MOVING--and FUEL

I'm MOVING! That much is obvious from the previous post. And I was naughty--I put a teaser on Facebook about having booked passage on the ferry. But where, when?
The "why" is well known. Living in Alaska has been an unscheduled blessing of opportunity; not one this chilly willy would ever have sought out. I am deeply grateful, but I'm not one of those who came eagerly to Alaska and could never imagine being based anywhere else. My intention when this house-sitting opportunity came to me was that at the end of it, I'd have a destination "Outside."

I'm heading to this country:

The outskirts of Tucson, AZ!
Yay for Israel-like warm weather, gardens and permaculture, a good university, writers, friends--and a lovely couple whose land I'll be living on and whose gardens and heritage poultry birds I'll help out with.

When I bought my car a year ago, I had the fantasy that I would drive away from AK, take the ferry down the Inside Passage, and onward to my new place. Here I come!
When I bought the car--my biggest ever investment in myself aside from going to school--I was also very clear, on this blog and elsewhere, that having a "good" car, ten years old as opposed to a beater, was a declaration of intent to be safe and sound, not marginal, and that the car should symbolize my own bodily vehicle.
My car was at the mechanic's today, getting mileage-appropriate work done, being thoroughly checked over, even little details like replacing the battery in the door opener taken care of.
When my car runs low on gas, I fill it up as soon as I can.

Why is it so much harder to refuel myself?
Guys, it is much harder than gassing up a car. If you leave a car underfueled, as far as I know it'll simply run better once fueled appropriately. When you underfuel a body, the stomach produces less acid because there's less call for it, and the pancreas and intestines produce fewer enzymes. Less stomach acid means nasty things are more likely to survive into the intestines, so infections are more likely. Without the enzymes, digestion doesn't happen smoothly If you're purging by whatever means it increases the chance of inflammation, which leads to water retention and even more dilute acids, and it can appear as if you gained weight fasted so you freak out because your body doesn't seem to be following the laws of physics. On top of all this, you're stressed. And you're probably eating really bizarre concoctions because of what your brain says is okay to eat. So when you do eat, it hurts, it's exhausting, it often leads to pain/gas/bloat; it often seems like too much to deal with, it doesn't feel good, it leads to behaviors that are physically painful and feel out of control.

Yes. All of the above.  But if I tell you that my low energy in recent months may well be largely due to my frequently not making the effort to eat, or getting rid of what I did eat, you would probably say, as they say in Israel, "Good morning, Eliyahu!"

I'm ready and excited to move, and the road trip is an adventure I can't wait to share on this blog. I'm already contacting old friends I may drive by, already eagerly anticipating catching up with some dear ones I haven't seen in years. And I love my car, and my shiny new atlas, and my ferry ticket--but they won't get me there--I need to be fueled and strong and stable. I OWN this! The last week has been better.

Now, consider the gates open. I welcome all your road trip anecdotes, advice, warnings, tales, "never do this"s, suggestions on packing/planning/shipping/how to say farewell to beloved friends here and to Homer that has been such a kind home to me these past few years.

Onward!

Change a'Coming; OWNING the Biggest Paradox of All (my most important post this year)

The best titles say everything. A big change, a big move is a'coming for me; my key of intentions and seeking has found the lock that fits. I will share more soon, but for now, I must acknowledge that with the gift comes responsibility.

I've been talking a lot on here of late about paradoxical lessons; how two things that sound opposite are both applicable in what I've been learning lately about spiritual and business growth.

And meanwhile, perhaps unconsciously, I've been ducking the biggest paradox of all, alluding to it occasionally but with denial and unconsciousness.
Here it is:
I cannot produce more than I consume, or write books, or build a business--all of which are manifestations of the physical world--without a physical body!
There, I said it.
When I ask myself, as directed by both spiritual and business advisors, "What do I have to give?", the answer "Show how to be 80lbs and still able to shovel snow" is neither responsible, nor generous to myself or others, nor a meaningful contribution, nor--dare I say--is it playing my highest game, giving the best that I have to give.

