The Rambles

I had a dream the other night that there was a festival going on at the farm and Gary had me playing a part of warrior guardian spirit. I stood at the edge of the barn asking people why they wanted to enter, sniffing out evils and blessing those that passed. My eyes had painted black rings around them with line drawn down my cheeks and I had two sets of holes on each shoulder blade with feathers anchored under my skin. I could fly but the wind was sore on my back which was still bleeding from the puncture wounds. Full of vivid sensations.

Next weekend's the Queens County Fair. I wonder if it'll mean anything.

Thanks, Nigelface

What is my true purpose in life?

go getting at my own pace

taking the scenic route

being enamored by what's right in front of me

cherishment

I do crazy things by myself
sometimes when I think
people aren't looking--
like jump down
sacata holes to see what's
so good down there it kept em
17 years
til they came out for a summer
of rattling through the trees.
Trees so old and tall
I can climb up and touch
past lives,
take them down
the little dirt road along side
rail road tracks
where passing trains
lend their own pulse to quiet mornings,
days so sweet
when they start
so easy breezy,
I dreamt this once
or lived it maybe,
or I'm on my way to living something
more fully.

I don't really know what measuring progress at this point would entail. I don't know if I even believe in the concept of progress these days, or if I've come to see it all as part of the same cycle of change- growth, death, and rebirth happening exponentially in any given moment in multiples of manifestation. For all the things I've learned, what have I had to unlearn, what have I forgotten? What do I try not to forget regardless of knowing the impossibility of keeping anything contained? And it's all so small and insignificant against the whole world of things I have yet to live, the whole universe of things I don't have lifespan enough to know-- but no living creature does really, 600 year old trees stay in one place because if they moved they couldn't live to grow so big, monarch butterflies migrate south 3,000 miles in the summer and live for 3 months, but even the Ever Present Great Hum wouldn't have a manifestation in feeling without a developed brain and a nervous system to experience. Going beyond my mind for even just a moment to tune in is the best defense I've got against myself. And even then...

I should smoke less pot on my days off from work when I don't have a preset agenda. I'd eat less impulsively. I'd get things done quicker. I'd get things done, period. It's not the quantity, really, it's the regularity of the singular hit off the bowl every hour or so. Leaves room to have little tolerance for anything that doesn't require the use of a chair. My back needs unwinding, some time on the bolster will do. I think sitting hurts it more than 8 hours a day of farmhanding.

When I get ancy for tangible direction, I take free sample astrology readings online...
"First of all, you very much enjoy the fruits of the earth in a simple, uncomplicated way. You have a deep rapport with nature and its rhythms, and if you cannot live in the country, you need at least to have a view of some natural beauty or to be surrounded with living or growing things. You have a strong affinity for plants. Regular contact with the land, forests, mountains, or your garden restores you, and without it you lose your center and your peace. When you are at your best, you function like a healthy animal, following what your instincts and your senses tell you. Your well known stubbornness and resistance to change is in part a reflection of your strong need to follow your own instincts and proceed at your own natural pace. As a wise one once phrased it "A soul must never be pushed or driven, but allowed to unfold naturally, like a flower blossoming bit by bit in the sunshine". This sense of a natural unfolding process underlies your tendency to be both steadily patient and very obstinate when faced with the need to make sudden moves or adapt to changes. Furthermore, your contribution in life has to do with, building (solid foundations, assets, structures), and continuing, sustaining, and preserving what has already been attained (thus, your disinclination to embrace innovation or change)."

If I had a credit card, I'd abuse my finances on online astrology readings.

The coming weeks will prove to be challenging. This time last year I was thinking the exact same thing, cyclic circumstance of saying goodbye to good friends leaving for school. Without looking closer I could forget to see just how much has changed in that amount of time. Changing relationship dynamics, personal priorities, path directions. I don't believe in not having anything in common really, but connection, or lack there of, is just so, and just as subject to the laws of change. But we can have guts about these things. I've got some good ones. Guts and friends because I'm lucky like that.

The way I'm feeling today I can't even imagine how I'm going to have energy for what this fall is going to demand out of me. I do love my days though, I forget when I feel this way, I have a routine that not only doesn't have me running away from responsibility but that I even have enthusiasm for. I don't do well without fresh air. Ay, I want a muffin.

Shush brain shush.

I don't like the concept of ads on this page. Nonetheless, what'd I pay but to slightly be a tool? I have no complaints. This is for myself.

For two days the east has been roasting, I could've gone swimming through the air it was so thick, but I have fair tolerance for heat. I work outside in the sun all day planting, irrigating, pruning, weeding, sweeping up sheep shit, dealing with what the day brings, self awareness for sense of vitality is essential, otherwise I'd be heat strokin drowning in August air. After working a long weekend for the Pow Wow and with the heat wave hitting us, Gary gave us these two days off. I had intentions of putting them to good use, doing those things working gets in the way of, like being social, going to the beach to touch my soul on an ocean wave, doing some serious book reading, ridding my closet of useless things. Instead I think I spent most of my time in front of my computer, eating ice cream and cookies, watching Oz, and eating ice cream and cookies. Cookie dough ice cream and cookies. Chris said I could walk outside and I'd bake into a cookie. That made me feel really sugary, like the high sugar content I'd imagine Hansel and Gretel to have had with that witch gettign ready to bake them. That's an interesting concept. Eating yourself into a unique kind of pastry. I'm getting away from myself here.

Inspirations been buzzing and I like the way it rings. I think it's what brought me here to a new outlet, unattached by boundaries of my good friend Pen, boundaries of old journal entries to compare to. This is swell.

