Tuesday, June 7, 2005
...so the big riptide rolling my way is that I've been looking steadily for a steady job for an entire year now without success, and temp work is not cutting it, and I can't hold out any longer... even a year at such an income level is nothing short of a miracle... and while I'm great with sacrifice, I must say it's been no fun at all... I finally decided that I'd like to apply to the Arts-Based Research Program in Graduate Education for 2006 but it doesn't look like I will be able to manage to stay here in Vancouver... with some money that's coming my way soon, not enough, not barely enough, I may be able to move us back to Toronto where the job situation may be no better but where my family lives and where I have many friends... I've been very isolated since moving here 2 years ago, which, in a paradoxical ways, has been healing, a watershed in my life, time to remember who I am, though without financial stability, and not ideal by any means... looking for work pretty intensively though and still no job, despite so much effort to find something, anything... is it time to leave, then?... even though I may just be able to cover moving expenses, I won't have enough for storage or 1st and last month on a place, so I'm stressing even more than I have been all year... it's been a very difficult year, only mitigated by all you wonderful people in the on-line journal world, our blogging heaven, and the creative outlet that this place is... it's very hard for me to talk about difficult things that I'm going through while I'm going through them, usually I withdraw and only speak of what went on later, so I am trying to be more open about my difficulties even as I am swirling in the midst of them...
much love...
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
Monarck, that beautiful poet and model, is talking about a fast she currently on. I've been considering a fast for a couple of months. With low-ish blood pressure ~ now is that because of the yoga? I heard that people who do yoga have low blood pressure & that it's normal? I'd like to hear that it's normal... ~ when I fast I can't really keep up a normal day. But that's okay, because when I fast it's because I'm doing a "vision quest."
Often, when I had a cottage on Georgina Island in Lake Simcoe, a Chippewa Reserve, a beautiful spot only about an hour from Toronto, I would go for vision-quest fasts. Always with a specific quest in mind. One time I wanted to struggle with and overcome my abandonment issues, which come from my childhood and my Dad's frequent absence on business trips, but which were paralyzing me in my relationships, and so I fasted it out.
The first night I travelled there, by ferry and car, and spent the evening in front of a roaring fire playing a Native drum, for hours on end, calling in the spirits of guidance, sending out negative energies, whatever felt and seemed right. Looking out over a wide expanse of lake, with a silver maple forest to one side, a neighbour over a ways to the other, I could make as much noise as I liked. So I drummed long and hard and loud.
The next day the fasting continued, only drinking water, and journaling. Any visions, insights, feelings, anything at all got written down as it was happening. As I went deeper and deeper into hunger I had to let go of my attachments, wants, needs, desires, until there was no more craving, no more pain, no more suffering, until I floated free in a state of mind approaching light speed. I've done quite a bit of shamanic work in these states of mind, helping those who've passed on reach the vistas of enlightenment they seek, or whatever (my novel explores this mythology). It's a type of spirituality I am drawn to, and has its roots in the African tribal spirituality of my childhood.
Anyway, I can't think of a single quest that wasn't successful in the terms that I sought. I've learnt how to be secure in myself and not thrown into tempestuous crumbling when I'm abandoned. I've birthed creativity. I've found a deep and abiding connection to a spiritual reality that keeps me grounded and loving in the world.
Not without effort, mind you. When you fast, starve your body, you are pitting yourself against death itself, the threat of death by starvation, though, of course, you never go that far, only far enough to bring everything to the point of relinquishment so that inner change may occur.
At least, I don't fast to purify my body of toxins, but to purify my mind of restraints that don't serve me or my life or those I love.
So, I am considering fasting to find out why I don't have a job. If the issue is with me, I need to discover what is going on and why. If I am looking in the wrong areas for work, or don't understand my path and the ways I may make an income to live on that are better suited to my talents, energies, drives, ambitions, gifts and desire to give, then I need to stop, delve inwards, and change some conscious attitudes that are causing problems so a better flow can occur. Or maybe I'm in this position because I need to make a radical departure. Right now everything is bottled up. It's a terrifying moment.
If I can manage it, I'll stop eating tomorrow, and go through until Sunday. If I get a temp job, obviously I'll have to stop the fast. I may try to blog it through; can't promise on that one, but we'll see.
This is a powerful way to bring myself into alignment.
Thursday, June 9, 2005
I realize that I've actually been fasting since yesterday around noon or so if I don't count my 2oz of wine last night, I suppose -:). I'm definitely feeling the Day 2 feeling, and couldn't figure it out. Don't know how far I'm getting, but I'm quite light-headed and overly sensitive to sensual input... light is weirdly bright, sound too crisp... and hunger has transformed into a muted distant roar in my gut, I don't feel it... oh, and my tongue feels coated... my head feels, well, lightheaded, sort of enthralled in an inner drama - (of the digestive system which is signalling all over the place, and getting nothing)... all signs of fasting...
Not feeling any breakthroughs in the way I structure myself yet ~
Though I am busy undoing myself from the inside out. I've been through my entire financial history, realizing all the places where I've made mistakes, and the welcome gifts that sometimes emerge... the universe, on the whole, hasn't been too bad a place to hang out for a lifetime.
But I would like now to have a half decent income, that security. Certain areas aren't working out, I can see that, and perhaps ought to shift my focus elsewhere. I am busy clarifying what it is that I do want...
Don't know about moving back to Toronto, don't have quite enough money, but, well.... we'll see what transpires~
O, it's so silly, all of it! But so very, very serious.
I continue~
Friday, June 10, 2005
Some people can fast and carry on with their normal lives, I can't. It's a beautiful state of mind for clarity and honesty because you're somewhere in the deep centre where there is no incessant chatter. Fasting has never been a state where I could carry any anger or bitterness or any of the stories I tell myself to get through the day sometimes. It's so pure. Just the dizzying body and the spirit, and opening yourself into a better understanding of the self and the world/in the world. I was becoming quite weak, mostly resting, and more light-headed and beginning to see radiant angels about me, hovering, moving gracefully, their garments rich and soft like the brushed clouds of the setting sun, their wings gleaming and folded, soft, silky long hair, Pre-Raphaelite angels, tenderly caring for me, helping me to align my perceptions, to understand, to have deeper, clearer vision...
But my kids were finding me too strange. Sigh. What's a spiritual quest again, Mom? Today is shopping day, too, and I knew I wasn't going to make it out to the supermarket by transit and back unless I ate. My son often does the shopping, he's great that way, but we need a lot of stuff today...
I broke my fast, after 48 hours, or 2 days, with a large, granny smith apple, the juice so tart and so sweet on my throat; a large mug of English orange pekoe breakfast tea, a blend of leaves from Ceylon, Assam, Kenya and Indonesia, the very best, sweetened, with milk, soothing; flavourful white extra-old cheddar cheese in a buttered white-flour tortilla wrap; and then a curried lamb chop, which was slowly cooked with onions, garlic, celery, apple, ginger and Patak's hot madras curry sauce that I defrosted in the microwave and gobbled down!
It's like the city was silent, in moon-lit revery, a hush of magic, and the stillness has been broken and the day has begun and the traffic is moving again.
And, O Nirvana... MoreWhereThatCameFrom, she never left you...
(a tiny pic, late last night, after shopping, for you, don't know how 'post-fast' it is... but it's real, you can see the stress, I think, I share - in the self-portrait mode, a mirror image)
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