdom and personal development audios of late. Some deep breathing and mindfulness practice helped get me through yet another configuration failure (and hence hours of lost work time) this evening.

Yes, returning to the breath, focusing on the breath, as a perpetually available meditation, is one commonality among all the different sources of advice.

It helped me more too, eventually. I mentioned agonizing over a decision and finding it extremely hard to settle one way or the other. I was hoping to go to the enormous AWP Writers' Convention in Seattle at the end of February. So enticing! Especially being enrolled in a low-residency MFA, with all my cohorts scattered all over the country, I have many beloved fellow travelers and mentors whom I only see once a year. Add to that the opportunity to meet many of my "writer crushes" and inspirations. Add to that a mind-bogglingly rich array of panels, talks, readings, for over twelve hours of each of the three days, so that at every session there are probably at least four you don't want to miss. An opportunity to learn so much, be so stimulated, in such a short space of time. Even the possibility of catching up with friends in the Seattle area who are not at the conference. I had free admission as a student in my program (although of course the flight down and hotel are far from free). How could I not go?

Well, on the other hand. Stability. My eternal frontier. Still settling after a two-month trip last fall. I've submitted my Critical Paper (yay! Early!) but still have a Creative Thesis to finish revising and make as good as possible for an MFA! Two new job projects both of which require an initial learning curve. Good habits under installation (instillation?)
And, as I confessed, I'm the smallest I've been in a very long time. I really think I'm doing okay, but I must admit I'm not brimming over with excess energy. If I have a 9-5 day in town I generally have to spend most of the next day on the couch. And that's a 9-5 day of mostly one-on-one interactions in a small town. AWP would be three consecutive twelve-plus-hour days around 11,000 writers!
My healthcare providers voted "don't go." As did friends.
I asked for a dream, and got a clear "don't go."
I asked explicitly in my soulful journaling practice, wherein I connect with my spirit guide /subconscious/angel/what you will. She said "don't go."

And yet, there I was searching for a flight, all ready to go!

And I agonized. Why did I ask for guidance if I wasn't willing to heed it? Was I asking for guidance in order to do the opposite? This went on for almost two weeks, hanging in the balance. I didn't want to abuse the guidance I'd been given. I didn't want to abuse the hospitality of my program by turning down the conference ticket. I didn't want to admit to being physically weak.

I think many of us are rebels, or are inexorably drawn to risk as opposed to wisdom. There must be an evolutionary balance there. It wouldn't be called "wisdom" if it weren't advantageous. On the other hand, if no one pushed out of their comfort zone, how would we ever evolve? On the other other hand, since my tendency is always to push beyond my comfort zone, my eventual decision not to go was actually an evolution beyond my status quo. 

With all my recent talk of paradox, this is the sublimest paradox of all, that taking a risk/pushing beyond the comfort zone would have been staying in my comfort zone, doing what I'd always done (Einstein's definition of insanity).

So, if I wish to, I can feel a sense of adventure as a result of having chosen not to go. Staying where I can continue to nurture these good new habits and practices, and not putting myself in an environment and schedule that would surely bury me, is adventure of a new kind; is evolution. 

This decision is also recognition of the magic that is receipt of guiding dreams and channeling of guidance from beyond in my journaling practice.

That sounds new and adventurous to me!

I'd love to hear others' learning stories like this. Thank you for letting me share. 

Edited to add: here's another really cool connection that came in the decision process; I can't believe I forgot to mention it. Someone made the point that to 90% of people, if you serve them a meal and tell them it's "healthy," they will immediately have an expectation of "yuck/joyless/unsatisfying." The point, in that context, was obviously that it's important to describe food in aesthetic terms that engage the senses alluringly--beautiful, vibrant, delicious, succulent. But the parallel with my difficulty in making what I knew was the right decision was striking. "This would be the wise thing to do." "Yuck boiled kale." Yes, I was being a brat.  But no more so than anyone who thinks healthy and delicious don't go together. There's more to be said on this; in fact, it's one of my biggest life lessons. We shall return to this.

