Thursday, June 28, 2007

I have finished Eat, Pray, Love and am mourning this ending. There is something in Gilbert’s writing that has fed me these last two weeks. If I could eat the pages, the very words she wrote in order to assimilate what it is she is for me, I would do it. But I can’t, and so I steady myself by focusing how my body feels when in the presence of her willingness to be real and human in front of all of us. Real and human, that is what it is, and that is what I want for my expression of myself. She does not hide, she keeps tearing off the layers that ego constructs everyday. She diligently tears them off and then shows up on the page. This is what I aim for – stripping off the stories and lies I want to construct to feel better, to look better, to perform better. Fuck that. No more competition. No more better/worse. I’m done with that. There is just me here, now. And I thank Elizabeth Gilbert for being my Virgil into the realm of my own authenticity this week.

That is it for now.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Yesterday I read this line of Rumi's, "Sell your cleverness, purchase wonder." If I ever need a reminder of how to get out of my head and back into my heart, I do believe that line will forever do it for me.

It is funny, or maybe not, how attached I have been to my cleverness over the years. I have hung onto it like a life preserver throughout my life, believing that without it I will drown. Even in this moment I worry, "will this post be clever enough to keep their attention?" I give up. I'm going for wonder.

In Iran, there are people who roam the streets peddling Hafiz poems (another Sufi poet). You pay them some money, and they pick one from the pile, and read it aloud. The one they pick IS the exact one meant for you.

Here is the one I just picked for you (swear I just picked it at random):

The Mule Got Drunk and Lost in Heaven


The mind is ever a tourist
Wanting to touch and buy new things
Then toss them into an already
Full closet.

So I craft my words into those guides
That will offer you something fresh
From the Hidden's Tavern.

Few things are stronger than
The mind's need for diverse experience.

I am glad
Not many men or women can remain
Faithful lovers to the unreal.

There is a kind of adultery
That God encourages:

Your spirit needs to leave the bed
Of fear.

The gross, subtle, the mental worlds
Become as a worthless husband.

Women need
To utilize their superior intelligence
About love

So that their hour's legacy
Can make us all stronger and more clement.

Sometimes a poem happens like this one:

The mule I sit on while I recite
Starts off in one direction
But then gets drunk

And lost in
Heaven.

from The Gift: Poems by Hafiz The Great Sufi Master; translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Wonderfully,
Kelly

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

One of those mornings where I woke at sunrise. This has happened now twice in the last week. It’s like the sun has something to say to me. And this is not like my normal self. My normal self normally likes the winter, the gray, the darkness or late night (I am the woman who wrote her master’s thesis about the Greek goddess Persephone – Queen of the Underworld). The gloomier days have been when I have felt most connected to my soulful and deepest parts. I have not seen myself as a Sun worshipper too often. But, part of the reason I awoke this morning was my literary agent popped into my head. I thought, “I’ve been blogging, I should let her know. Maybe she’ll like what I’ve been writing.” And boom suddenly there was an evaporation of myself, and in came marching in my strategic mind with all his cronies, wanting to suss (sp?) out every option and opportunity I may have to become famous. I picture them with their cigars, jackets off, rolled up sleeves and suspenders, like some kind of Wall Street bankers, looking for ways to carve up the world some more for their private use and profit.

And this is why I have been ignoring my literary agent for a while. It is not personal. She’s actually smart, fun, generous, and a huge fan of mine. It just seems that I have made her into someone who serves my greediness, and therefore I must please to the ends of this earth. Because if I don’t I will die alone, penniless and undistinguished. And so dipping into my creative self under those conditions is not very fruitful. When I create that kind of situation, I creatively run dry, which is what I would not hope to be around her, since she is the one who might be able to help me actually share my work with the world. So in order to find my creativity, my voice, my fertility, I have not spoken with her for a few months.

When she first met me, she was my dream come true. She saw me at a spoken word event and loved my work. She really got me, heard me, and did I mention that she loved me. I see now how this was the hook for me. I have been known to have the Desperately Seeking Love and Approval radar on most of the time, and here she was, not only loving and approving of me, but a road to the fame that had alluded me for so long! She was perfect. Yes, perfect for the those parts of me that were running on empty, trying to get every last inch out of my childish, archaic needs to desperately mean something and matter to the world. For about a year and a half I strung myself along with fantasies of writing my memoir (this will be done, I swear), and then a book where I would save the world by sharing all my wisdom and insights about what is so wrong with it all. But because it was all rooted in this “Love me, Need me” place, none of it got off the ground. Funny how that works, huh? It is all there: the subject matter, the pieces of my life, the stories, and I suppose my talent, but my heart wasn’t’ in it.

