Wiry Fankle One

Book tongues: for book eaters everywhere.

What I’ve been eating:

Les Miserables (this edition actually says on the cover “now a magnificent theater musical”- yuck), then took a break to eat

The Monk Upstairs (how could I have missed that Tim Farrington published another soul gem? Tim, I thought you liked me?) and in between been reading

CrazyBusy by Edward Hallowell (recommended by Jen Hofman who is teaching a workshop March 25th at the Comfort Cafe called The Comfort of Clutter – I’m loving putting together surprises and extra for my Cafe)

And I started writing a story about a Cafe in Portland that’s magic. It feels so lively to be playing with fiction again.

Wiry Fankle Two

Systems. I’m working on them.

Mostly for my business. And I hate it.

I feel so constricted by the very idea of systems.

But the truth is…

my lack of systems constricts me.

For example, not having a system to promote my April retreats means people don’t hear about them and they don’t get to benefit by attending what is going to be meltingly-wonderful life changingly helpful.

That is constricting.

So I’m thinking of systems as banks on a river. You need banks or you just have a big flood that trickles into nothing.

Otherwise known as a bog. A fetid swamp. A bug infested boondoogle.

I’m taking this free tele-class which will may me feel confused and sleepy but that’s simply a sign I’m making progress.

Progress is slow and my impatient self does not like slow.

Oh well.

Wiry Fankle Three

My slippers.

I am so in love with these slippers, I keep wearing them out of the house because I forget they are on my feet.

When I buy something this perfect (and from a cool company like Zappos; the slippers come almost before I order them- soon I will just think of the shoe I need and they will appear on my porch) I realize (yet again) how little I need to be happy and how comforting good design is.

That’s it for the Wednesday Fankle.

Hope to see you at Kripalu or over at the Comfort Cafe or… for tea!

It was very cool to get to talk about what I’m doing for myself these days – and although a bit rough on the ego to see those wrinkles up close and personal, overall, a lovely little video romp.

I thought I’d share it with you!

[See post to watch Flash video]

I also wrote a little article to accompany the video – more about fear. That’s here!

Come see me in person at Kripalu in early April – these retreats are so luscious, deep, wide, and lasting. Come!

I was upstairs this morning making some various art messes and as I was painting pages in my art journal because I thought that might get me into the creative flow (which feels tantalizing close these days but I’m not quite immersed in it yet) and as I was painting I watched thoughts go by that sounded somewhat like this: “You should be working. What are you going to call the retreats you want to lead? Where are you going to hold them? What about your new speaking topics? This art stuff is a waste of time, you have no idea what you are doing. Why are you even doing this? You should be out making a difference like Michele Obama or raising money to help New Orleans if it gets smashed again.”

Whew, I know that was toxic to read! It was toxic to hear.  I don’t let these thoughts stop me and they sure do get old. My inner critic is of the productivity save-the-world variety which I suspect is part of what keeps me from kindly finding my next step. It’s better to stay lost when nothing is good enough.

But I kept painting and letting my thoughts go, not getting attached, and then after a bit, I came downstairs to my office to check my mail and Facebook page (I joined to see what my daughter was experiencing but found it’s very cool for grown-ups too – want to be friends?) and found this email from Pamela:

The artwork on the site and in the newsletter is so beautiful!! Will you ever offer T-shirts and other items, perhaps a calendar with “Jen-isms” and the artwork together, etc?
It would really be wonderful!

Thanks and many blessings-
Pamela H.

I love you Pamela, not because you made me feel talented or that what I was doing in the studio was worthwhile but because it reminded me that our story (in this case, the one from my pushy inner productivity bitch) is just one story. It is not the truth. As I was feeling conflicted and doubtful in my mess making, Pamela was deriving energy or delight from my messes. That doesn’t mean I’m signing up for art school tomorrow – that would be dumb but fun – but that I (we) can trust our desires and let them lead us more than we ever can our stories about what those desires mean or don’t mean. Or we’re being mean to ourselves.

Do you have an inner productivity bitch? Do you think being satisfied is one of the keys to kindly find yourself?