So. I'm facing the prospect of a big road trip to a new home with gratitude and excitement.
And I'm owning and acknowledging that a migration of physical body and worldly possessions requires a well-maintained body as well as a well-maintained vehicle.
Even more important: I'm owning and acknowledging that just saying this isn't enough--like the African proverb, "Pray, but while you're praying, move your feet," I'm acknowledging, and I'm taking action.

I'll share more details soon, but I wanted to put this intention out to vibrate in the universe asap.
Please cheer for me!!!

Balance; Validation from the Shadow Side

We have snow again.

I'm used to shoveling steps, porches, walkways--driveways, even. On Saturday, though, I took it to a new level--spent an hour digging out the road! I'd been having some difficulty driving in and out, and it was still snowing, and I wanted to be able to drive out Sunday. As it turned out, on Sunday I got as far up the road as I'd shoveled, but shortly after that my car was swimming in snow. Sinking in snow. Immobilized. I opened the door, and the snow was more than a foot deep. So I got to shovel some more and--best of all--the plow guy finally showed up just as I, aided by my neighbor, had shoveled my car out enough that I could back all the way down the twisty, snowy, fluffy road to let him open it up.

My arms are pretty sore today, but hey, if I can shovel a road and dig my car out, I can't be doing that bad, can I? Although I don't intend to fast three days out of this week as I did last week; the idea was to work back down to one day and then none...

I may seem weak, but really I'm strong. Yes, physically too. And I'm finding that to be so with the different parts that make up my self too--in the vernacular: things I think I suck at, I might turn out to be good at in some respects.

I'm very strongly left-side dominant. And whereas some people divide the labor so that their dominant hand is better at fine motor control and their other is the "strong and stupid" blunt instrument, my left hand is both stronger and more dexterous (and yes, dexter means "right hand"--my left hand is like a right hand, how sinister...). So I tend not to respect my right hand much.

Credit: drmahendrapratap.blogspot.com

This afternoon, though, I was using the external keyboard and mouse, and I switched the mouse over to my left hand because my right shoulder/arm is super sore (a combination of the shoveling, lots of mousing, and sleeping on it awkwardly). And my left hand was an absolute klutz! The cursor was wobbling around all over the place making the annoying Windows 8 charms and dingdongs appear randomly, the mouse itself, ridden by my hand, practically falling off the edge of the table.

I would never have guessed that my right hand could outperform my left at anything save maybe holding the phone receiver to my right ear.

Sometimes the shadow side carries strength. It pleased me that my reaction was to admire my right hand's skill rather than deplore my left's klutziness. My right hand has about fifteen years' worth of practice with a mouse and my left hand maybe barely a few hours over that entire period. 

So there, demonstrated in my own body, the "10,000 hours of practice" adage: talent alone isn't sufficient; practice is essential; with enough practice a person can achieve a high degree of mastery even with mediocre talent. 

When I was eleven or twelve, a classmate taunted me: "You are as useless as your right hand." And that was about what I believed, about my hand and about myself. So, guess what? Even the weak, even the useless...practice, and manifest strength.

I'm grateful to have had my attention drawn to this, to get to share it with you, too. It's also a good reminder about balancing left and right. Humans recognize symmetry as beauty, and there are studies showing that harmonizing the brain's hemispheres is good for mental/emotional health as well as intelligence... and I for one am asymmetrical (cattywampus? skewiff?) all the way from my face to my feet. So, off I go to practice writing with my right hand--my left hand has hundreds of thousands of hours' headstart writing. Who knows what might get channeled? 

What do you do to stay in balance?

Three More Lessons From Business to Spirit, and Why I'm Not Going Away

Three more mutual lessons from entrepreneurship and spiritual/personal growth empowerment, and their story:

1. Surround yourself with people of similar interests, intentions, and consciousness. It's said we are the cross section of the five people closest to us. I have a hard time taking this on board because I'm such a loner, but I do also believe it. If you want to get better at writing, hang out with writers--on which, more in a moment.
2. Work around a "no." I'm not good at taking no for an answer. And--if the thing that's being turned down has merit and goodness in it, often the no can be turned into a yes.
3. Create your flow. "Go with the flow" is great in concept, but I've had to acknowledge that often I've gone with someone else's flow rather than use my own idea muscle or act of will. When I'm conscious and intentional of what I'm working toward, and when my actions are reflecting my intentions, the focus creates a genuine flow all of its own, and everything I do has an ease and rightness and rhythm to it.

