Old posts, fuzzy slippers, a new name?

When I read posts from my friends blogs, it makes me want to write posts. Goddanm, they're so fucking interesting. So's it makes me want to give that back.

It makes me warm and fuzzing thinking I may be making someone else feel warm and amongst friends telling storys and sharing pieces of writing on a snowy winter day with a cup of hot chocolate and fuzzy slippers. Which is maybe a bit like how I feel reading friends posts sometimes.

Anyways, I'm going through my old posts, spell checking and posting old drafts that never got published. And maybe there will be some new ones. Though honestly, it may be time for a new blog name. I think the old one doesn't fit any more. I feel like I've graduated or something.

Current status

It's hard to describe how I'm doing right now. It's hard to know that. I've gone through huge changes in the last few months. That's what my memory tells me. But I can't feel that. I only feel the changes when I'm in the midst of them, screaming like a little baby, helpless and confused and not caring much that this discomfort is allowing me to open in new wonderful ways. When the discomfort is there, I'm just thinking and feeling the discomfort. That's my job.

I've been dealing, and have dealt with, some huge failure issues. I'm currently dealing with sex, relationship, and self-love issues. I'm a very different person than I was, three months ago. Dealing with the suicide of your closest friend will do that. But that can either destroy you, or be a portal into deep levels of healing and growth. There's nothing in this world that isn't safe. Pain is safe, injury is safe, death is safe. The only thing that feels unsafe is you beliefs about these things. And that is something mental, and can be seen clearly, and thus unwound. And often the only way you even find these areas of pain is when something crazy happens, something you absolutely, really strongly don't want to happen. And then it happens and it hurts in all sorts of ways and you get to be led by the pain to the places within you that are scared or angry, the areas of darkness in your heart, "where the sun don't shine."

And with a good pure, simple method of piercing through that darkness (and it requires awareness, you can't just tune out and let something else deal with it.), the worst thing that could happen to you is your greatest gift, once you are done unpacking it.

I recommend Byron Katie, I recommend Tree Preaching, I recommend feeling the body. If you don't know one of these things, drop me a comment if your interested in an explanation.

I don't care what method you use, just fine one that works for you. Works means: the emotional block that was bothering you, gets dealt with, and gets dealt with quickly, because this process doesn't need to take a huge amount of time, if your doing it correctly. And works means that, to whatever extent you've dealt with it, you've dealt with it for good. This is not about things that you distract yourself from, or pretend away, only to have them come back bigger and stronger than ever once the stimulus gets big enough that it breaks through your wall of denial/distraction.

When you finish work on an emotional issue, that level of the issue is done, gone, no longer exists and an energetic block in your emotional body. You will almost certainly meet it again on a deeper and more profound level, when it's time, but you will notice serious differences in how you act and react in situations related to the issue. You may have to use your memory to make this comparison though, because once an emotional block is really gone, it's like it never existed at all, and so its hard to remember it was ever that bad, because the memories that involve that issue have lost there emotional charge.

That's my experience, anyway.

Current Issue theme: Sex and Romantic Relationships as addictions (addictions to fantasy or onanism, in my case.) And self love.

On the horizon (maybe): Boredom, and feeling like I'm not doing anything useful.

Current physical status: Fairfield, Iowa. Sitting on a futon I'm using as a bed at a friend's house. Thick, egg shell colored cotton sheets. A bowl of cereal to my right, a wireless router in front of me that makes a constant, high pitched screeching sound at all times that I imagine is what it's like for mice living somewhere that someones plugged in one of those ultrasonic "mouse be gone" emitters. A white noise creating AC unit to my left, drowning out all sounds not in this room. It's dark because all the Venetian blinds are shut, to keep the heat of the day out. I'm about to delete some of my porn collection from my little laptop, so I won't worry if it breaks or someone decides to snoop around in it. Then, I'm going to go get some weird type batteries for my camera, because I found an old but nice film camera in my aunts house, alone with a bunch of unused film. I've been considering getting a digital SLR or slightly lower end nice camera, but I didn't, because I wasn't sure if I'd actually use it. So now I can find out. If I use all the film up, then I guess I would. If not, then I've just saved a couple hundred bucks.

Happenings and wishes

things start to become clearer. The thread of my life that was dropped so that I could process my loss, is at the very beginning of getting picked up again. There will be more, always. For now, let it be noted: I'm on an upswing.

