Posts Tagged ‘soulcraft’

doldrums schmoldrums

February 20, 2010

Alternative title:  February is the F-word.

It is still February.  February somewhat sucks.  For a while there, I had decided that I was going to pump Wellbutrin into our village water system, and maybe try to transmit it electronically, as well.  Or Prozac.  Or Heroin.  The other day, a friend read a phone-text and shook her head, laughing.  “Everyone’s depressed!”  And it’s true.  There is some hard core depths of despair happening ’round here.

We are deep into the dark season here in Wisconsin.  I’ve seen other bloggers talk about the signs of returning spring, and I want to throw a chunk of ice at them.  Oh no, honey.  Not here.  Here we do not mention the S word, for fear of a collective breakdown.  Except, shit.  I just mentioned it, didn’t I?  I will now pause for my fellow Doldrum-experiencers to cry with longing for the season that lingers in the distance too far beyond hope.

*  *  *  *  *

Everyone OK?  Yes.  See, that’s the thing.  I think that everyone is OK.  (I’m OK, you’re OK, OK now I’m sounding like a self-help book.  ack.)  I just think that a turn toward darkness in winter is a healthy, natural movement.  Remember?  It is when we fight it that we cause ourselves harm.  I shouldn’t be feeling this way, it is his/her fault, how can we fix this, what is the problem . . . 

There is no problem.  There is no spoon.  These Winter Doldrums have brought me some really nasty-but-good, awful-but-helpful, raw-but-fresh stuff.  Stuff that productive spring will do great things with, surely.  (shoot!  S-word!  hope!  sorry!) 

But, oh . . . . . spring.  Spriiiiiiiiiiiiing.  Maybe it is not actually so far off?  I mean, it is currently snowing.  And everything is still deader than dead.  And the sun does still set before 6 pm.  But . . . shoot!  I’ve done it again!  Sorry!  Moment of silence.

*  *  *  *  *

And in case that pathetic little attempt at inspiration doesn’t do it for you, here are some pictures that might.  They are not spring-ish in the least, but they are happy, I think.  (?)

crack

Do you know the joy of this? Can you hear it? Feel it under your feet? yesssssssssssssssssss. This is, perhaps, the best part of winter. (aside: I asked my husband, showed him the pictures, and he said, "that just looks sad." So maybe I am totally off on this?)

crackshoes

Ecstasy, I tell you. Sheer bliss. crrrrrack.

lick

And, of course, there is the licking of a big hunk of snow. (Dimples) Who can resist that?

And a few more.  I gave up putting them into nice little black rectangles for you:

callick

I'm just going to assume that this was not in the driveway. (Mowgli)

walk

And I learned something last weekend. Running in the winter can be fun! Avoiding the poorly-shoveled spots was honestly fun. Like an obstacle course. I'm serious! (Shortcake)

name

And name-spelling in the snow. There are few things in life as thrilling as a big stretch of undisturbed snow that you are about to have your way with. (Kiki)

 

nightmare

February 8, 2010

hi.

excuse me please, while i have a temper tantrum.

i am just all whiny and piny and altogether feeling like throwing things and screaming.  strangely enough, it’s not a terrible feeling.  i think it would feel really good and not at all negative.  the negative part is not being able to do it right now. 

hmpf.

so over the weekend (this is not the temper-tantrum.  just my exposed soul, is all.)  i had the worst dream i’ve ever had.  not one of the truly terrifying ones; no loss of a loved one or anything.  i mean like gory, horror-flick style.  i am still quite amazed at the twisted horrificness (nope.  not a word.) that came from the depths of my subconscious.

i’m going to tell you about it, which is sort of a problem because a.) it’s just nasty and not really inspiring blog material, and b.) if you were so inclined, you could analyze a road map of my inner workings.  and i don’t want you to know.  i really don’t.  and yet, i’m telling you.  (idiot.)  so look away if you must.  i will have a lovely guitar-playing, dread-headed, tube-sock-ed girl to post soon, and you can just hold out for that if you came here hoping for loveliness.

this is not lovely.  and also it is long.