So I work at the farm in Little Neck, and I meditate on the porch of the 230 year old barnhouse in the mornings adjacent to a mighty maple tree whose colors made me cry and cleansed me deep the other day. I'm learning the challenge of balancing asana practice with a day of physical labor, but the yoga of living is never lost on me. Everything about how I organize my day directly impacts how I feel. I'm learning to accept a sleep schedule better and to find time for those exquisitely silent early mornings for surya namaskar, beating the sun to rise, just as the roosters do and continue at it all day. I didn't know rooster's could fly well enough to get themselves up into trees. Or that they could successfully mate with turkeys. Everyday is a dream, everyday is a gem, and I could be eating myself to hormonal insanity and still feel Prescence. Being there with the earth and tuning in listening to sound of the bigger picture seems ever more important than getting caught up in personal illusion and opinion. Chanting mantra melodies into the vineyards is like sacred puja. Divinity of detail.

Sometimes I feel boring because I don't have strong enough opinions about things. I couldn't give you a heated rant about the high fructose corn syrup industry, but I'd gladly tell you about it's effect on the body if you were interested, how it's all about cell interaction, how it's all ever about cell interaction, EVER. Mind you, this is coming from the girl who's eaten cookie dough ice cream and cookies for two days.

Then the things I find myself having strong opinions on interpersonally I have a hard time accepting as valid, seeing the Ego in the territorialist crap my head pulls. I try my hardest not to mistreat people out of that place, there's the a fine veil between the honesty of a moment and honesty below the moment, and my aim is the most honest of honests. But all those phonecalls I haven't returned, all those half ass soontoberescheduled plans, all those effortless semi permanent goodbyes. Am I a fool or can I really not give any much more than I do? Between work, trying to keep a yoga and sleep routine, and laboring around the house so it deserves a For Sale sign. I have so much love for everyone and everything I know, but I'm a terrible multitasker.

I wonder how long I can use the excuse "I quit smoking [insert length of time here] ago so sorry if I'm a bit snippy." I wonder if quitting smoking, no matter how much of an asshole I become at times, will ever feel any less great because it seems to get better and better everyday. I forget sometimes how big of a change I've made. Which is why it's still okay to have two days of cookie dough ice cream and cookies. I'm still reexperiencing these taste buds. 2 months baby.

All the things that have me scattered and trying not to lag are the same things that made me realize I couldn't do teacher training this fall. I'd love to come back to Laughing Lotus and train with them, perhaps in the spring if I can muster coming back east so quickly. I'd like to do college at some point, Naropa has my heart, maybe study ecology from zafu cushions on the floor. But teacher training is my priority. I had said it even came before leaving NY, but life didn't let me work it out that way. I feel good to see my limits, I don't think I could go through the process of selling my house, saying goodbye to my family as they pack our house and cats into an RV to drive to Colorado while I get contained to the city bumming on someone's couch through the rest of teacher training. I want to be 100% present for teacher training. Not that I expect life to paint out the clearest most convenient time to choose to do anything really, but I felt inclined towards another choice.

It's important to me to experience this with my family, to be there for my mother, to grow in our dynamic. I think the road trip itself will be enough to pry some growing up family behavior out of me. I need to be a good daughter and sister to a family that's been so good to me before I'm a good independent citizen of the world. So I do the road trip, I do the temporary apartment rental while we house hunt, perhaps I lose asana routine for a while [but the y o g a o f l i v i n g i s n e v e r l o s t o n m e], perhaps I go through some temporay mind loss soul bursting episodes of illusion destroyal, with a farewell to the house I've grown up in and hello the Rocky Mountain Front Range, it all seems like the way it's gotta be.

I've become less and less overall social as if I'm just getting ready for the shuffling forth or things. I don't like goodbyes I like sharing stories. So while I'm walling up a bit, I want to revel in good connection, I want to extend love to the people who've given me nothing but. or atleast to the best of their abilities, I want to go on a beach adventure with Lori while I'm still on a coast, blast some Van Halen and watch Pauly Shore movies with her and Beeka, I want to sample breweries with John and Rich, and celebrate the last of Erin's windowsill before she moves out to Queens. I want to go camping up in Harriman and see those silver mines. Then it's off to Colorado, settling the nest there. Where do I find work, do I drive, do I make friends? I could go to yoga classes, dharma classes I'm sure. Boulder has the higest concentration of Tibetan Buddhists in the United States. I think it's in part due to Naropa and their sister city political thing, I'm not so sure on that though. But do I dive in to life if I'm only there temporarily? When do I go out to Portland to move in with Sairuh, get experience on an organic farm or work vineyards, study yoga? Or do I find myself being anchored in to San Francisco for an amazing teacher training program? All these things, I have no idea how they're coming at me. It's August and I'm having my own vernal orgasm, the rush of blooming into mountainside wildflowers, just in dreaming alone. Something exciting about an abrupt change of plans. Seems to be the trend this time of year.

I'd love to work outdoors for the rest of my life. It's all too beautiful to be sheltered away from most of the day. I shovel shit while conversing in baaas with my goat buddies and the sheep that you can lead in chorus because they follow the in thing of the moment or if it involves the possibility of eating. We stack bales of hay, pick produce, sweat all day, and step our boots into all sortsas, all while aquiring hardcore farmer tans around shorts, boots and tshirts. Sure, leave it to a city girl to find farm work novel, maybe. But I've been learning to drive a tractor, more gears than a pontiac, and I don't technically drive yet. Fuck yeah I'm a warrior.

Fair enough first entry I'd say. The knot in my shoulder needs walking on.