There is a block in my throat, energetically, emotionally. A block in my flow of expression. it needs to be opened. It's being opened. It's giving me a tremendous headache. That and the over-intense workout I just did.

headache.

today, you are my spiritual lesson.

the lesson is: when following other peoples orders to push harder, you can push yourself to your very limit. And you do, ignoring your own voice within that tells you when it's really appropriate to stop. And when you do that (ignore your inner voice), you suffer, your life goes out of balance. When you listen, your life comes into a harmony, synchronicity, and magicalness that is worthy of re-telling around a campfire.

goodnight.

p.s. It is feeling really nice, listening to myself. Which means: when I don't want to do something, I stop, when I want to do something, I do, when I don't know what I want to do, I wait till I do.

And whatever I think, is met with a passive acceptance.

I'm ending tonight with gratitude, because that is something I can always do, that feels right. Gratitude is interesting. Things are beautiful, and that is appreciated, and gratitude is somehow the aggressive form of appreciation, which is receptive. The universe is a gift to me, and my spontaneous gift back, is appreciation. Though it's not totally spontaneous. It requires a conscious decision, to put my awareness on it. Thus it becomes a really nice gift.

It's interesting how I feel like I don't want anything, but in actuality, there are lots of things I want. How does that work? It's like, the things I want are skin deep. Just entertainment. There's a tacit understanding with the universe that whatever happens, is ok. There are things which my heart desires, but they are superficial desires, and I can't take them very seriously. When I look back in my memory, for something especially amazing, to ask for again, if a genie popped up, I'd have a hard time. Three wishes, go:

trivial things:

I'd like to be able to fly, unaided, like super man.

I'd like a teacher, in the flesh, who matched with my learning style, and could help bring me to my highest potential. And was dedicated to doing so. Who I meet, and spend whatever time is necessary with them.

I'd like to be reincarnated whenever I die, and come back where I left off, evolution-wise, and with resources to support my goals of full development.

The first wish is purely for fun. The second is already fulfilled, in all important aspects, by what I call God. The meeting in flesh is for my own vanity and lack of faith. And I think it's likely that death will function like that for me.

You see why my desires are taken lightly then. The important one's are fulfilled, and the rest are just for shits and giggles. Sometimes they are fulfilled, and I shit and giggle. Sometimes not, and I've already forgotten. Or I'm rejected and I feel bad for a while. I feel bad in regular cycles anyways, so no real change there.

ok, lets try going to bed again.

First, laundry folding.

quiet

rustling of leaves

the air is fresh

---

-

hi everybody, I'm back. I'll write up a little thing on my adventure in belize, when I find time. I don't know when that will be. Things are picking up, in terms of busyness. I actually have quite a lot of things that need doing. Which mean the blog may fall by the wayside for a bit.

or not. We shall see.

day 0

I've got email, thanks to Sea-Tac's free wifi. And I am waiting for a plane. So I snapped a picture and am writing something, since people seem to want to know what goes down on my trip to belize. It will probably be awesome, and perhaps the price of me doing all sorts of cool things, is to share them with other people, who are not afforded the opportunity.

There must be deeper meaning though. It's not good enough talking just to talk. Does it help? Does it inspire? does it make people smile, uplift them when they're down? I have no fucking idea how to do any of that, but I'd like to, nonetheless, and sometimes I do, miraculously. It's not something I can control though. The best I can do is keep an eye out for opportunities to do good for other people.

byron katie has an exercise, where you try and do three nice things for people, every day, without being found out. If someone finds out it was you, you have to start over. I love that game idea. I want to do it. Every now and then I try, but it's really hard to figure out things to do. Perhaps I'm thinking too big. I should remember that little things still count.

my computer is periodically making an alarming scraping sound. I'm pretty sure it's the fan, but it's still unnerving. The whole idea of this teeny little netbook was it would be travel-friendly because it had solid-state memory, so no moving parts to break. But the way it sounds, it might be on it's way out. But perhaps it will manege for another year or two. if I can get four years out of it, it will have been worth the price (400$) And I'll get another one, hopefully slightly better quality (read: no alarming fan problems) and a bigger screen and a longer battery life.

jeesus, it's really going. it's probably just a loose screw, but it's quite irritating. maybe I can send it to the computer shop when I get back?