Here’s another thing about all of this that came to me this morning: this is not the universe’s fault – this “when will I be famous and significant” shit. It is mine. I have been blaming many things on why I have not written my book yet, why no one in the world knows who I am or what I am about. Of course, my mother and father come into that picture often, and then lately I have added God to that list. But I now see that my invisibility has been my choice. All along I really believed that I wanted fame, attention and recognition. But I see now that has not been the case. I have chosen oblivion, silence and invisibility by not taking certain steps, by staying small when I could step up and be bigger, by staying quiet when I could have been loud. I have been afraid to speak up and speak out. I have made myself insignificant. Not my literary agent, not my parents, not God. And a part of me is happy about that. Have you seen the shit that Paris Hilton has to put up with?

I don’t have anything brilliant to conclude here. This revelation is new and I feel that I must sit with it. You know, work it like a loose tooth until it frees itself and I can spit it out and put it under my pillow. And then, maybe finally then, I will be able to transform it into a shiny new coin that I can take out into the world and exchange it for something that I really want.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Today I have realized that I have gotten on the other side of a few things that have, in the past, eluded my understanding or grasp (I wanted to use the verb ‘Mastered” in the last sentence in place of gotten on the other side of, but I just know that if I were to do that I would be 1) kidding myself – I am getting that I master nothing AND 2) setting myself up for some kind of karmic suicide – the universe licking its lips at my arrogance - did she say Mastered?).

Anyway, the few things I have gotten closer to are: transitions, comparing myself to others and fruits and vegetables.

Today I made a hell of a transition. After spending my morning on the computer, going through piles of paper and reconciling my business’ bank accounts, I got up, walked out of the office, shut the door and went outside and finished my book. Now before you deem me some kind of retard, let me explain. I am not good at these left brain/right brain transitions normally. Once my high and mighty left brain (analytical, way too good at math and other solving adventures) normally gets going, I begin to spread my sights on things like solving the world in a numerical equation, or planning some fantastic (as in fantasy) marketing scheme for my many business ideas. My mind/body normally gets so wrapped up in all of this that I forget to eat, dress and brush my teeth. I am once again a coke addict, but without the fun numb gums part. But today at 2PM, I faced myself and said, “Stop.” And I did. I closed the door as a literal and metaphorical way of cutting myself off from a way back into my left brain frenzy, and put on my sun worshipping clothes, big hat, XM channel 862 – the Loft, and picked up Eat, Pray, Love and immersed myself in all things gloriously right brained. (Yes, I know that my reading and languaging is coming from the left brain partly, but I am reading for PLEASURE which for me is all about the feminine right brain.)

Next on the list: comparing myself - oh, I believe this is the bane of all of humanity. If I could ban it, I know we would all be a happier planet. Since I have returned from Scotland some part of me has just been done with this. I see the little comparing bugger coming from a thousand miles away now, and just shoo him off before he is even within a mile of me. He showed up today as I was reading the blurbs on the back of Eat, Pray, Love, and there was one that said that there couldn’t be a more enjoyable writer right now, and I could see that little bugger starting to ramp up, “well, what about me, I could be as enjoyable as she…” STOP. It’s not important. Just keep reading. Just keep living. Just keep writing. All that other stuff means nothing. And then there it is, a resting back into myself, a warmth and groundedness, a truth of the now. I open up the book and keep reading and smiling and crying my way through it.

And last but not least fruits and vegetables. Oh, you laugh. For me, I have been a meat and potatoes kind of girl my whole life – I’m Irish/English for Christ sake. My DNA demands it of me. But lately, I have found that I am craving, falling in love with and actually choosing to EAT fruits and vegetables at random times of the day. They call to me. Oh, there is a banana, YES. Oh, spinach salad, YES. MANGO!! Don’t know how or why, and I don’t care to ask my big fat nosy left brain to solve this one. I just am doing it. And loving it. I feel like I love my body, myself more when I eat them. Like they are life, I am life and I need them for my life. Novel, huh?

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Sunday. I suppose it is ironic that it is Sunday when I am having this particular revelation: I am finally getting more comfortable with, accepting that for me the life of the soul is everything. For the last ten years, I have been struggling with this notion as my life has walked further and further into practices, inquiries and vocations that take me into the depth of my depths.

But something has hit me this morning, well maybe it is more like a lifting, a lifting of shame and embarrassment about my need and love of all things soulful. I have struggled within my own heart with skepticism, doubt, and rational analysis that has come in many voices within me that see my infatuation with all things beyond the material as some kind of Freudian delusion. But at some point I have become tired of my internal eye rolling, and have woken up willing to acknowledge that being human means living on two planes. There is no denying it anymore. Even if one has no relation with the metaphysical in its most familiar form – God, there is still a need to read verse poetry, be stunned by a sunset, brought to tears by witnessing an act of kindness. And for me, this is the realm of soul. The human heart wants certain things, cannot always contain itself within level-headed hypotheses and this is the realm that I wish to get lost in, explore and I find my true self in.

