A Singularly Directionless Free Write

Lately, I've been practicing sending love to myself by picturing me at the age of four when I first visited my current parents at the house I ended up growing up in. Since I consistently notice how much my heart swells when I see children and how much joy they bring me, I decided to send love to my four year old self. It's easier to send love to the childhood version of yourself than to the one you see in the mirror. Don't get me wrong, I admit to occasionally admiring my well toned arms and shoulders while looking in the mirror, but admiring your physique doesn't equate to loving yourself.

Personally, I like to reassure myself that even though I weigh next to nothing, I could give someone the surprise of a lifetime if they tried to pick on me. In fact that was one of the messages I got at last week's healing circle. I was told that sometimes people underestimate me. That particular thought goes through my head all the time whether consciously or subconsciously which is why I continually bike without holding onto the handlebars. It's not just about showing off, it's my bizarre way to try prevent people from pegging me as...I guess I'll use the word soft... I want to continue to feel 100% capable of anything and for me that means that's what I've got to portray, because I want other people to believe it too. For most of my life, I've been worried that no one could ever take me seriously; that small as I was, I could be the perfect target. Has anyone else ever felt that if you couldn't find some kind of ace (or mace) up your sleeve, that someone could just pick you up and carry you away? I mean if you don't pose a threat to anyone, then anyone could take advantage of that and that's a scary thought. Luckily, I don't live in that labyrinth of thinking anymore.

On a higher note, I went to another healing circle tonight and got some good energy flowing. My state of meditation was deeper this evening than it has been and it felt so peaceful. One person said that while my hands were on her shoulders she felt like she and her chair were melting into the floor, my energy flow was so powerful. Now, the energy isn't taken from one person and given to another, we're conduits for the energy to flow so it's shared throughout the room and multiplied. It's not a finite supply that we're giving away which is why it's always very refreshing and rejuvenating. Each week I hear a message on how deeply connected I am with nature and that the connection goes both ways. They often see images of a forest with the sounds of birds while working on me. Anyway much of this has been on my mind and I keep asking: Who am I? What am I? I'm asking this on the level of the soul, not the physical self. What's my soul here to do? What am I going to be able to do to improve the life experience of others? I'm seeking the layers of my soul instead of the layers of my ego.

Favorite Fantasy Writers

When I was in my early teens, I came across a series called The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver. The first book in the chronicles was entitled Wolf Brother. Since my last name used to be Wolfe and wolves happen to be my favorite animals, I picked it up off the shelf in a now deceased Borders book store and started to read. With her very first line, she had me hooked. It read "Torak woke with a jolt from a sleep he'd never meant to have." That was a very clever way to get a reader to care about the main character right away. It takes place in a fantasy world greatly inspired by Native American culture and, to this day has been my favorite off the radar series. Her titles are also amazing and I appreciate the fact that she never puts "The" at the front of the titles. The books following Wolf Brother are: Spirit Walker, Soul Eater, Outcast, Oath Breaker, and Ghost Hunter. In each of her books, the chapters consistently end in cliff hangers and once the rest of the characters come in, she'll follow 2 or 3 for a chapter, leave you hanging, then pick up the next chapter with a different set of characters so the next thing you know, you have two cliff hangers to demystify and you eventually feel as though you might just have to finish the book in one sitting. Paver successfully made her story into a vivid dream as Anne Lamott mentions as a goal to have when starting your book.

The author Alison Croggon also has written a great series called Pellinor, but since I've only read that once, all I can say is that I really appreciate her unique take on a magical world and the fact that the heroine is able to fight the evil that threatens the land because the antagonists had assumed that her brother would be the powerful magician that might destroy them. I love when assumptions made based on gender are proven wrong.

Of course, as I'm sure you've been waiting to read, I also love J. K. Rowling's amazing series immensely and I think she definitely wrote the best double agent character story ever by getting the readers to trust Harry's instincts about Professor Snape. I love that she wrote such a complex story line that she had to write some story-line out of order.