Anyways, I think I'll post everything when I get back, not now. If simply because this fan is really irritating me, and it would be frustrating if my computer died mid-sentence.

[note from much later on: I think it's the fan, as it only happens when the laptop gets really hot, so I just have to coddle it and move it to a cool surface if I do long-term work on it. This is how we step by step get lead into making ridiculous compromises for technology.]

Belize

I'm heading off to the airport in a few hours, heading to belize for twelve days, and adventure. I'm not sure for what part of that I'll have internet contact. I will update as I can. Don't expect anything over that time though. I'll be trying to keep a journal and take lots of pictures.

see ya later.

-i

Sometimes, I have sex with you, when your not looking.

sometimes I fall in love with someone from a few words, from the inflection of the voice, from an anecdote or two.

sometimes, my heart burns, literally burns in my chest, like it's on fire, like I'm on fire. Like tonight. I want to do something with this person. I want to have sex with them and marry them and be with them always. Right now. and I am blocked from doing so. and it burns like an inferno consuming me.

now, I've found at least the beginning of a solution. It started with me realizing that the one blocking me from having what I wanted was me, and by the same token, I could let myself have what I wanted. So now, when my heart burns and my spirit lusts for a dream of a girl I want utterly, I let myself have her, have it, and I make fabulous love with the patterns of light and feeling that are her body. It is desperate need fulfilled, and it feels a little bit like masturbation, in that I worry I won't pursue actual women, because if I want them I can just have them, immediately and unreservedly.

But that's not exactly how it works.

though it is partially.

I will no longer pursue woman based on a feeling of fundamental lack that I think they can fulfil. I will no longer pursue ideas of women that I have become infatuated with, taping paper masks to strangers faces and falling in love with my crudely drawn images.

Because those are things that they cannot give me, and they are things that I can give myself.

I'm not sure I can accurately describe the reason I would pursue women now. not because it is complex but because it is simple, too simple for words. Because i want to, because it is right.

I made deviled eggs today, and ate a few, and I just farted and it smelled like eggs.

also, later this evening, I made rice pudding.

this makes me very happy.

monkey noises

ooog.

back in seattle

very tired

only nine thirty

I love sleep

ook!

I'm going to blow the shit out of that fucking plane

aside from being a dirty double entente, haven't you ever had the almost uncontrollable urge to shout shit like:

--"holy fuck motherfuckers I'm strapped down with seventy five goddamn pounds of C4!"

or

"I have a everloving shiv in my boot and I'm going to kill all of your asses dead as soon as we get off the shitasscocking ground!"--

when your in the airport security line? No? Just me then. It's just so deliciously naughty. So taboo. You are really, really not allowed to say those things. People will jump you and beat you down with billy clubs and you will be locked in a room until your bags are searched and your family notified and your background checked, and you will probably be severely fined, and you might just stir everyone around you into a panic. Or, even more deliciously, you might just make everyone pause, in a moment of dumbstruck unbelieving awe, and then burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of what just happened.

even just a turrets style ejaculation of "I'mma gonna crash the plaaaaaaaaane!" said almost like a five year olds plea to go to the bathroom mixed with a ganstah's death threat. even just that would probably get you in serious horse shit. and somehow that fascinates me. I would miss all my flights. I would waste a tremendous amount of money, I would probably be put on watch lists for the rest of my life, I might not get to fly out at all. Or maybe: nothing. some uncomfortable stares. silence.

Oh, by the way, these musings happen because it is night and I am not in seattle, but in Phoenix, arizona, at an airport hotel, because my flight is canceled, because there weren't enough people to man the planes, because whether hit some places where whether wasn't expected to hit, right during the holiday season, and the airlines are only legally allowed to have there pilots fly a certain number of houres without sleeping. thankfully.

so I'm going to miss my primitive skills school monday (sadface) and probably tuesday too (ultra sadface beam :C ======X ) So I'm thinking about airlines and trying to decide how early I want to try to get to the airport and wait around on standby. I should probably get there pretty dang early, so I should probably go to bed a few hours ago. so I'll go do that now.

'night

i

packing

tomorrow morning, back to seattle. pack my bags tonight. cloths washed. flight checked. large dinner, ate. I like lanterns haning from trees. I like lanterns, in general. it's a good asthetic. i love how I can just sit here and stare off into a black abyse, because of the archatecture: very open. I'll try and take a picture, tomorrow, and post it, when I get back.