Storytime!

Starting from number 2: our wonderful local author Miranda Weiss was scheduled to teach a nonfiction course through the college this semester. Not enough people had registered, so the class was cancelled. Some of us were quite disappointed by this, and I (and probably some others) wrote her to ask if there was any way we could make the class a go on an informal basis, maybe at her home. It turned out that the dynamic and imaginative campus director was quite open to having a short version of the course hosted by the college, as a noncredit offering. There were eight spaces. And so, yesterday, nine of us showed up for the first meeting of Miranda's class at the college!

Which illustrates numbers 1 and 2. All of us were there to write. All of us were there to learn from Miranda and also from one another; to listen, offer feedback, write both in the class and in between meetings. We all happen to be women, and we all live in Homer; but aside from that we're such a diverse bunch--all of us choosing to surround ourselves with others who want to write, to write better, to explore more, to write deeper. 

As a sweet synchronicity for me, I received two lots of feedback from my mentor yesterday too, both of them excitingly encouraging. The most beautiful thing about the past two days has been number 3: I've been having an experience of creating flow. Whereas there are times when days go by without my writing anything except a bare bones journal entry, and I question myself, "What am I so afraid of? Do I really even like writing? If I loved it like I say I do, wouldn't I write all the time?" -- the past two days, on the other hand, have been characterized by involuntary flashes of "Hey! I like writing!" and, when I write in my journal first thing in the morning and ask what I could do to make it a really good day, the answer has been something like "Write x" or "Work on y." 

Underlying all this positive energy and buy-in, there's still this niggling piece about my physical health. The "go away to treatment" chorus has gotten a little louder, and I've become a little more adamant that I'm not going. I'm the one in this body, most of the time I feel okay, I know pretty much what I'd be going to and it would really suck; and there's way too much going on right here right now, plus my next moves to figure out. I just wish there wasn't this one little apple of discord.

Six Spiritual Lessons from Learning about Business

Winter has returned here. A windstorm that blew off roofs and blew in snow, and now the temperatures are in the teens, where they "should" be at this time of year, not the 40s.

My current crash course in business building is cross-pollinating beautifully with my focus on personal development. I've realized that my lifelong head-in-the-sand approach to finances, getting by solely due to extreme frugality coupled with some innate blind trust, is not just because I thought money was unimportant. There has been a certain amount of judgment of money as "unspiritual" as well as some scarcity mentality about not wanting to use up resources (who, me?) or not believing there's enough to go around. 
Time to let those go.

Wow, so part of my spiritual training right now is recognition that money, too, is spiritual. And the business training is spiritual training, too. I could go on and on, but here are six quick ones for Sunday night.

1. Abundance! You have to approach your business in the sincere awareness and consciousness of abundance. Acknowledge that there is plenty, there is enough for everyone, there is enough and plenty for you to have abundance. Yes! In spiritual development too, cultivating a sense of abundance is a consciousness-raiser.
2. To work well in business, it's essential to be in the present, aware. If you make a mistake, learn the lesson it encapsulates, and move on: now is the only time you can make a difference. In spiritual life too.
3. To build a good business, it's wise to have a daily practice that supports--and maintains--daily habits that focus your attention in the places needed. This is also important for self talk and change of personal habits.
4. When figuring out the focus of your business, it's wise to brainstorm before researching marketability--come up with ideas. And in the personal development sphere, spinning ideas is a great way to connect with a broader, one-mind reality. James Altucher talks about building an "idea muscle" as a way to access one's subconscious and become more creative and generally more productive.
5. Be your best for the greatest good. If you make your business as good as it can be, it will produce the most it can and satisfy its consumers to the greatest degree. If I am my best, I can do the most for the universe.
6. A business is part of an ecosystem, with consumers and suppliers and complex interactions on many levels. Acquire a sense of being part of a greater whole simultaneous with autonomy and personal accountability. And the same goes for my individual self. In both areas, there is a grace to the sense of being part of something greater than oneself, to being a channel, being of service.

