I first saw this site a year ago:
And this morning while exercising I saw a number of the secrets displayed in a music video on MTV and decided to revisit. The blog says, "each secret can be a regret, hope, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before." These posts are art and emotion.
What's a secret you've never told anyone? mmmm. :)
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
Trouble sleeping
Last night I think there was something on the wind. In bed by 9:30, but I couldn't sleep. I read for an hour in The Prodical Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, then got up around 11:45 to scan for summer jobs on the Society for Conservation Biology website. Back in bed by 1:00...still no sleep. Called my brother, drank some milk, thought of Matthew. Didn't want to blog - so I opened my journal for the first time in 2 months (to the day!) and found this quote:
to be present where
one is
is the simple story
of one's life.
one is
is the simple story
of one's life.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Ask Me
Some time when the river is ice ask memistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
what the river says, that is what I say.
William Stafford
Is it appropriate to say...
"White girls do yoga to find peace and black women shake their shit."
Anonymous
I just came back from the most amazing performance by Step Afrika. 4 men, 2 females just hammering out the beat with their feet, hands, and bodies. How do you move like that? What energy runs through veins beating with life and sound? I clapped in rhythm and felt happy.
My body and mind feel so different after that. Buzzing energy surrounds me. Thank you women for your moves. Thank you men and women for sharing your place in things. Check it out, then make it happen http://www.stepafrika.com/
Thursday, January 26, 2006
A case of the maybies
For some reason I woke angry this morning and irritable. I've cycled through my mind trying to attribute why: Is it because Chris will be leaving for Maine soon and a friendship chapter will be closed? Because dirty dishes made loudly last night at 10:30pm when I was trying to fall asleep were still in the sink this morning? Perhaps because it's still snowing and I don't feel comfortable driving to the gym where I hoped to pound out my mood on the treadmill? Maybe it's the $400 ticket home I want to buy for Spring Break and the frustration that so much money must be used to get to where I want to be? Or maybe it's confusion over what's next -- after earning the masters do I stay or ditch the program...can I face the apparent uncertainty and ambiguity of setting out again? Or maybe I feel angry at my anger and uncertainty? It might also be the final paper for my Belize class and the fear of imperfection that's nagging at my mind.
Even last night I was angry. And on and off through out the day. Maybe it's because I started taking birth control again yesterday and I'm anxious how it will react with my body (and if it will be similar to college where I began wondering about thighs and having greater mood swings than usual).
Maybies. David would say: Is there anything wrong with this moment?
Ah, there is nothing wrong with this moment -- but this moment always leaves. And in its space is new possibility and new vulnerability. In its place comes choices.
This dialogue is my process of meaning making. Robert Kegan in his book, The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development, points out that the zone of mediation where meaning is made is called by personality psychologists the "ego," the "self," or the "person". Further he writes, "This book is about human being as an activity. It is not about the doing which a human does; it is about the doing which a human is...being a person is the activity of meaning-making."
Sometimes meaning making alone is too much for me. We need others to tether our process and affirm patterns and trends. We need others to know that our meaning making is worthy. In fact, if reality can only be experienced in relation to others -- is this not also the case with meaning? Kegan writes, "Meaning depends on someone who recognizes you. No meaning, by definition, is utterly lonely."
And so perhaps I'm just lonely? Craving physical contact in the form of a hug or a body to sleep next to. Or daily opportunities to process with another in proximity. I wonder if there are other ways to satisfy that chemical need within the body since Matt is still 2 weeks away? Maybe I will go shovel snow?
Even last night I was angry. And on and off through out the day. Maybe it's because I started taking birth control again yesterday and I'm anxious how it will react with my body (and if it will be similar to college where I began wondering about thighs and having greater mood swings than usual).
Maybies. David would say: Is there anything wrong with this moment?
Ah, there is nothing wrong with this moment -- but this moment always leaves. And in its space is new possibility and new vulnerability. In its place comes choices.
This dialogue is my process of meaning making. Robert Kegan in his book, The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development, points out that the zone of mediation where meaning is made is called by personality psychologists the "ego," the "self," or the "person". Further he writes, "This book is about human being as an activity. It is not about the doing which a human does; it is about the doing which a human is...being a person is the activity of meaning-making."