I love having time to be in silence and escape the thoughts of the world. the thoughts of the world are the thoughts that are boring, tired, endlessly repeated, and not actualy thought out. some people live on this mind of the masses, thinking only other peoples thoughts, like recording devices, playing back what has been heard. It requires silence and will to sit with these records and slowly see and turn off the repeating backround radiation of collective thought, and allow my own personal melody to emerge. thinking for yourself.

this is how you find your life.

broken

spell-check on blogger is broken. so I may not be spelling well in the next few posts. My webcam is broken. my cousin just smashed into something and some part of his body is now broken. the screen door out to the balcony I'm typing on is broken. The sound system piped throughout the house sounds like a record at the end of it's track. It is broken too.

My heart is not broken. My heart does not break. My heart is made of rubber, not porcelan. My heart is made of meat, of muscle. It tears and brusies and rips. but it heals. It bends. Hearts are not weak things. They, like people, are indestructible. They bend. they may even snap, but they keep functioning, to whatever capacity they can maintain.

My heart has hurt a lot, for long periods of time, and deeply. and it's all forgotten. It mine as well be a story about a friend of a friend someone's neighbor told me. It's a good story. It makes a good book. It makes a good life.

I've done some things I'm proud of. I've never stopped loving anyone I have ever loved. I still love my first puppy-dog crush. I see no reason to stop anymore. I used to think I shouldn't love. That really hurt.

I used to think other people should love me like I loved them. That hurt a lot too. I used to think other people hurting or feeling uncomfortable wasn't ok. That also hurt.

I

I'm harsh to my mom. It's a sad thing. I'm not harsh to anyone else almost. It's even hard to appologize when I say something hurtful, and realize what I've done. for some reason, with her I feel embaressed to admit it.

There is almost nothing that embareses me enought to do something out of integrity, but that does.

----

I want a page break here.

the sea at night is deep blue and soft. the sound of waves on the rocks below is soothing. I want to fuck a hot girl. I want it like I want comfort food or a nice laptop. I feel a lack or a hole and I want to not feel that. I think that maybe sex will do it, despite the fact that I know it won't. The only difference is I don't have a memory of having sex and what it was like afterwards, to remind me that it really didn't fill that hole. But I don't need it. I know the answer to this question, and if I can trust that, I can save myself time and energy.

however, I do think I should try to have a relationship. because I'm scared of it, because I don't know if I want it or not, because I don't know what it is, first hand, at all. I have mastrubation to extrapolate straight up sex. But I don't have any experience that can give me an idea of what a real romantic relationship is like. I want to. It's scary and exciting. I like adventure.

I can live an adventure, easily. I only need to keep reminding myself of one thing: the adventure is lived starting NOW. Not later.

Ok, I guess there's a second thing I need to remember, which is adventure doesn't have to look like anything in perticular. Adventure is an eye, not a thing seen. It is a hand, a way of walking, and not what you are doing or the place you are going. That takes care of itself.

hmm. I think that was a bunch of bullshit. I don't know what I'm talking about... no, I know a little of what I'm talking about. I know about the eye of adventure, and the walk of the traveler. but I am still timid to go that way, blazing my own trail, alone.

alone, alone alone. the name of the blog. the name of my heart. the deeper I accept that, the more I love. strangly.

I am what I am, and the more comfortable I am with that, the less afraid I am to look at it, and the more I look at it, the more I love it. In this case "what I am" constitutes everything I experience, know, and do.

what do I do? I seem to have choice and power to create my universe, my life. I seem to have to power to direct things. I seem to be only watching a pre-scripted play, either enjoying it or boo-ing it.

what's going on with me right now? what else is importaint?

It's newyears. ten minutes till the calenders flip to 2010 here in mountain time. It's a full moon, right overhead. Shimmering pool at night. Full of love. I do not know anything. I am much wiser than I ever was. I am much happier being me. I am quiet. anti-social sometimes. I am kind and loving, easygoing and silent. hilarious and timid. I lean back in my throne, the pool chair, and make dreams with the cloud scapes and the stars and the moon. it's newyears. drink a sip of really bad shampagne. sing badly.

fireworks from the hot tub (small dinky ones. beautiful.) good music. distant cheers. reflections in the dark window of the burning colored explosions.

bigger fireworks now, louder. Now some flashing lights approaching the place in the beach where the fireworks were coming from, I guess illegaly. Hope the cops let the firework benifactors off easy. they were a nice touch to the night.

there are so many amazing stories I am not living. but that must not be my concern. How should I live? I feel like I get close to the answer when I sit and stare in silence until the world starts to melt.