Regularity in face of crazy weather; fasting

While the lower 48 is in the grip of the icy gods, it hit 50 degrees Fahrenheit here yesterday. This photo, taken today, could be from late May.

A couple of weeks ago, a little farther down the same road, a more typical scene.

I was talking about paradoxical pieces of advice for being best self/manifesting destiny/personal development. These two pictures of the same road exemplify a piece of advice on which all the gurus and advisers are unanimous, which seems to contain a paradox within itself:

Have a daily practice. How you start up your day sets the tone for how you move through the day, so be intentional about it.

and--here's the paradox--

The more consistent and stable you are with this practice, the more resilient you'll be when destabilization happens, for whatever reason, and you're prevented from practicing.

(I guess because by repeated practice, you've been diligently building the neural net, and that same net becomes a safety net that protects you from curveballs.)

This advice is sweet to me in several ways. First, because I've had experience of the benefits of a regular practice--the lived experience that life can feel more full of sparkle and opportunity when I live it with that level of intentionality. Second, because one of my favorite quotations from Rumi (Barks's translation, of course, I'm of that generation) says "Submit to a daily practice...Keep knocking, / and eventually the joy inside / will open a window / and look out to see who is there." I tend to think pieces of poetry stick for a reason. Then, because my doctor has been telling me for years now that such regularity is my best medicine against my own inherent instability. It's not that a bipolar person can't maintain a regular practice; it's that a bipolar person must work more diligently than most to maintain such a practice, which is one of her best protections against falling off the rails/the deep end/the face of the earth. Having a check-in first thing in the morning, and taking time to make a note of three or more things I'm grateful for before bed is feeling so good.

And so, when the vista looks like midsummer although it should be midwinter, tune into clues, like the absence of fireweed on the hillside...

...or the fact that the sun is nonetheless very far to the south in the sky...
And even though nature herself is one big curveball right now, stay in that winter, seed, potential energy space. 

I hope my own regularity of practice and prayer can be one small piece of stability to protect this local ecosystem, while bluff-edges become landslides, bugs and buds come out of dormancy, the ground thaws. I hold a piece of true north winter within me, watching that sky-southerly sun.

I've continued to fast twice a week. Twenty-four-hour fasts, dinner through dinner, so not a great long fast. I've been advised because of where my weight is that this isn't the best thing. I've come to agree that I probably shouldn't do it days that I have to drive, especially when the roads aren't good. But it is a form of practice of its own with much to commend it, and I haven't yet been able to convince myself to give it up. I guess one way to talk myself around might be to say that not-fasting is a form of regularity.

I'll make a few more posts about lessons I'm learning right now. And my next post will be about the big decision I was agonizing over and how I finally decided.
Meanwhile, I'll be getting up early for the Future of Nutrition Conference! It runs on East Coast time, 9am-9pm. 9am Eastern is 5am here!

In the Ears of the Hearer, In the Eyes of the Beholder; Five Paradoxes of Self Development; One Intention

Why do I see an elephant in the desert?

Work has been a little slow, although I have a lot of rusty German to brush up with a new translation project just revving into gear. Meanwhile, I've been swimming in an ocean of teleseminars/webinars/summits/start-the-year guidance. I've finished my critical paper for my MFA, and am revising the thesis and contemplating what it will mean to have that qualification. It's always been about the process, not the product; but part of being and becoming a writer is, of course, producing a body of work.
Which is why I'm writing a second blog post this week--I've been intending to go back up to two or three posts per week instead of one for some time now, and it's time to put my fingers where my intentions are.
According to one of the wise teachers I listened to this past week, an African proverb says

While you are praying, move your feet.

Set the intention, open your heart, believe in yourself, give your subconscious the experience that your desired outcome is already in existence, pray, ask the angels for help, pay attention to your dreams...

and act.

