Not even sure what I want to say...
Listening to music I love tonight. A little Jeremy Enigk, some Led Zeppelin, the Mars Volta.
The day started with some difficulty. I was up till 2 or 3 AM, and so waking up at 8 was a bit of a challenge. I had wanted to sleep in, it was supposed to be a winter storm today afterall. I'd imagined sipping tea or coffee, covered in blankets, staring out the window and reading. .. but plans had been made... and that's a good thing.
Went to Crosby Farms with the old teaching crew (lizards). Walked the cold forest, staring at the naked giants, so many fallen, columns succumbed to the wind and the shifting sandy soil. We trekked around catching up, talking primarily of the present, afraid to talk about the future? Letting go of the past with the occasional reference and the recognition of the haziness of memories. Who can recall past brain fog? past the stress of the day, the darkness of the future.
And yet, it felt so good. Smiles and laughter, and connection. I love these people, will always love them. I am inspired by them even a decade later. Feel awkward in my distance and yet still connected.
A few months ago I was so sad, so traumatized by the past that I wondered how it would be to reconnect after so long, and what I found to be true was that I was inspired again, ready to leap off the next launch with them. More than any crew of people... I trust them to jump with me. Its' weird. We are so different and yet... I don't know. I need more of them in my life.
I understand why I had to leave. But now, a decade later... maybe I am ready for something like that again. I've had love affairs, and other jobs, and I've seen more of the world, and lived more places, and... still, who do I trust? who do I look to? In lizards... Maybe its because we built community during a formative time. Maybe because we trauma bonded. Maybe because they inspired me further down a path. Maybe because they believed in me, took me in, loved and respected me...
Aryn gave us a book, the newest by the author of braiding sweet grass. Its a short quick, and inspiring/validating piece. 100 or so pages easily read at a spy house afternoon as the sleet came down. The book was about a "gift economy" or rather, a circular, collaborative, community economy that works for all. Not built on scaricity, but abundance, based on the reality that all things are gifts of the earth, and nothing can be taken without consequence, so... if you take with the idea of giving back, only take enough, circulate the wealth etc... then we live aligned with the earth instead of creating our own destruction... We could be part of the forest, the plains, the deserts, the ecosystems...
So I was thinking of that, and staring out the window at spyhouse on Nicollet and considered the age of the trees, some within 20 years I am sure. Others probably planted 50 years ago? Who remembers? Were they small when the houses and buildings were built? These are the trees they decorate with lights to add a little joy to the city in the winter... Who remembers? The other day I was thinking about how sometimes in life we try to create a legacy with our name on it, while other times we are grateful to let go of what we have done or left undone. and I was thinking of how someone planted these trees and created the sidewalks around them so as not to allow the roots to destroy the walking path, and put grates around them etc... and... no one remembers who this was... or when it happened... I am sure there are records. But one day there were trees planted, and 50 years or so they are so much a part of the landscape that who would recall?
Victoria said there was a guy who was buying up old golf courses and returning them to forest. What a legacy... and yet if all humans died, no one would know the difference... In a 100 years, if humans are around, will they recall the golf course, or just see a forest and assume it was always there?
In teaching, and in therapy, there are these recognitions that you can teach an amazing lesson, or share an amazing insight, but the truest and best insights/wisdom will always be when the student/client adapts it and sees it as their own... like when they take that knowledge and internalize it to the extent that it wasn't your lesson, it was always theirs... their bright idea. The best teachers and therapists create the conditions under which the other has these insights (so they say)...
And is it any different with the rest of life? Wouldn't the best legacy be to do something that becomes so incorporated into the lifestyle, the environment etc, that it seems natural, seems like it has always existed and life without it seems impossible?
I watched a guy debating marxism vs capitalism, and the guy was convinced that marxism was manmade while capitalism was inherent... and it was like... wow, its so ingrained we can't even imagine that there was/is life without it.
But these rules are man made. These days are man made.
Maybe the one thing Luigi did, was to shake us up and remind us that the rules only apply because we believe them. The billionaires have no 'right' to their stolen wealth, we've just allowed it. A breath of fresh air.
Or maybe its just me sooooo set in my fixed beliefs.
I was thinking about that this afternoon, how easy it is -given my privileges, given my intellectualizing and rationalizing, and my type 9 desire to see and accept, and get stuck with this. Whatever this is. I can wade through it, so I accept it. I endorse it. When... well its not real.
I need people in my life who can challenge me out of my bullshit. I need new energy and new environments, and new experiences, and whatever... to remind me. Hey you're stuck in bullshit -and yes it is very much part of my white male experience.
But I am also stuck in my what should bes.... like I can't make a business or a whatever... because I am supposed to make it like ------. When really, it can be whatever it needs to be, and likely that means changing and growing and adapting to whatever happens.
Today I was thinking, I should run groups... maybe a free workshop. Get all the clients together and have them learn from each other. Create some community in the process.
Art classes? Theater classes?
What am I doing really? The role of therapist in our society is sooooo fake. I have all this knowledge of humans, but really... not sure what its worth, unless in some sort of exchange that feels like it respects the soul of each person. Am I doing that lately?
I dunno.
My art project is almost done... I am not sure if I like the outcome. I'd probably do a few things different on the next one. Will there be a next one?
Will i go to the workshop hours tomorrow?
Church in the morning.
The tarot videos tell me everything is gonna change soon. They also say be calm and accept divine timing.
I've been wondering (as always I suppose), if I did the right thing, if I fought hard enough. Why I felt ready to move on... still feel that way when I miss her so frequently, when I still adore her presence...
It just feels like it wasn't the right fit. Something continues to signal that to me now...
I miss her, I miss Simba, and its soooo weird to not have him under foot or around each corner. I think it hits me like 10 times a day. The place feels empty.
5 more days of work and then a week off.
How to spend that time? Should I find an office space and start a business in the new year? Maybe Feb or Mar?
I don't think I will buy a house unless something leaps out now. But I think my mom was right, I needed to define for myself what I liked again.
Need more community. What does that look like?
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