In that vulnerability of doing notihing my heart is tender, ungaurded. it quivvers in fear and excitment as it slowly, apprehensivly reaches out a hand to touch the most intimate place of universe.

there's only one way this could be more tender, ungaurded and loving, and that is to be doing this in the midst of every day activity.

I love you, whoever is reading this, and I love what you think of as your faults as much as the rest of you. because i don't see them as faults. They are what make you you. I love that. I know this is true for you because it is true for me, and loving myself is the most difficult person to love. He's the only person I treat worse than my mom.

why am I kind to people? I think it really is because I am happy inside. and when i get angry at them, I'm getting angry at myself. they just remind me of parts of me I don't like, and it makes me sad, that I'm not better.

people treat others how they treat themselfs. especialy when they're treating others badly, you get a view of what they do to themselfs, inside.

the moon says it better than me, look;

Cabo and Ho's

I'm in San Lucas, Cabo. Which is in Mexico. it's the southern dongle hanging off of california. I'm in a villa with family and extended family. It is really, really pretty. I should be lazy and just take some pictures rather than trying to describe it. Though honesty, that's more work right now, so I will briefly describe it: beautiful weather. 70's even at night, dipping down to maybe high fifty's last night when it rained (very unusual this time of year, or at all, I think.) The villa I'm in is built on the side of a cliff, with huge windows everywhere and open air spaces to take in the awesome view of sea and sky. The cave area which I occupy, at the bottom of the structure is built into the rock face, and they've left the beautiful rock that the cliff is made of, and worked around it, so it is the back wall. the front wall being glass and sea behond that. the architecture is nicely plastered concrete, arches, pillars, porches, a pool on the main balcony (small one) and vases and pots with plants in them. Rock or imitation rock floor.

The air is pure, fresh, teh sky is crystal clear or artistically cloudy. The whole thing feels so opulent it gives the sensation of lazy sex. Just lying around all day, being pleasured. I normally don't like expensive things, because they are so obviously ridiculous, and not worth a fraction of what they cost. In this case though, I am very happy to be able to inhabit what feels like a structure from my own personal fantasy. unfortunately I'm here with family instead of alone with a lover.

I just walked around the town below us, and it was predictably sad. not India sad, but the whole place was built around tourism. People wandering the streets, asking everyone if they wanted to buy random crappy souvenirs. And we, the tourists, are the enablers. Oh, and the "massage" parlors. I was suspicious of them, until I saw one with a sign that said something like, "NO SEXUAL massage parlor. Only actual massage" Then I was no longer suspicious, but confirmed. And while it was a little bit tempting, mexican women often being quite beautiful, mainly it was a downer; this was what tourism was doing, metaphorically, to the entire population. somehow modern civilization has convinced these people to sell their natural beauty, their lands natural beauty and bounty, for money. and now all they do is spend there time serving forginers. being maids, being waiters, being taxi drivers, being prostitutes. For what? For bare minimum sustenance in a toxic environment.

But, thinking about it, how is most of society different? we have that shittyness here in america too. we just have a bit less of it. And a lot of those rich tourists are spending their one week of the year here, only to go back to soul crushing, relationship killing work rutiens.

this is not the only possibility. but parts of it are almost omnipresent. And how happy are the rich people? generally, they live lives of quiet desperation just like the poor. They just have to try and distract themselves from it by other means, like buying new toys, etc, to keep from being alone and undistracted long enough to gaze into the empty meaningless hole that is there life. which would actually be a good thing, because maybe they would try and change that, and maybe, if they succeeded, they'd stop being so horrified of death.

I don't care how you do it, but if you are reading this, please strive to live a life that is full of real happiness, deep love, purpose and fulfillment. This is a selfish request, because it makes me very sad seeing people who have never lived. People who will have nothing to show, come their last day. People who have not even seen the incredible majesty and been humbled by the love and beauty surrounding them every second of every day. It makes me want to cry. It's like watching jesus, insane and amnesiatic, crawling around in the mud, the servant of violent animals.