Gratitude for spirit! I want to stay in that space. Perhaps my body can just run on pure spirit.

_____________________________________________
On a different note, RIP Maxine Kumin, Pulitzer prizewinning poet, essayist, novelist, children's book writer--and back-to-the-lander. 
In her honor, here's a sonnet of hers that proves she had a wryly humorous appraisal of death:

Purgatory
And suppose the darlings get to Mantua, 
suppose they cheat the crypt, what next? Begin 
with him, unshaven. Though not, I grant you, a 
displeasing cockerel, there's egg yolk on his chin. 
His seedy robe's aflap, he's got the rheum. 
Poor dear, the cooking lard has smoked her eye. 
Another Montague is in the womb 
although the first babe's bottom's not yet dry. 
She scrolls a weekly letter to her Nurse 
who dares to send a smock through Balthasar, 
and once a month, his father posts a purse. 
News from Verona? Always news of war. 
Such sour years it takes to right this wrong! 
The fifth act runs unconscionably long. 

_____________________________________________
much love.

"...and your life is in your hands."

When I get a line of poetry going through my head, it's usually for a good reason.
Lately:    voi ch'entrate, and your life is in your hands. -- the final line of Robert Lowell's "The Exile's Return." 
"Voi ch'entrate" is elliptical for Dante's lasciate ogne speranze voi ch'entrate, better known as "abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

And the truth is, I'm staring down a precipice.

But aren't we all, always? I take my life in my hands with every breath. That part was clear. But I didn't understand why I was getting the "abandon hope" part of the quote. Maybe it was just along for the ride.

Thank goodness I've been listening to all the self-empowerment and personal development audios. I listened to Roz Savage, the English lady who left behind her corporate life to follow passion, and has rowed solo across oceans. One of her lessons from aboard boat was don't indulge in hope. My ears pricked up. In the middle of the ocean, in a storm, with a broken oar and a waterlogged radio. hope may lead to paralysis, apathy, and a feeling of disempowerment as you try to replace your initiative and responsibility with wishing and longing.
So, actually, Robert Lowell (and little miz Ela), abandoning hope and acknowledging that your life is in your hands are two arms of the same embrace--embracing personal accountability.

My life is in my hands as I stare down a precipice and as I check my hope at the door. 
I'm learning so much right now, rediscovering my urge and delight in creative writing and translating, and throwing myself down the rabbit hole of a whole new endeavor, learning and being coached to run a business. In my ripe old age, I'm finally learning about finances! I'm finally bringing myself into participation (one of the reasons I first started this blog, participation) in one of the most potent and ubiquitous means of circulation.
And it's uncanny how well what I'm learning about business fits in with many of the spiritual/personal development changes I've been working on. I'm looking forward to sharing more detail on that.
But there is also a demand for unflinching honesty. If you're going to lay out resources you don't have, you'd better be very clear about where you're borrowing it from, and on what terms. Things have to match up. 

I have a mismatch. I'm excited, optimistic, engaged. I feel really good. And/but--I feel really good despite... When I say or think x is really good despite... is usually when something's about to go awry. But really, I feel okay. And yet, it was wisdom to decide not to go to the writers' conference at the end of this month because I'm not at the top of my notch. But I'm feeling okay! But objective markers of measurement would insist I'm not okay. And there's such a mismatch, I can hardly believe it even standing on two different scales, even getting feedback from people I trust.

Now would be an extremely inconvenient time to have to go away to treatment. But I'm back at the point of being told it's go away by choice or else I'll lose the choice.
I'm finding this pretty difficult to digest. It makes going off and studying up on LLC paperwork seem relatively easy.
And my life is in my hands.