It's my belief that we see and hear what we believe in, and also that we see and hear exactly what we need to see and hear in order to shift our beliefs. (Otherwise, why would we see elephants in the desert?) If that's a paradox, here are four more from the wisdom I've been absorbing:

1.  Say "yes" to what the universe offers you   OR   You must know when to say "no" to what's offered
2. Talk about your intentions and recruit other people to broadcast them to the universe   OR   Don't talk about the intentions; don't give naysayers the chance to pull you back
3. Set many intentions for the year  OR  Set one or two intentions every month   OR  Set one or two intentions on your birthday   OR  Don't set intentions at all
4. Only you know what is true for you; tune in and listen to your inner voice   OR   If your best thinking isn't getting you where you wish, get some good help/hire a coach

I'm in transition right now. Coming to the end of my time in Alaska, but not yet knowing where to next, or when. Nearly finished with my MFA, with no six-figure book contract or tenure-track position in sight nor solicited. 

I'm also the smallest I've been in close to ten years, less than when I went away in 2012. I feel better than I did then, though, so I'm still musing over whether it's truly an issue in my current transition.

One intention I do want to put out there, though, is that I intend to produce more than I consume.

It isn't my plan to accomplish that merely through minimal food consumption! 

My intention is--more beauty, more joy, more sharing, more dreams, more giving, more receiving, more learning but more teaching too, more excellence, more love, more blog posts--MORE!

So there's a bonus paradox for you.

Watch out for another post soon in which I'll share some commonalities in all the different wisdom I've been absorbing. Oh, and check out the Future of Nutrition Conference, starting Monday January 27, in which I expect a plethora of paradoxes, since nutrition thinkers from all sides of the spectrum are going to be giving of their best--55 of them!

Love and Light in ears and eyes.

Choosing Housemates and Guests

Fresh fruit in Alaskan winter feels like a decadent blessing--notice the date on the plate, which seems more reasonable; notice the snake on the plate.

There's turmeric brought back from England, too, like the last time I went. Last time I brought turmeric back it was the harbinger of hard times for me physically, and the same again now, or worse. So many scientific studies are bogus because they claim, for example, that cholesterol causes heart disease, confounding correlation "a happens when b happens" with causation "in the presence of/because of b, you get a." Today's lesson. Returning from England with turmeric and having my weight/food relationship in free fall have happened together twice now, but that does not mean the one causes the other. There is a much bigger picture to be taken into account. Lots of other fruit on the plate--and the snake.

This has been such a rich week in terms of Internet-based offerings in the setting intentions/personal development arena. I could have listened to great audios all day every day. And there's still more to come! We've had intention setting, nutrition, manifestation, sacred journaling, yoga... Next week, there's The Future of Nutrition Conference, with five days of talks--the first four days twelve talks on the hour EST (I guess I'll be waking up early), the fifth day "only" eight. I'm always relieved that they offer 24-hour replays in case anything's actually going on, you know, in my "real" lift. I'm looking forward to this one because there's a dizzying array of nutrition experts, from low-fat vegan promoters to paleo dieters, from raw vegans to low carbers. I love the opportunity to listen to such a spectrum of views in short order; it enables me to note commonalities, spot fallacies, notice what I'm attracted to.
I've been taking notes on the other summits/webinars, and  I'll share some in my next post.

I'm grateful to have had those guests into my temporary home. They're ephemeral visitors, my sojourn here is temporary, and yet listening to them has offered me some modes for creating stability.

Another guest I had in this house was less welcome: a mouse. Having lived in the jungle with rats and centipedes and biting ants in the bed, you'd think mice would be no big deal to me. But man, I was so upset! Last summer I had a serious mouse problem in the small-dark-room living situation I had then. They got into my stored food--I'd inadvertently left some nuts and other mouse-attractants in plastic bags instead of glass jars. But the little buggers ate into my bag of cinnamon, my nori sheets, my spirulina, and other things I'd never have guessed a mouse would eat! Between the damp/dark/smell/irritation, I guess I grew some antipathy back then. 

There was only one mouse, and I chose to expel it from this space; I didn't want it as a room mate. But ever since it was here, I've been seeing mice everywhere! Moving shadows, my hair in my peripheral vision, passing hallucinations...all mice!
My wise mom told me once, "If you have unwanted guests, don't entertain them, and they will leave." There's nothing lying around for a mouse to eat here. Not even the phantom mice.