there was more to the dream in the beginning, but this is where it got ugly:  it was my first day back to work as a nurse.  the hospital building was dark and there were no patients in the rooms.  the hospital was also sort of a dormitory and maybe a church and had a mental institution vibe.  i stood with three other new workers, and we wondered what we were supposed to be doing.  we figured out that we had been assigned to some experimental project that had, that night, been suddenly abandoned.  the phlebotomist came onto the floor and asked where all of the “scions” were.  (i should note that i woke up from this dream wondering where i came up with the word “scion.”  i can’t ever remember hearing it.  googling it gave me the chills: a descendant or offspring.  a shoot or twig from a plant for grafting.)

we told the phlebotomist that apparently, the project had been abandoned.  she stared at us in horror, then relief, and went running, full-speed, from the room.  slowly, the “scions” or patients or subjects or whatever began to wander into what was like a large surgical area.  they were sort of zombie-like and bloody, but cordial enough.  (ha!) one doctor was with them, and it seemed like he was trying desperately to save the experiment, and he took a few of them into the operating room. 

somehow we new workers ascertained that this experiment or whatever it was was intended to help the human race live to its highest potential.  the scions were people who were dead or dying, their bodies (but not souls) salvaged by some new medication.  the surgeons, we learned, performed procedures not unlike lobotomies, nipping and scraping off different internal organs, trying to find the right combinationfor their ambitious goal.  some of the patients ended up being exceptionally “good,” or moral, after a procedure, some gained genius intelligence, some could actually fly.

as we were learning this all (maybe the surgeon was telling us, as he operated?  i don’t remember), a beautiful blonde woman sat up on her surgical table, her chest oozing new blood upon the old dried blood.  she was screaming and screaming in agony and pain and sorrow, pointing at a stainless steel table across the room.  there, on the small table, sat her heart, bloody and beating.

i backed away slowly, half-listening to the doctor explain that things had started to go terribly wrong.  i quickly found a set of many open doors, and walked outside into a group of scions.  i was about to just walk away, the fresh air felt so fabulous in my lungs.  but i noticed the scions staring at the humans playing in the snow in the distance.  the other workers were with me, and we decided that we could not just let these things escape.  there was a definite sense of martyrdom:  “save the human children!”

suddenly we workers all had bloody swords, and we ushered the scions inside.  it all got really terrifying, then.  they were disgusting and putrid and it was a bloody mayhem amidst the surgical steel hospital equipment.  there were too many, and there was no controlling them.  it became every-man-for-himself, and i was running, opening doors that led only to windowless rooms, finding small openings and squeezing through them only to find another room, often dorm rooms or classrooms or apartments.  i would search under beds for trap doors, climb into empty elevator shafts, scream and pound on locked doors.  it was endless, and each new escape led to another prison.  and all around, there were scions.

at last, i found myself in a darkened hallway, dark rooms with locked doors everywhere.  i noticed the sword still in my hand, and suddenly remembered a rule that i could leave if i took a scion outside with me.  there was a woman in a lobby trying to deal with the chaos, and i was trying to show her my xeroxed rulebook, to point out the rule about escape.  but she could not hear me.  i grabbed a bloody scion anyway, the sword to her neck, and suddenly i noticed a glass window open a crack.  i could hardly contain my emotion.  it opened onto a rooftop, but we were a story or two above that.  i had to muster the courage to jump out, and to kick out the entire window so both of us would fit, but i was desperate, and left with no other choice.

i kicked, i jumped, and then beside me, (real) Shortcake woke me up.  i couldn’t even find the courage to look around the room.  i held my little teddy bear girl and shivered.  to take my mind off of the dream, i imagined a story plot about secret lovers sending letters to post office boxes, and a granddaughter discovering them.  i didn’t go back to sleep for hours.

how bout them apples?

I should let you know straight out that I’m going to talk about tarot cards.

And that this post, once again, contains tube socks.

Are you still with me?

Heh . . . lo?

So this drawing / painting / sketch /whateverthehellyoucallit was supposed to be about patience.  I was thinking about natural intuition, reception—patiently waiting for that small, directive voice in the stillness.  I was deep breathing and feeling all openness and attentiveness and patiennnnnce-ommmmmm.  But then her hair got out of control, and before I knew it, it was all wildness.  And then her face took on an impatient scowl.  And then the restful, crossed arms became tense and ready to burst.