Winter, Green Shoots, Purple Corn and Grain and Green

Hello from sunny Alaska! Still unseasonably springlike here--we've seen green grass, mosquitoes, gnats; I was out hiking this afternoon and ran into a friend, whose friend was carrying bear spray! I guess the cue to hibernate isn't very strong just at the moment. Strange this weather has been. Homer is subarctic, but it is also maritime, which means that even in less bizarre winters there's usually a couple of thawing spells, hence icier roads than if everything just froze nice and tight for the duration. Since I'm shy of ice driving, I tend to be semi-glued to the ten-day forecast on Weather Underground throughout the winter, trying to prepare myself for what's to come. To which I should add, having lived in maritime climates in CA and HI too: meteorologists do their best with these weather systems blowing in from far out in the Pacific, but it's always somewhat of a crapshoot. Weather Underground are by far the most consistent, but they don't always get it right; sometimes the incoming weather system never makes it to land mass. For the past month, I've been amazed to see above-freezing temperatures all the way to the end of the ten-day forecast every time I look, repeatedly and repeatedly, the tail end of those ten days inching toward the end of the month. But now it's inching colder and should be 20 degrees and snowing by Friday, apparently. Hopefully nobody's bees or peonies will have come too far out of dormancy.

My own little dining-room-table garden continues. Sunflower sprouts reach for the light continually. I have a couple sad little parsley sprouts. Clover makes a nice cover crop, indoors as well as out in farmers' fields, but it's easy to eat as a sprout too. I've had some buckwheat greens, but one shouldn't consume those with any regularity because the greens (not the seeds, which have their own issues) contain fagopyrin, which can cause a photosensitive rash, and we have all kinds of light up here, haha. My milk thistle was a bust--old seeds, very poor germination.
I'm no kind of corn fanatic as so many people are--I don't care for popcorn. I'm suspicious of baked goods with corn grain for celiac reasons (non-gluten grains mess me up too). As far as corn in its "fruit" rather than "grain" phase I like fresh corn on the cob but not with the devoted adoration of many people; I love corn kernels but honestly I'm afraid of their calories (as ridiculous as that might seem)... But this 'ere purple corn is the graminaceous version of those magic beans Jack got. 

I'd been hearing about "purple corn" and "purple corn extract" as a superfood for years and had been skeptical. You can get purple corn tortilla chips--that's mainstream novelty, far beyond the superfood universe in its own gimmick-prone spectrum. But I got hold of some purple corn for very cheap, and I was curious.

All purple foods are high in antioxidants. Anthocyanins, resveratrol. Heart healthy, cell protective. Ultra violet, crown chakra. Have you noticed how many purple foods come in a paler version? Grapes, eggplants, tomatillos, berries, cabbage and pretty much all cabbage family veggies, potatoes, beets...The darker version is always more delicious, richer tasting, antioxidant-richer. Green is my favorite color, but purple is my next favorite, and with all my indoor gardening, I felt drawn to see if those magic kernels would sprout, to green the purple.

Um. They were about 100% germination. And it's fascinating, the contrast of this monocot, this grass, looking like some sort of goofy insect, roots everywhere and that one intent shoot; so singleminded in comparison with the sunflowers with their gentle dicot pairs of leaves cauled in prayer by the black husk.

You can see them here. The sunflower sprouts, leggy with their two leaves at the top, still look prayerful, expansive, reaching out this way and that. The corn is the green fuse unfurling like a sword, looking just one way. Up. I snip sunflower greens and the stalks languish useless. I snip the corn; it keeps right on growing. It doesn't taste like corn whatsoever; it tastes more like wheatgrass, go figure.

And oh my goodness, check out those roots! That's corn roots with the gentle little clover cover crop making nitrogen up top, the corn purplish in the stalk, swording up into green. Green sward, green sword.

Wheatgrass and barleygrass are famous for their enormous wealth of minerals. Grasses don't contain gluten, and their ratio of omega 3 to 6 is much better than that of grains. Amazing the transformations a plant can undergo. I think of trying to be a grass rather than a grain, of being an anti-inflammatory omega-3 rather than pro-inflammatory omega-6, vibrantly growing, full of minerals rather than dormant and protected with phytates to prevent me sprouting when winter pretends to be spring... Of course, the other big difference between grains and grass is that grains are highly caloric and grasses minimally so. But nobody's going to be surprised to hear that I'd rather be mineral rich and calorie poor than the other way around. So, that's how I'm going to be eating that corn! And I'm going to need more growing space!