So it is Sunday, and actually now that I think about it, there is no irony here, only what must be on this Sunday - one woman no longer making excuses for her heart and for her soul.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Zen Mind

Reading about killing the Buddha today. "If you meet the Buddha along the road, kill him", they say - they being the Buddhist masters. When I first read this many years ago I was aghast. What? Kill the very thing that will finally solve it all for me? What would I be left with then? A dead Buddha? How the hell is this going to work?

What I have come to understand is this: that we all must kill the thought, the idea, the notion that there is a supreme and enlightened being and it/he/she is separate. We must get over this false belief that we are here and God is there, and that our job is to find ways to close the gap between us.

What is reality is that there is no gap, there is no here, there is no there.

What would your life look like if you took me seriously right now, and let this reality BE real?

I’ll say it again: There is no gap, there is no here, there is no there.

There is nothing to strive toward, there is nothing to compare against, there is nothing to be different from. It is the striving, the comparing,and the differencing that is killing you. STOP IT.

You are not separate, you are the AND, you are the YES, you are the everything and you are the nothing RIGHT NOW.

Now go out there, get some ice cream and be kind to you/all.

p.s. And if you see a Buddha, make sure it really is a Buddha before you go killing it. God knows I don't want to be responsible for some kind of mystical manslaughtering.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

So, my clamoring self seems to have settled down a bit today. Some kind of perspective returning; I no longer feel like I am submerged in a muddy hell. And so feeling a bit clearer this morning, I begin to read a newsletter from Carolyn Myss with an essay by Robert Ohotto that got me thinking about what I have been writing about these last few days. Robert seems to have an astrological/archetypal take on this whole, "I don't want to grow up!" thing that I struggle with. His take is that this is not just a personal struggle, but a generational/cosmological one. Whew. I thought maybe I was just stunted.

Robert writes, "...if we are going to collectively begin rebirth ourselves as mature adults. This requires that we begin parenting ourselves such that we rise from the ashes of the generational shadow that the Baby Boomers are negotiating: the Ego-centric Child that seeks constant affirmation, attention, and importance to the detriment of collective resources and the greater good.

...Yet, The Child Archetype and its shadow are something that each individual must face in their development creatively. The Child Archetype is, in part, the source of our creative genius when it comes to being spontaneous and free to express our inner sense of divinity through what we do in life. But unless you are able to make your child inside feel safe and nurtured, how is that part of you going to come out and play?

...In July of 2005, having just spent two and a half years in the sign Cancer making sure we take increased responsibility for mothering ourselves to secure greater emotional security and belonging in our lives (while restructuring our so called ‘family values’); Saturn entered into the astrological sign Leo (a sign resonate with the Child Archetype) and issued a new task for us all in terms of fathering ourselves so that we can bring out more of our inner creative authenticity.

...Thus, when Saturn is moving through the heavens, He begins to search out the fissures in our ego structure that are not supportive to housing a new level of our true potential: a new facet of our Soul. I like to call this alchemical process the dark night of the ego because it forces us to reorient our relationship to how much of us is in unconscious allegiance to our past conditioning—meaning that some part of our ego/past must die.

...On an individual level, since Saturn entered into Leo in July of 2005, I have worked with many clients that have experienced this new alchemy as a call to grow up more, paradoxically, so that they can be a child again and embody their unlived creativity!

...Saturn in Leo demands that we become Kings and Queens of our inner domain, Sovereigns unto ourselves through an authentic connection to our inner star quality, you game?

...Many Baby Boomers are becoming increasingly vested in a new model of thought: It is no longer the collective that is responsible for the individual, but the individual that is responsible for the collective. Something that I think the next generation will be making even more of a reality. That’s what I’m talkin’ about! And so it goes………"


I am not a Baby Boomer. I was born in 1963. But my parent's were, and we all inherit some of our parent's pathologies and shadows. And so I struggle too with all of this.

And so this leads me to a question that seems to be haunting me, one that has been following me around and won't leave my poor soul alone - how do we as a collective, get beyond our narcissistic ego needs to do the real work we need to do this next century? How do we let our child energy play, and face the enormity or what only an adult can face in these crazy times?

More to come, I assure you.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

My voice is still here. It has not been replaced. This is the thought, or actually the voice that I heard while driving to the market earlier today. I was thinking about the book I am reading, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, and how she is writing like I would, and writing how I would be writing, and I thought a familiar thought which I have after reading Anne Lammott, “Oh, well, she has done it, there is no room for me.” And then the voice clearly said, “Your voice has not been replaced.” And a gush of relief and space opened inside of me, and I knew that I have a right to not only occupy the space that is Kelly, but that what comes out of me is, not matter what, unique. It’s like getting that we are all part of the interdependent ecosystem of life, and that whether we are a blade of grass, an oak tree, or a 10,000 foot mountain, none of it would exist without the presence of the other.

