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.

Solstice, Christmas, Remembering the Deceased

This was sunrise on solstice day. Just had to share. From inside this house's arctic entry, complete with icicles. It warmed up to 12 degrees this morning!

When I was growing up, my family celebrated Christmas in a non-religious but spiritually aware way, although "spiritual" is a scare-quotes word for my parents. I'm just using it as a quick index of the tapping into collective consciousness of the stasis and preparation for forward momentum lent by the Solstice, as well as harmonization with the celebratory mood all around us.

But one tradition I want to honor is this: we always made a toast (regardless of what was being drunk) to "absent friends." Christmas is obviously a celebration of birth and new beginnings at the darkest time--in Romance languages at least, the name of Christmas refers to birth (Noel, Natale, Navidad, etc...) But since it's the time where energy, life force, dwindles, diminishes to vanishing point, it seems right to me to remember those who left us this year as well. 
So, here I am wearing a jacket that Larry gave me as a gift some years ago.

Around my neck is a chain from my grandmother, and on it an old Iraqi gold ornament intended to be worn, several of them, in the hair. There are little leaves of beaten gold at the bottom, together with an old coin, and they would have jingled in the hair slightly as the wearer moved about. And check out the intricacy of curled gold on the main "bulb" itself.

It's a little too three-dimensional to wear all the time, I'm finding, but oh my I love it so much. Christmas, remembering my Iraqi-Jewish grandmother, my artist brother in law... I feel gratitude and warmth; gratitude also for my home away from home friends and family here, who fit me in so graciously.
Love, warmth, renewal to everyone. 

Solstice Settling and Sprouting

I returned to Alaska in the middle of the first big snow of what had thus far been a mild winter. In the week that I've been back there's already been a couple feet of snow, some extreme cold, and a thaw to rain, piles of snow melting and whooshing off the steep roofs, icing up on the roads...and it's supposed to freeze back down and snow all over again by the end of today. I've been swiftly reminded of how important weather and the weather forecast become during the winters here--more so than it would somewhere with a less maritime and so changeable climate.

Fortunately, the place I'm blessed to be house-sitting this winter is snug, comfortable, and beautiful, so I won't at all mind being snowed in for a few days should that happen.
Here's the view from a window, with Mount Augustine out in the ocean, and the full moon. 

And from another direction, sunrise...

In this season of least light, the colors forced through the spectrum at this latitude are spectacular. Reputedly the north-facing window in this house has stadium-side view of the Northern Lights when they're out, so that's something I look forward to in the next month or so when that tends to happen.

It's quiet up here, even remote-feeling, although it is also right at that pinnacle of the bluff where there are updrafts and, from the highway, you can see the ravens levitating and floating and playing in those drafts. I've heard chickadees and pheasants, seen the lift-drag of pheasant tracks close to the house. When I headed out on snowshoes after a big snowfall, I wandered off the road and crossed the tracks of a large moose.

I'm cultivating some life indoors as vibrant company for the winter also. One of the first things I did was shred up a cabbage, add a bit of raw sauerkraut juice, and set it to kraut--vibrant bacteria. And then I've been making sprouts. There's buckwheat on the left and fenugreek on the right, both of which are cheap and sprout super-readily. 

I sprouted just a little buckwheat, about a quarter cup, because I wasn't sure if I'd tolerate it and I'm not really tolerating much of anything very well right now.
Was pleased to find, as I'd expected, that it's dry enough here that I could dry the sprouted buckwheat just leaving it in a warm place in the room; no dehydrator necessary.

The quarter-cup of buckwheat blended with three large dates (two and a half would have sufficed) and some cinnamon to make six little bliss balls--with no fat, if that's your bag. Each of them just a small amount of buckwheat, and so far so good tolerance-wise, but maybe that's not enough to really be able to tell.

As for the fenugreek, which I've been sprouting and eating for years, my friend Ofek in Israel tipped me off to a special property it has, which may not be surprising given its mucilaginous character.
When you blend up sprouted fenugreek in a Vitamix or similar with a bit of water, it foams up like crazy, so that it ends up looking like irish moss...