And I saw, not patience, but impatience.  More than a simple restlessness, I saw a woman attempting to restrain herself, trying desperately—and almost sorrowfully—to keep her wildness under wraps, betrayed by her crazy hair. 

 

img748x

watercolor, arches hot press paper

It perplexed me, as those frequently-occurring paradoxes do.  (I!  AM!  ALL!  PARADOX!  It isn’t just me, is it?  Aren’t we all?)  And, to further complicate things (I just said that two blogs ago), my feelings regarding this paradox itself are split.  It is the eight of swords vs. the red shoes.

Are you still with me?

Heh . . . lo?

Journey with me, if you will, into my soul.  Oh, come on, it’ll be fun!  Does this restlessness-emerging-from-patience-piece point to this or that?

The eight of swords.  (this)

Tarot cards are, despite what you might think, not about fortune-telling, but about inner journey.  I am a visual person (obviously?), and the images on the cards can really assist me in finding psychological, philosophical, and spiritual clarity.  They mirror aspects of nature and of soul, which, perhaps, are one and the same anyway.

I first saw the card years ago, when Dimples was a baby, and I was in the depths of some Postpartum Depression / darkness / soulcraft-ish descent.  My cousin Amy and I would play with tarot cards, then she would babysit as I went crying to my therapist.  The eight of swords came up in a reading for me, and I considered the image: a blindfolded woman, arms loosely bound behind her back, standing in the center of eight swords (go figure!) that had been thrust into the ground around her like a cage. 

Yes!  I thought.  This is me!  Bound and constrained by motherhood and culture and circumstance, unable to fulfill my potential!  But when we studied the card further, we realized that the woman was not so terribly constrained.  She could easily escape the “cage,” and could free her hands and eyes with little effort.  Instead of relief, I felt offended.  If I were not a victim of my circumstances, if I could simply remove my blindfold and carry on . . .  Well, that was quite a lot of responsibility.  “Victim” was so much easier.

So “this” is one thought that came as I considered the drawing.  Have I given myself a new mental straight jacket?  Is there something inside me (some creativity, project, wildness) that is screaming to get out, and am I holding it back for some unnecessary and imaginary purpose?

–OR–

The red shoes.  (that)

To further encourage the eye-rolling of my most cynical readers, I will now, once again, allude to a story in the book Women Who Run With The Wolves.

Heh . . . lo?

The tale of the red shoes is, in short, about a resourceful little peasant girl who fashions for herself a  pair of red shoes.  One day, a rich old civilized lady takes the girl to live with her, gives her new clothes and shoes, and burns her old things.  The old red shoes had been so special to the little girl, that she tricks the old woman into buying her a new pair of (scandalous!) red shoes.  The girl becomes obsessed with these new shoes, and even when she has had a taste of their power (they magically cause her feet to dance, taking control), she craves them.  In the end, the shoes take over, dancing wildly and threatening, essentially, to kill her with exhaustion.  She is unable to remove them, and so, desperate, she asks a woodsman to chop off her feet.

The author (Clarissa Pinkola Estes) compares the little girl to a feral woman—originally and naturally wild (handmade red peasant shoes), but confined like a depressed animal at the zoo (shoes/wildness burned, child civilized).  Sighting the new red shoes is similar to when that caged animal (or woman!) snaps, remembering that bit of wildness that remains within.  But instead of having the knowledge or opportunity to reincorporate the natural way of being, she latches desperately onto anything wild-ish, even at the risk of losing complete control.  The girl dancing like a lunatic in pretty red shoes, the snarling tiger who suddenly turns and attacks the loyal zookeeper, the well-behaved mother who suddenly loses her mind, or becomes addicted to something dangerous, or abandons her family for the cruise ship attendant. 

I mean, not that I have a cruise planned anytime soon.  But you know what I mean.  (Do you know what I mean?)

And so in this light, restraint can be a good, natural, healthy thing.  It can be having the patience to ignore the flashy red shoes and holding out for what you intuitively know to be your thAng, or just hanging on to your old handmade shoes in the first place.  And so is it “that” that I’m seeing here?  Sort of an alert patience?

–OR–

None of the above, it was just a millimeter of a stray brushstroke on her eyes, or the espresso. 

