day 33

days 31 and 32

sleepless nights, sandwiched between coughing miserable children. long long days indoors, tending to coughing miserable children. in between all that, meditating on the energy of the flood, on traps and blind spots, on how i get in my own way.

day 30

in a panic. no way to get ground under my feet. at least not right now. am having trouble sitting with the panic. that being the thing about panic. that it's hard to sit with...

day 29

outside my window, the storm is raging. inside, a small orange spider is quietly, dilligently spinning its web. and so it is with me. part storm. part calm work. until i stumble on the perfect remedy for that which is no disease. a poem by Hafiz.

Absolutely Clear

Don't surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.

Shams al-Din Hafiz

day 28

day 27

beyond the tideline. lost my footing. powerful undercurrents. the narrow dramatic one, anna karenina style drowning. the broad, nourishing one, from the lap of my foremothers, learning to make kitchen soup.

day 26

day 25

what the tree said to me. 'as it is above, so it must be below'. and the bear snorted contentedly.

day 24

new moon, hunter's moon, bear energy, making choices, meeting resistance, formulating intention

day 23

day 22

sad, soft, open, full of tears, scared, moved by the wind

day 21

samhain

listopad

day 18

day 17

day 16

day 15

day 14

day 13

day 12

day 11

day 10

day 9

day 8

day 7

day 6

day 5

day 4

day 3

new moon

how to best spend a new moon day? i am sure you are all dying to find out. well, you might move house. or you might go to a funeral. or you might throw out junk, psychic or material...

but if you don't have a new house to move to, if nobody died recently that you would care to bury, and if you are not up to junk clearing of any kind, then here is my advice, based on a long trial-and-error process:

find a spot in the sunshine, hang up a hammock, lie yourself down with as many comforters and blankets as you need to be truly comfortable, switch off your phone, bring a book, a cup of tea, some home-made (not by you...) pancakes or soup, and spend the day lazing, sleeping, reading, reflecting, or even better, doing absolutely nothing. only emerge when good and ready. and only to do something you really want to do.

wolf

General Wolf Rules for Life

1. Eat
2. Rest
3. Rove in between
4. Render loyalty
5. Love the children
6. Cavil in the moonlight
7. Tune your ears
8. Attend to the bones
9. Make love
10. Howl often

(from Women who Run with the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes)

in praise of melancholy

is the title of a short chapter in Tom Hodgkinson's remarkably mind-boggling 'How to be free'. he advocates the following measures: rename depression 'melancholy' because that just sounds much better, forget about prozac and therapy, accept the human condition (we all have it. really. really. really.), and drink more beer, preferably in good company. sounds like wise advice for october. herfstbokje, anyone?

ma brune

(no translation today, but there is a polish version)

seeing in the dark

a woman i know, who spent years living among the people of Papua New Guinea, told us about how the people there can see equally well in the dead of night as on the clearest day. obviously, she herself couldn't do this, to the great surprise of the locals. the chief of the tribe took her out into the jungle in the middle of the night to investigate what he perceived to be her peculiar visual handicap. as she stumbled around in the dark, he guided her: here is a tree, there is a root,... he was truly puzzled by her blindness. 'what are you looking at then?' he asked her. 'i am looking for the light', she answered. 'but why would you do that???' he wondered 'when you are in the dark, you have to look at that which is darker than the dark. then you can see...'. and she did. just like that.

there is a deep lesson in this. when spending time in the dark night of the soul, i am always straining my psychic eyes, trying to find the light points. what if instead of doing that, i looked at that which is darker than the dark? what would i see then?

discovery

we went to a goddess dance this weekend, my women and i, and there was a man there who offered Tulayoga sessions. it was an astounding experience: complete surrender, floating outside time and space. if you ever get the chance, don't miss it...

insomnia

(an old classic from isabelle's pippi longstocking phase, when she insisted on sleeping with her feet on the pillow and her shoes on)

for the past week, i have been falling asleep at 10 pm, waking up at 1 am, and staying awake until 6 am. i am a very tired little person. on the verge of collapse. any tips on battling insomnia? (first tip: don't refer to it as a battle... any tips on befriending insomnia, prior to sending it gently on its merry way?)

on being scared and doing it anyway...

re-visiting

my camera cannot focus both on that which is close and that which is far. not simultaneously, that is. and actually, neither can i. so that there comes a time for choosing. if only for now. what to focus on. and of course it did not escape my notice that the scratchings of the planes in the sky look remarkably similar to the intertwinings of the blades of grass, hinting that the insights will be the same no matter what i choose to focus on.

still, i chose the sky. i will focus on the sky for now. look at the grass later.

(and in case you were wondering, the amsterdamse bos is as lovely in autumn as it was in summer...)

wasps

Вооруженный зреньем узких ос,
Сосущих ось земную, ось земную,
Я чую все, с чем свидеться пришлось,
И вспоминаю наизусть и всуе...

И не рисую я, и не пою,
И не вожу смычком черноголосым:
Я только в жизнь впиваюсь и люблю
Завидовать могучим, хитрым осам.

О, если б и меня когда-нибудь могло
Заставить, сон и смерть минуя,
Стрекало воздуха и летнее тепло
Услышать ось земную, ось земную...

Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам

(see here for a translation)

oracle

i found the idea here. the 5th sentence of your blog's 23rd post is supposed to be your life's motto. guess what mine is?

"see for yourself"

a song for myself