...of course, though, it's not neutral flavored like irish moss; it has fenugreek's signature pungent, curry-like taste. It could be overwhelming all by itself, although obviously the added moisture cuts it. Pretty good with some sauerkraut, avocado, and green powders. The Arab Israelis and the Yemenis make a sort of salsa with it called hilbeh, which I didn't get to try while I was in Israel, but which sounds somewhat reminiscent of Moroccan harissa. It's often offered as a hot relish at falafel stands, so since I tend to go for spicy it's reasonably likely that I've tried it in the past all unaware.
Traditionally this is a time of year that I enjoy playing with food and making goodies, as this blog can amply testify! This year, between having just been gone, getting used to staying in a different place, and the fact that my own body isn't getting along that great with food, I haven't yet figured out what sort of playing I can do for holiday gifts and for fun. But this new foamy substance, with the challenge of its intense and specific flavor, is a challenge indeed. 
Dare I say "watch this space"?

Meanwhile, I got into fenugreek leaves on my trip--after we got back from Israel, ironically; they're readily and very cheaply available at the Indian and Turkish markets near where my parents live. Less pungent than the seed, a little succulent like purslane, delicious. I came home with a big sack of soil yesterday, and am preparing to grow some little greens--fenugreek, red clover.

It feels good to be quiet, alone, and still this solstice (which literally means "sun standing still"). To feel grateful to have such a comfortable and beautiful place to be. To sleep late and not berate myself for it too much. To drink lemon water and nettle tea tinged with Earl Grey. To write. To have dirt on my fingers. To go for a short walk and have dirt under my feet through the washed-out snow. To ponder the problem of my bifurcated blog and how to return to one web home. 
And, to ask the universe, where next? I'm at a still point right now, but this is transition time. I set the intention that when I have to leave this house at the beginning of April I will move smoothly into another house-sitting arrangement, but I will also have some clarity on where I'm headed next. I have no idea, except that it's coming time for me to move away from Alaska. I don't know where. And as the sun holds still, so do I, and for a little time that's okay.

Happy Solstice--I hope yours is peaceful with the stillness that precedes germination.

Last Post from the UK; Memories as Resets

...Or at least, I strongly suspect I won't post here again until I'm back either in or en route to Alaska. I've been trying to make the most of the people I'm with here for the time I still have. I'm also doing some of the Holiday goodies preparations I do every year--nice to be able to do it for my family this time. Lots of cacao butter melting, etc...

Trying to internalize some of the lessons being offered me from nearest and dearest--heaven knows there are always lessons to learn.
My dad offered me an interesting perspective on memory as a conduit to a "system restore" for the state of being. He said that if one can return to one's earliest memories, if they are true memories, then one can return to the experience of the state one was in before any of it got overlaid with all the crap that gets laid down as one moves through life. This offers the possibility of freedom--a fresh start, even--a whole new perspective or lease on life.

So many ways we think of memory. A wax tablet that records impressions and then gets overlaid with other impressions, preserving some of them faithfully, blurring others over.
Will I remember real elephants when I think of Petra years from now?

A filing cabinet in which thoughts and experiences and details get stuffed away, sometimes with an orderly retrieval system, sometimes to be buried in further mounds of paperwork.
A central processing unit with spinning drive that selects from impressions stored hither and thither associated with different parts of the body in which they were experienced.
Sometimes memories are on the tip of conscious retrieval, like a clearing at the end of a slot canyon with a prize edifice filling its vista, elusive and splendid.

Memories can be spatial. Sometimes I walk into a room and don't know what I came in for, but when I return to where I came from, the memory returns. I think that happens to everyone.

Food holds so many memories, and bodies remember food in significant ways. Teach me lessons about memory. The flavor or aroma that takes you back instantly to the first place you encountered it. Something that made you sick as a little kid that you can never stand the taste of again. (My brother still won't eat apples after such an experience when he was maybe four years old.)
Sometimes you can put something in your mouth and spit it out before it's an actual experience. Some things you put in your mouth melt before you can spit them out, and the experience has already become a part of you. The instant you put it in your mouth was a choice, and you can't take it back.

source: http://www.123rf.com/photo_11424837_bunch-of-dates-is-hanging-from-the-palm.html

Do I remember everything I put in my mouth that melted into me before I was aware of how it was creating me?