 

(Now all of this passed through my conscious thoughts in approximately 15 seconds—-Eight of swords?  The red shoes?  Espresso?—-but it took, like a billion hours to write.  It would be so much easier if you could just understand my thought processes next time.  Thank you.)

angst and ink on paper

November 10, 2009

This is one of those posts that precede an influx of concern for my mental well-being.  Before you send prescriptions, chocolate, or flowers, know that all is well.  Just yesterday I posted this to my twitter:  “minor issue 2day: want to hug/kiss everyone i see. i don’t think i am even drunk.”  So this is probably just an extreme-cheerfulness rebound.

Alright.  Send chocolate if you must.

Today, I was thinking about an interesting effect that motherhood has had on me.

Some people need to fast, take drugs, experience near-death, meditate, journey, perform ritual.  Some people need these things to strip themselves to the core, to know the profound emptiness of being.  I only need motherhood.  This gig has left me drained, sucked me dry (literally), pecked me to the bone.  And without fail, in my moment on the brink of breakdown, it hits me.  This is the kind of thing people pay good money for!  There are workshops, retreats, e-courses, and books, all centered around trying to get here: a place of stillness and surrender, complete with ego destruction, soul encounter, epiphany. 

I cried myself here today, blubbering and pathetic, overwhelmed by the fighting and the screaming and the whining and the clinging and the endlessness of it all.  And right on cue, in the midst of the darkness, glimpsed a lovely little epiphany regarding my nanowrimo protagonist.  I’m grateful for the experience, but to be honest, I think I would have chosen walkabout today, were I given the informed choice.

Shortcake and I had a quickie post-tears art session today, she with yellow paint (currently all over my jeans), and me with ink on (wrinkled) hot press watercolor paper.  The illustration friday prompt this week was “blur.”  I’m deciding that this is appropriate because it looked blurry through my tears.

blur

 

For all my talk of darkness and descent, I do so love the Summer.  And I miss it.  One of my absolute favorite summer-things is sidewalk chalk.  We had what was likely our last warm, sunny day of the year a few days ago, and my first impulse was to get out the chalk.  I searched desperately through the garage, but could not find any.  I even searched the neighbors’ lawns.  It was a little reminiscent of that damn silver cord (which I still have not found). 

 
So today, as the year turns toward it’s darker half, the day before I plunge myself into introversion, myth, and archetype, I’m thinking of sidewalk chalk.
Shortcake and her fabulous legs.  A digital shot, from my sister's front patio this summer.
Shortcake and her fabulous legs. A digital shot, from my sister’s front patio this summer.
 

 

TAF_1238xb

on our sidewalk

To Fall…

October 26, 2009

 

tri-x negative scan

tri-x negative scan, Mamiya C330 TLR

How surely gravity’s law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
 
Each thing -
each stone, blossom, child -
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
 
If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
 
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
 
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.
 
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.
 
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

 

I feel the pull of the seasons, the invitation to the darkness and repose of Winter.  I am gathering my acorns, and feeling naturally melancholy.

I know you feel it, too.  I am reading it on blogs, hearing it in our conversations: talk of Seasonal Affect Disorder, of happy drugs and of happy light boxes.  And I’m there.  I get it.  Or, at least, I’ve been there.

But instead of fighting it, consider this: “to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness.”  I think that too often, we miss this.  We are in high-production mode, and a natural lean toward withdrawal (hey, now.) and silence is not on the agenda.  Or the to-do list.  Or the goal-setting-super-duper-achievement-software.  But what if?  What if we followed nature’s lead, nature’s schedule,  and remembered how to retreat into the silent darkness?  Have you ever wondered what treasures you might find?

 You are not dead yet. It is not too late
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life
that reveals itself quietly there

~Rainer Maria Rilke

This is me, plunging.  I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again.  It is cyclical.  Natural, like the rise and fall of the sun, the wax and wane of the moon, the death and rebirth of the year.  I’ve got some things to gestate, some life to drink in, and this time, the darkness does not scare me.  I welcome it.  I mean, as long as there is chocolate available.  At all times.  Preferably dark chocolate (no pun intended).

and coffee.

 

and wine.

p.s.  the Rilke thing.  I’m sorry, but I am so drenched in the fabulousness of these words (thanks, in part, to picking up this book again), that I can’t help but share them here.  One more.  Yum.

 Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.  ~Rainer Maria Rilke  (from Letters To A Young Poet)