Holding Fast to a Vision

Last Sunday, I asked the senior minister if there might be anything I should know going into my coming year and he said simply that I should hold fast to my vision and not let any wind sway me. Thinking on it, I was suddenly lost. Which vision should I hold onto? Going to school? Joining the Peace Corp or AmeriCorps? Or the craziest one of going to France to learn French? I've been wanting to become fluent in French and feel inclined to immerse myself in it. Although I took French for 6 years from middle school through high school, this is by far the easiest one to feel swayed from. Where's the money going to come from? Do I even have the skills to act the part of a miser in a foreign country for a couple months? Will it actually help me locate a more precise direction to focus my energy in. Currently all I know about my calling is that I will be working with children, likely children with special needs but when and in what capacity, I don't know. I was briefly working at a Montessori School and had thought that was going to be my direct line. Little did I know there was to be yet another detour in store. They say life is more like a labyrinth or a spiral staircase than a straight line, always circles and U-turns.
Lately, I've come to recognize that I'm still hung up on the outcome of my last college experience. Between the near loss of a family member followed by a professor who knew my situation yet was unwilling to lend me a hand, I can't tell if I failed to get my education degree because it wasn't the right time or if it wasn't quite the right field. I don't want to go into it again and fail again. (I ended up with a General Studies Bachelor Degree.) I want to know what I'm doing and where I'm going when I go back to college as well as earn the scholarship money. Hence all the big dreams of places to go and things to do. It's not only to bulk up my resume. It's to bulk up my life skills and to create a fully formed vision of what I want to do with my life in order to help children through arduous times.
At this moment, I just don't have it. I can't even pull my focus in to put together a simple party for the weekend. I just want new experiences so I've chosen to go with the flow the way I did in the White Mountains so whatever happens, happens and it will be beautiful no matter what.

Frequent Colds and the Elusive Sun

So I finally figured out why I'm getting sick all the time and why I had a long lasting cold the last time I lived where I'm living now. There's black mold in my basement. Luckily, I live in the clean half, but it's growing in the laundry room on the washing machine and in the sink that the machine drains into.
I know I can usually trust my immune system because after a foot surgery I had when I was 20, I was cooped up in a house where both my mom and my sister had an awful bout of the flu. I stayed healthy during and after the exposure. Since I started high school, I rarely caught anything more than a small cold or allergy related issues. The one time I had serious symptoms, it turned out to be a ruptured cyst, which is why I was surprised that I caught 2 colds in the last 2 months.
Black mold exposure causes cold like symptoms as well as headaches and chronic fatigue. Specifically, it affects your mucus membranes, so your eyes might feel irritated as well. Luckily, I did some research and there are ways to clear it out of your system without looking for prescriptions. I've already had 3 or 4 of them yesterday. Raw garlic and oregano oil are potent anti-fungals but they can also kill bacteria. Chlorophyll was also on the list. They recommend cutting sugar out of your diet and to drink herbal tea and bone broth. To get rid of it around the house, you can use white vinegar or hydrogen peroxide and of course follow that up by adding a dehumidifier to the affected room.

In other news, the last few days have been amazing. Having the sun out and seeing the beautiful blue sky, I was feeling rather euphoric that the rain stopped for more than 10 hours. The last couple weeks in May felt like April and it started feeling like the sun was a very occasional visitor. Having always lived in a state where it rains once a week or once every two weeks, it was depressing to feel like I was living in Seattle, Washington. I've been able to bike to work since the sun came out; I don't like risking splashing muddy water onto my pant legs while biking through the inevitable puddles. I might have even gotten a bit of a tan yesterday which is always pleasing since I'm, practically speaking, nearly as pale as Snow White and am so prone to sunburn I can get one while watching half a football game.

What to Write?!? Apparently, More on Writing and Hiking

I've been at a loss lately on what to write about. I know I could recite more of the writing tips from Anne Lamott or about how I don't know what to do for my birthday next weekend even though I have a few ideas. I want to do something with family and another something with friends and I always try to do new things each year. Nothing on my mind strikes me as worth writing about except the tips I read from  Bird by Bird so here goes.
Lamott wrote about how we can gain a lot of insight about ourselves as we write but she also stripped away much of the romanticism we like to place on it and on getting published. I'm very grateful that she does that because as with hiking a trail like the AT, you won't get very far into your first book if you've over-romanticized the process. When people think it's just a walk in the woods with only pleasant scenery, comfortable weather and perfect terrain, and when they believe they should pack deodorant, you question how far they're going to get. If I look at writing and hiking for six months in the same light, I can see that writing with the goal of getting published could be plausible but that it would help if I didn't think about the end result day in and day out because during my trip I very seldom thought about Katahdin and how I just had to see it soon or else... I just accepted the hiking and camping lifestyle as my new way of life until ...whenever. I never concerned myself with how long I was taking, I never felt the need to push harder so I could finish sooner and the Virginia Blues were not a thing for me. I couldn't have cared less that I was still in Virginia after a month, every day was a new day and they each brought new wonders every time the sun came up. The only problems I had with VA was having that unknown awful illness while scaling down Dragon's Tooth after hiking for 12+ miles and not having a view from McKafee Knob or Tinker Cliffs.