How could you not cry, seeing this? God danmmit jesus, snap out of it!

I'm going to go stare off at the intoxicating horizon of night now. deep blue sea meeting a slightly lighter deep blue sky, with wisps of clouds lit by the almost full, dazzelingly bright moon, and the shimmering stars that tear my heart out with beauty like the best women do.

The beauty used to hurt, because I thought I was supposed to do something about it, and I was so inadequate to the task of reciprocating or even appreciating such overabundance.

bye for now. if any women in the area read this and want to have some opulent sex, drop me a line.
:D

-I Out

Nutshells

I love the simplistic.

How I am these days:

I am overwhelmed by the gifts of the universe. I am given more abundance than I could ever earn. And yet as far as my vision goes, my development is at the state of a baby. maybe a year old, still crapping myself. And I want more. Much much more.


What I want:

Very simply, I want to be successful in action. Not in an egoic, anger or fear motivated way, but in a non egoic, perhaps love motivated way. Success in action in this case means being able to start something, and stick with it to it's conclusion and success, or mastery, and fully enjoy the process of doing it.


Other notes:

there seems to be something wrong with my basic definition of successful action, that is too subtle for me to grasp at this moment, though I feel like I have understood it briefly and forgotten it, many times. However, the paradigm I have now is at odds with the wisdom, and so I cannot live the wisdom currently, nor can I even remember it, on command.

This seems to always be the case with wisdom that slips from my mind like fine sand in one's hands. I am not living the wisdom, and so realizations of the wisdom are momentary, not established. Eventually they are lived, and they don't have to be thought about or remembered.

The "wrong" thing is something fundamental, like my whole world-view is upside down.


I just recently realized that my main motivating belief for the last ten years is not true. It is, to try to put it into words: I need to work on my issues for them to go away.
This is an egoic way of trying to get enlightened. It served me well for ten years, but it is now a hindrance. Embedded in this belief is the world view that I am responsible for "making" myself enlightened. I do not know what comes next. But it will be free-er, closer to Truth.

Nov 12th, update

well, here I am. Just got back from a cross country flight, from sea-tac in Seattle to the New Jersey pine barrens, to learn herbal compounding and mixing from Tom Brown jr. It was an awesome class, we learned some powerful techniques and info, and it was really really nice, to be with family again, which this group of people has become. That's because this was a series class, meaning we had met three times before already, throughout the year, doing homework in between.

I got myself a job working at the TM-Center, doing mindless pencil-pushing tasks for a day or two a week. Which is great. Something I can focus on to ground me, doesn't take up too much time, doesn't require any commute, and I even get paid a little.

Tomorrow I'm heading out to a Survival Techniques class with the Sherwoods (they run primitive skills school I'm doing) for the weekend, and from that going directly to a nearby beach for monday and tuesday to learn clamming, archery practice, and maybe making a bow and arrow hand-guard.

I'm a bit behind: I still need to go out and buy a few odd and ends for the trip, pack, finish my pencil pushing, and do laundry (which I really, really need to do. There's no laundry machine in the house though, so I have to go out to a coin laundromat down the street.)

So feeling a bit worried, as is my habit before almost all trips. This last trip though, I didn't feel that worried. Perhaps I am finally, finally seeing the other side of this deep seated fear. Fear of forgetting, something, I think. Linked with my general fear of doing something wrong. Of wrongness in general.

I remember, back in the first two years of collage, when I was really going at the spiritual enlightenment thing as hard and fast as I could, I would get these intense feelings of wrongness. Like my heart was just screaming at me that something was wrong, that I was doing something wrong. And it would really bother me, because I could never figure out what is was, that was wrong. I think it may have been a slightly bad interpretation on my part. I don't think it was so much that my heart was telling me I was doing something wrong, but it was trying to tell me something, period, and I wasn't able to listen, didn't know how.

I'm still not really sure what to do with those "chest bursters" as I call them, but now when I feel them, I just give myself some time to pay attention to them, and try to listen, understand what they want to communicate. What I want to communicate, to myself. right (or whole) brain to left brain.