Dates...dates are always good. Memories of California, Hawaii, Israel always Israel all the way back...Even though there were a couple years I wouldn't let myself eat them, my body remembers them and is grateful.

Right now, my body remembers coconut milk and gets snotty the moment it gets any, since I guess anything you eat almost exclusively for a long period of time your body develops some intolerance for. 

Let me remember this and not spoil dates for myself, or whatever the next thing is.

Are food allergies themselves a form of memory? What if we could remember before we were born, and be able to rewind all the baggage with which we came into this life, start afresh?

Whichever way it is, a memory is a bridge--but between then and now, or between now and now?

So much of these past two months I've spent in the UK and Israel have flown away like water under a bridge (another bridge, or the same bridge?), so many words and movements I'll never remember. I want to make sure to take some true memories with me, godspeed toward dawning of certainty of what my next step should be.

I feel privileged to be so well loved and supported as I negotiate whether I'm passing under a bridge or crossing over it.

Or what the bridge is, or how much I need to know about where it's leading...

Remembering Larry, with Gratitude

When I learned that my brother in law Larry had passed away a couple days ago, my first response was to feel a sense of loss--on my own account, especially on Sandy's account--and what an inspiring, mutually strengthening couple they were--but also a loss to the world of a highly talented, extremely goodhearted and genuinely lovely man.

Old picture from this blog, with Sandy and Phil's Mom, 2011

But this regret was soon followed by gratitude, seasonally appropriate, and celebrating Larry's life is the happiest and most fitting reaction/

I am so grateful to have known him. And after my grandmother died this year just as I was thinking that I should seize some time with her before it was too late (and then it was too late), I am so grateful to have had some time with Larry this last August. It was a short visit as I passed through Portland, ironically just a few days before I almost died myself, but I stayed with Larry longer than I'd thought I had time for. We looked through a photograph album of the mural he was working on--still working, still making art, even as his prognosis worsened and his body weakened. We drank green tea with stevia. We talked; we shared silence. When I left, I felt awareness of the possibility that this would be the last time we met in life.

Now, I remember the words of a wise friend many years ago: our dead are always with us, sometimes as intimately and vividly so as when they were alive. I salute Larry's spirit that remains with everyone whom he loved so well and who loved him.

Here are some of the examples Larry set in his life:
--He was unwaveringly positive in his outlook. He accepted what came his way, including cancer, and loved the world just as it was, in just the configuration it offered itself.
--He supported other human beings--with generosity, kindness, helpfulness, and support of all kinds.
--He was so committed to his work, and he took pride in it. Larry's murals were physically demanding to produce because of their large scale, but they display a sense of intimate detail in the small things right down to clothing and facial features, and there are always some humorous touches also. Perhaps the largeness of his canvas helped him not to be self effacing about the work, but he shared pictures and touching personal stories (e.g. of the real-life people who ended up featuring in the murals) with enthusiasm and a sense of wonder. I always felt inspired by his deep-seated knowledge that his art, art in general, was worth talking about and sharing.
--He encouraged other artists. He encouraged Sandy to let her creative talents blossom, as they have indeed. Whenever we talked about creative writing, I went away feeling empowered to ride out the blankity blank times or the troughs of despair and self flagellation.
--He was always learning. Recently he had been taking photography classes and developing his considerable talents in that arena too. The most stunning picture of Phil I've ever seen was taken by him.

The only time Phil and I asked what his advice was for happiness and success in life and relationships, his answer was simple and frank: focus on the love first and foremost; let everything else come second to it or go by the by in its service.
I wish I could be better at taking that advice.
I knew a man who practiced what he only preached when asked, who walked his talk.

I give thanks for and celebrate Larry's life.