Sometimes meaning making alone is too much for me. We need others to tether our process and affirm patterns and trends. We need others to know that our meaning making is worthy. In fact, if reality can only be experienced in relation to others -- is this not also the case with meaning? Kegan writes, "Meaning depends on someone who recognizes you. No meaning, by definition, is utterly lonely."
And so perhaps I'm just lonely? Craving physical contact in the form of a hug or a body to sleep next to. Or daily opportunities to process with another in proximity. I wonder if there are other ways to satisfy that chemical need within the body since Matt is still 2 weeks away? Maybe I will go shovel snow?
Monday, January 23, 2006
Why I Wake Early
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
- Mary Oliver
I'm starting a new routine to improve my sleeping pattern. Infants sleep between 12-20 hours a day and the majority of young adults need between 8-9. I like positive moods, accurate memories, and good health. It goes like this: in bed between 9:30 - 10:00pm (read, journal, breathe), lights out by 10:30-11:00pm, sleep until 6:30 - 7:30am.
Ease awake. Practice gratefulness. Plan ahead.
Mary Oliver might be the greatest modern day poet of presencing alive. Let us all find a prayer for being each morning. Please follow this link to another of my favorite poems by her, "Mindful" http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Mindful.html
Sunday, January 22, 2006
A blog is born
When I first began to think about creating a blog -- I wondered what it would be like to have an online relationship with myself. Specifically a relationship that anyone in the general population could potentially see. Do you look at the product with self love? disdain? pride? I thought that if Matthew and I ever broke up this would be my testimate to how I'd lived the day. A way to measure the passing of time and to validate the act of being. More than the journal that sits by my bedside, this would be a document shared with the world that proclaims: I am alive! I am worthy of space! Yet beneath the surface confidence would be the subtle questions...Um, do you still like me? Is what I'm doing enough?
The birth of "Four Seasons" comes after a year long gestation period in Burlington, Vermont. During this time I endured (enjoyed?) the passage of a 9 month winter, 3 week mud season, 2 month summer, and a quick eye blink of fall. "Four Seasons" emerges today with the push to create a final reflection paper for a graduate level course I took to Belize (Central America) during the 2005-2006 Christmas break and the realization that I need anchoring to embrace the dynamic pace of my changing life.
So begins the practice of being. Eckhart Tolle writes in Practicing the Power of Now (p. 100):
In the state of enlightenment, you are yourself -- "you" and "yourself" merge into one. You do not judge yourself, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you are not proud of yourself, you do not love yourself, you do not hate yourself, and so on. The split caused by self-reflective consciousness is healed, its curse removed. There is no "self" that you need to protect, defend, or feed anymore.
When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no longer have: the relationship with yourself. Once you have given that up, all your other relationships will be love relationships.
Eckhart would likely have a few words to say regarding my thoughts in the opening paragraph. Perhaps then, as practice of mindfulness and surrender, this blog can be a routine manifestation of being across the four seasons. Rather than a carefully constructed image of the ego this blog will share the bare essentials: thoughts that arise, poetry or art that strikes an emotional cord, and a daily space for the celebration of breath.
The birth of "Four Seasons" comes after a year long gestation period in Burlington, Vermont. During this time I endured (enjoyed?) the passage of a 9 month winter, 3 week mud season, 2 month summer, and a quick eye blink of fall. "Four Seasons" emerges today with the push to create a final reflection paper for a graduate level course I took to Belize (Central America) during the 2005-2006 Christmas break and the realization that I need anchoring to embrace the dynamic pace of my changing life.
So begins the practice of being. Eckhart Tolle writes in Practicing the Power of Now (p. 100):
In the state of enlightenment, you are yourself -- "you" and "yourself" merge into one. You do not judge yourself, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you are not proud of yourself, you do not love yourself, you do not hate yourself, and so on. The split caused by self-reflective consciousness is healed, its curse removed. There is no "self" that you need to protect, defend, or feed anymore.
When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no longer have: the relationship with yourself. Once you have given that up, all your other relationships will be love relationships.
Eckhart would likely have a few words to say regarding my thoughts in the opening paragraph. Perhaps then, as practice of mindfulness and surrender, this blog can be a routine manifestation of being across the four seasons. Rather than a carefully constructed image of the ego this blog will share the bare essentials: thoughts that arise, poetry or art that strikes an emotional cord, and a daily space for the celebration of breath.
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