Last night I had one, and eventual got that it was answering a question I had, about my sadness at not being as strongly disciplined and persevering as I would like. The reason I am that way is that I get discouraged, because my efforts don't seem well linked to my results, in the short run. I practice something, and I see myself getting better, quickly, and then it slows and maybe even stops, and I get upset and worry that I'm just wasting my time doing something that's not actually going to get me anywhere, make me any better at whatever it is I'm doing. Music, creating, writing, exercise.

Now I've got to ask the question of how to heal that.

Ok, done (for now)

I suppose I should

give some information that is actually relevant to this place/time, for those of you interested in and expectant of such things from a now public blog...

That's tricky though, because I think this blog will be most interesting and fun if I just pretend no one else is going to read it. No longer possible, I suppose. Just be warned: if you are someone who gets offended, ever, you might not want to read my uncensored thoughts.

I'm going to Seattle, except I already went. I don't keep this blog very regularly, you see.

I'm going, or wenting, to be a part of a wilderness skills school called Earthwalk Northwest. I'm doing the Apprenticeship program for a year. But not the whole year. The program is only two days out of the week, until somewhere around April-May, when it will go up to three days a week, and then, in June, down to one day a week, until October, when it all ends.

I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't want to make this long, because it's not particularly interesting for me, because I've already done it, but people are curious about the road trip.

Three days of driving, one day in the middle of r&r at my uncles awesome mountain hideaway in Montana. 2300 miles.

Nature and friends supplied me with a driving buddy. Austin Trout, who was going back to school in Olympia and needed a ride out.

Austin is tall, blond, bearded, with a laid-back demeanor and soft deep voice that is misleadingly relaxing. Like surfer dudes, that seem chill until they're out on the sea, paddling like mad to catch a wave that has a 30% chance of killing them.

The first day was short and uneventful. We talked, ate from our comfortingly excessive food supply of fruit, almond butter, granola, nuts, and healthfood candy bars. We slept at a campground right outside the Badlands, and the next morning, drove through them, watching the sunrise.



Shit, blogger is being an asshole with formatting. DAMN you computers, stealing my time, my very life.

Anyways, then we stopped by devils tower

very briefly, and drove on until about 11:00pm, to arrive at my uncles permiculture homestead/ranch/spiritual retreat. I would have stayed longer probably, but Austin was keen to get back, and I didn't care that much either way. I'm definitly coming back for a longer stay though. It seems like a perfect place to write a lot or be creative in some way. No people around to distract, and plenty of nature to inspire and energize.

Wish I had some interior shots.

I love mountain homes. I love being comfortable while storms rage just outside of large scenic windows. I love the feeling of being hidden above the world, secluded and safe. I like high places, with views that give you vertigo, make you aware of how small you are and how big the universe gets, and what the earth would look like while flying. And I love being surrounded by rocks to play with and admire. A piece of broken, purple slate with mica in it, sparkling in the sun, is just as precious and beautiful to me as rubies or diamonds. I like talking to rocks. Feeling them and getting to know there personalities. And if they're really shiny, fantasizing about chewing and eating them like candy. I think Jung said that means you want to assimilate something into yourself. I guess I need more Rock in my life, as well as Funk.

That day traveling to my uncles house was a great sunset.








Also, I think we briefly drove through Wall Town after the Badlands, looking halfheartedly for the dinosaurs and feeling like dirty tourists, which, of course, we were. Austin had mentioned that he had trouble being patient, and wanted to get back to Olympia, so we did precious little stopping.

My preference is to do a few things, but do them well. Otherwise it's just tourism, driving all over the place and snapping pictures like it's some kind of treasure hunt or status symbol, "look, here's a picture of a bunch of places you've already seen, but with my ugly mug stamped in front of it. VALIDATE MEEEEEEeeee!" Ahem. To each his own.

Really I just don't like driving, so if I'm going to go somewhere, it had better have a big payoff. Since I'm so easy to please in terms of scenic scenes (I was mesmerized for a half hour by a daddy long legs extracting it's self from it's old exoskeleton (and by the way they are NOT poisonous! Check Snopes before you believe weird things people tell you.)) scenic scenery is almost never a good reason to go traveling for me.

However, apparently traveling is an excellent way for the universe to show me where my uncomfortable spots are, so it's always finding excuses to get me on the road.

The next day we took a long route by Mount Rainer. That was gorgeous. I crashed at Austins place for the night, and arrived at the TM center the next morning. Been here ever since. More as time allows (pictures make everything take longer)