Anyway, here's hoping that my writing's worth reading. If I could get published great, if not, still great.  I've got this silly blog at the very least.

A Stream of Consciousness on Healing Circles and Yoga Nidra

Due to my continued struggle to find what the next chapter should be, I've gone to a couple healing circles in the last two weeks. Last Wednesday, I got a message from one of the reiki masters saying that my soul is ageless, that though I may only be turning 25, I've been old before. This week, I got quite a few useful messages. One being that my crown chakra is closed and that it needs to be open for me to find clarity. Another being that I will be sorting through my akashic records in order to figure out where I will most likely go in this lifetime. Akashic records are our previous lives. I recognize that most readers are likely to leave this page here and now because for many, reincarnation does not ring true as it does for me. As mentioned in an earlier post, when I first learned of it, I thought, of course! I just feel like I've been here before struggling through the same murky BS trying to find a niche to fit comfortably into. Can't explain why, just a feeling I can't shake. Anyway, I was also told to have faith that I will be at the right place at the right time.

Another thing I've been adding to my nightly ritual is a 20 minute yoga nidra meditation. It's the perfect thing to do right before bed because it's super relaxing, you get to do it lying down, and means yoga sleep. It's guided and they always have you relax a part of your body at a time until you've relaxed all your fingers and toes and facial muscles. You become completely aware of your body and how your pulse feels running through your hands, your torso etc. Then you come up with a positive intention which you say (in your head) in the present tense three times. For me it's been, "I'm the embodiment of complete health" since I'm still working on kicking this cold out. I used this meditation in the months leading up to my six month hiking trip with the thought "I am discovering the best version of myself on the Appalachian Trail". And since I was obsessed with the idea that I needed this trip,  I would say it way more than three times.
Oddly enough, these guided meditations can be found on YouTube, not that anyone's interested. But if there happens to be just one person who is, you're welcome.

"Bird by Bird"

Sorry for the extra long hiatus. I was swept away by the daily grind and then got stuck in quite a rut. Every day for the last two weeks I thought about writing in a blog post and every day, decided not to, or at the very least by the time I seriously considered it, it felt much too late to be staring at a computer screen. Now I've got a new cold and have been downing Kombucha and green tea and in the last 24 hours I've added NyQuil and DayQuil. I'm doing everything I can to kick it so I can survive the 7 AM eight hour shift tomorrow.
Anyway, I've started reading a book called Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and she has some great insight about writing. It's a huge relief to know and to be reminded that writers known and unknown struggle through painfully terrible first drafts. Another piece of advice I really appreciate is when she compares writing to driving in the dark with your headlights on. Despite only seeing 20 to 30 feet ahead of you at any given time, you can still make it to your destination. This gives me some hope for if and when I try my hand at writing a novel but I'm going to start with the story I lived through before delving into a new fantasy world. She also recommends writing at the same time each day so that your mind might begin to be prepared for the hour or so of creativity.
A few weeks ago, I had written up a post but it got deleted before I could upload it. I'm mentioning it because the message in it is worth sharing. At this Chapel that I mention from time to time, they often talk about how we are all already perfect, whole and complete. Ever since I completed the trail, I have been more and more accepting of that truth. Many of the lessons at this chapel can only be learned incrementally and I would have been unable to see them for what they are without having first completed the trail. Of course, believing in souls and reincarnation also helps me avoid the possible cognitive dissonance. Anyway, I had written that all of the turmoil I have gone through in this lifetime haven't been disproving the idea that we are perfect, whole and complete, they've been proving it. I've always searched for things to be happy about knowing that even when circumstances aren't favorable, there might be something coming tomorrow that will make me smile and maybe even laugh. Our hardships aren't meant to break us down, we get to choose how they mold us, whether we'll make something exquisite or be whittled down to nothing. I see life as a riddle of a kind; this sounds like a non-sequitur but hang in there. We can often use our past experiences to direct us toward a path we're passionate about.
Be that as it may, a whole lot depends upon how connected we are to our higher selves or our spiritual being. We all have the human propensity to follow all the life advice our egos have to offer without considering either the source or the repercussions. And since the ego has such a strong hold over our thoughts, our spiritual side can almost never get a word in. How many times do we ignore our intuition and have it bite us? Our souls are perfect, whole and complete and the more we try to connect with them, the smoother this ride will be and the happier we'll be. If you are already doing something you're passionate about, chances are you've been listening to what your soul has to say; be sure to keep it up.