I write this from my shedding nadir where the only dreams left on my list are: Reawaken the feminine, open my whole heart to Love, and create art with abandon and only for myself. Read those three again—see how beautifully interrelated they are? That astonishes me. And see how clearly tending to these will provide the energy for more specific dreams like rewriting my novel? And guess what? Art is the way in to it all, the way in and the way out. So this is what I’m trying:

• Open my big cheap art journal on my art table
• Put out some random paints, water, couple of brushes, oil pastels, water soluble crayons, alphabet stamps
• Glance slowly with soft eyes at one art book (current favorite Hans Hoffman), read two or three poems (current favorite Pablo Neruda odes), put on some music (Always favorite: Krishna Das).
• Feel into the space around me, behind me, in front of me, above me, below me.
• Ask Spirit to get me out of the way. Ask Spirit to fill me.
• Tell my small self, “It’s only for ten minutes. Nothing bad can happen in ten minutes.”
• See what emerges. Not for the sake of dreaming new dreams or getting anywhere but for the sake of being open.

We can dream our way through the wardrobe door, down the rabbit hole, out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing into a fresh field of learning and possibilities (to appropriate the Persian mystic poet Rumi) but only if we are willing to ask, “Where am I willing to go when I get to the end of my dreams?”

Footnotes:
* Diagnostic new age guru Louise Hay claims foot problems signify a fear of the future and not wanting to step forward into life. For me, my very sprained big toe came about because I was hurrying and I’ll buy I’m afraid to step forward so I see my sore toe as a lovely symbol of needing to rest and let go of everything, including fear.

* Child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim posited that grappling with horrible tales (he primarily studied fairy tales) gives children an outlet for natural angst and anxiety which makes me wonder if so many truly horrific horror movies are being consumed by teenagers right now because their anxiety about the future has left the building along with Elvis.

I was on hold with my local clinic about my big toe – which stubbornly is not healing*—when I realized I was hearing a Dan Fogelberg song from my youth. In fact, the song coming over the phone had been the soundtrack for my 16th summer, a time when I was bursting with hopeful itchy angst, stuck between yearning for newness, for life, to be in life yet completely unsure what I wanted from life. As I listened to Dan croon (what a crush I had on him: the original sensitive man!) it struck me that how I felt my Pu16th summer was very similar to how I felt now, some 29 years later, and that Dan’s question was perfect for me – and maybe for you, too. Where do you go when you get to the end of your dreams? (I realize now the station was playing Dan because he died Monday of cancer at 56.)

I’ve run out of dreams. It’s very scary to admit that because in this microcosm culture of personal growth and coaching where I spend a lot of my time, it’s all about possibilities. Declaring, “Hey, I’m tired of growth. I don’t want to live my best life. I just want to curl up and do nothing,” feels so unrealized. It also smacks of the S word-selfish. “Dreams are the food of the soul. In our existence, we often see dreams come undone, yet it is necessary to go on dreaming, otherwise the soul dies and agape does not penetrate it” rhapsodizes novelist Paulo Coelho in his Ode magazine column (January/February 2008). Yes, I say to Paul yes but where does the letting go, cleaning out, dropping-into-nothingness-stage of dreaming fit? In our love affair with self-improvement and efficiency, have we forgotten this aspect? If you and I don’t attend to not dreaming, do we block the ability to conjure truly new dreams? If I lack the courage to peer at my dreams and ask hard questions like:

• What commitment am I willing to make?
• What price am I willing to pay?
• What courage is required of me right now?

(Questions courtesy of The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block)

What is the result? If I lack the stamina to be restfully fallow (say that three times really fast), do my dreams cease being dreams and become should-filled bland heavy nightmares? If I only dream, do my dreams become only delusions?

I believe many of us have gotten to the end of our dreams—I certainly think our American culture has reached the end of something. Partially this may be because we have relentlessly, brutally pushed ourselves. Faster, faster, grab the golden ring! Keep moving, keep buying, keep trying because if you don’t, you’ll be left behind. Our collective well has more than run dry; we’ve pushed clear through to China and out into empty space. Consider our political landscape, our national depression rate, and the number of horror movies leering from the New Movie wall at the video store* as proof positive. We want to dream radical raw dreams, we want to feel desire, we want to believe in new beginnings but we’re too tired from doing, from pushing, and those optimists among us, from dreaming.

Stay tuned for Part 2…