Having a voice is one thing, using it is different. When I go to use it is when the questions, anxiety and imaginary demons pop up and the whole approval thing begins again. But as my dear friends say, “that’s my old story.” The new one begins now, and now, and yes even now. Every moment is now an opportunity to start again, start fresh and new, with a voice, using my voice, risking it all in service of who knows what.

Monday, June 18, 2007

I am a whore. I cannot think of anything I want to pursue in my life without thinking about how it might make me more noticeable to the masses. Now I must be frank with you that I may even be writing these very words for this very reason right now. But I can’t help myself, and therefore you must have compassion for me(okay, you don't need to do anything here but hopefully listen with an open mind). And the saddest thing is that there are no masses really to make myself more noticeable to - I have no mass audience, no following, no cronies or minions. I have a few friends and loved ones who are willing to listen to me, and most smile and enjoy what it is I have to say. And I can't tell you how appreciative I am of them.

But, I don’t think that my confession is much different than what we all do anyway. Aren’t we all looking for some love and attention? Is there anything we do from a pure place of just wanting to be doing it? I do not know anymore. I suppose there are some things that I do for this reason, but I can’t think of any right now, except for maybe I pursue getting noticed because I love doing that? Can’t this be pure too?

What is this chasing after your attention all about anyway? Why do I believe that I am not really living my life if potentially thousands of people aren’t turning their loving gaze my way? Okay, so my dad is famous and psychologically that all makes sense, and yes I’ve done A LOT of work in therapy already to get me to what I consider a much more balanced relationship with all of this. But the reality is that wherever I go, there I am and so this issue just keeps circling around and around me like a newly abandoned jet ski. I would love to jump on it and move on to somewhere else, but it is here in this circle I keep finding myself, and finding myself is what I am looking for. So no more avoidance, no more excuses. This is what I must talk about, until it just doesn’t pull me around anymore.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

It has become clear to me that I am not too thrilled with this whole growing up, being an adult thing. I am finding there is a lot to be desired here - like some one to pay my rent, some way to deal with the endless stream of paper that comes in the mail, and I won't even begin to mention the fact that my body no longer cooperates with my every wish.

I suppose being 44 and just coming to this conclusion may seem a bit unusual. No doubt. But unusual and me, well we just seem to go together often and repeatedly. You see, this whole adulthood thing has really just hit me. Especially in the last week - since I turned 44. What I have been doing for the last 24 - 26 years that most would consider adulthood, I don't think was adulthood. I think it was a feigning, an imitation of, or maybe even an impression of adulthood. But not an actual adulthood. Part of it had to do with money and my father. He gave it to me, and I spent it. Like I said, I did my best impression of adulthood, I did use the money for things like rent, utilities, health insurance for the most part. I was not shoving it up my nose, or buying euro trash bottles of Crystal at least. (Well, okay in my twenties I did a lot of shoving up my nose, but I was mostly using my first husband's inheritance for that, I at least was the one who knew not to squander away MY father's money on that crap!)

So here I am now, stuck, managing, groping my way through being an adult in a life that might not have prepared me for it all as much as I would have liked. But I bet, I just would put a little bet on a hunch that I am not alone.

More from the front later. Much love and don't take it all too seriously.
Kelly

Saturday, June 16, 2007

I guess it's been a year since I blogged here. It's been so hard to figure out how to do this blogging thing. Do I do it on a web site, do I do it with my coaching site, do I not bother at all?


Part of my resistance has been an assumption I make constantly, that I need to hide my true self from those that I may be working with as a life coach. I get sucked into this thing that believes that I must maintain some kind of all wise, all knowing stance, and that if I don't I will lose my clients. What is so fucked up about that is that my training and perspective about coaching is that I have little to do with what and where my clients go - they are the ones doing all the work. But I get my self sucked into the land of reputation and approval and screw myself every time. So what has happened to me is that I have censored and stifled myself this last year, and not come forward with my thoughts and things about my life, the world and anything else.



And who am I kidding, it's not just about my life coaching, it's really about fear of disappointing everyone by revealing my thoughts, ideas and feelings about life and the world around me.

Well, I turned 44 yesterday, and I think it is high time I got over this bullshit approval seeking crap. The self-betrayal I create by living silently is becoming too much to bear. Confusingly, I grew up watching my dad being a person who did not silence himself, and followed his urges to express all that was on his mind. But I think that he did not have to live under a shadow of that kind of parent. Growing up in the shadow of a George Carlin, my dad, is a different kind of life than he had. He had some kind of permission that I have never given myself.

But as I said, that is no longer working for me. I'm tired of this shadow, I'm tired of my fear, I'm tired of worrying about how it will all look.