Here are the housemates I did choose. I mentioned sprouts before. I now have some little clover greens, one or two milk thistles, sunflower sprouts. They struggle in the yellowish light here, reaching eagerly and leggily toward it. I love how the sunflower sprouts loop up, still with that black seed cap on their dicot leaves, hands clasped in prayer.

I was sat on a chair beside this table, writing, and heard the sort of soft-fall noise that usually startles me and is sometimes hallucinatory. It was the sound of one of those sunflower husks dropping from a sprout, the liberated leaves opening out. Hello, hallowed.

Stepping Into 2014: What Can I Offer You?

Well, hello! Happy New Year! 
At a time when I'm conscious of being in transition, and also in a state of fragility and parlousness, my thoughts are all over the traditional questions--What should my intentions be? --What is truly my passion? --If I can ask the right questions, won't all the intentions finally stick? and finally, When push comes to shove, what do I really have to offer? --because of course I want to give.

I'm half a lifetime away from the sparky straight-A student who could generally assume her resume would fit her for any opportunity she might be interested in. And having maintained such diversified interests (read: not having settled down to any one thing) I find it too easy nowadays to assume that I can't do whatever occurs to my interest--because I lack relevant experience or skills, or because there's a flip side to whatever it is that I wouldn't want to deal with, or because I assume no one would give me a reference.

But one afternoon this week, a series of events and reflections showed me what I needed to know as a theme for this year.
Back in England, I bought a beautiful little inlayed box, miniature mosaic, the beautiful geometrics of Islamic art--from a thrift shop, for the equivalent of about three and a half dollars. I wanted it as a box for writerly inspiration, and just for its beauty. My mom's friend, who owns several such boxes, told me to be sure and varnish it; otherwise, the tiny mosaic tiles would start to fall out. 

So, I came back to AK, I settled in, it sat there. Phil loaned me two cans of varnish, one of them better than the other but he didn't know which, together with a few brushes. The box sat with my semi-unpacked luggage; the cans of varnish and the brushes sat in the back of my station wagon.

After a few days of this, on a day just above freezing with no snow in the air, I took the box, the brushes, and the cans of varnish, and slip-slid up the road to where a bench overlooks the bluff and the bay.

I could only get one of the cans open. 

Well, guess what? The can I could get open was better than the one I couldn't open.

 

I varnished the bottom of the box to make sure it wasn't some weird color, then started on the top. As I worked, I realized it wasn't shiny clean--that I was varnishing over some grime. How beautiful it might have been if I'd buffed it up pristine!

But I was varnishing it at all, rather than procrastinating the job--good enough.

It's not perfect. But now I have a beautiful box, whose tiles will not fall out, in which to store writing prompts, or pens, or love letters from the beyond, or whatever! And I returned the varnish and brushes to Phil right away, rather than driving them around for weeks without having used them.
Most of all, I had the lived experience that taking care of something then and there can be more perfect--and more empowering--than waiting to do that thing perfectly, and the exhilaration of seeing something through without inertia. 

And so, since then my email inbox has been emptied immediately rather than allowed to brim. Books and magazines are being read and returned/recycled steadily. 
And so, here's this post, still with my two blog urls, even though I don't yet have my website set up as I want it to be after an embarrassingly long time like that. Here's this story, even though the box is still drying and not yet brimming with great writing prompts or love letters from my favorite literary magazines.

As I embrace imperfection, I also feel a deeper assurance that I do have much to offer. Why would I write a blog at all if I didn't have anything to give? I certainly don't intend it as a narcissistic navel-gazing exercise. So, please keep me honest! Don't let me go there. 
Since my interests are various, "what I have to give" might be multifarious also. Which is against all marketing advice--I don't have a "brand" or any such thing. But for now, please let me give to you, and please let me know what I can give you.

Acceptance of imperfection, asking of myself what I have to give and where my true passion lies--realizing that these two things are one and the same--and creating an environment in motion where material does not accumulate or get stuck--these are the watchwords I bring to the new year. Hopefully this will also mean a more united and logical website situation. I'm looking for help. I'm looking to help.