Follow Up on the “extreme independence is a response to trauma” meme

There is a pervasive and painful sentiment in human society, that you must be half of a whole to be complete. That somehow the traumatic responses a being has to being betrayed, wounded, abandoned, fooled, trapped, misused and taken for granted are somehow a fallibility or weakness or flaw of character or fabric. I do not agree. The fabric of me finds intimacy traumatic, because I have only known traumatized humans, and because we are contagious to one another.

The insinuation and implication that my worth or wholeness or wellness is somehow entangled with my ability to define myself by some interdependence, or by my ability to hold intimate connection with some other being, presumably both of us holding ourselves in an un-traumatized state of wellness, presumes a society of healthy humans. It presumes a functional state, a functional model, a functional family, a functional healthy society. None of this exists for me, currently.

Trauma is the inevitable result of codependence. Codependency naturally evolves during our ongoing attempts to achieve healthy states of interdependence. The idea that we should make intimacy with others a priority when we are living in traumatized state is for me leading to a complete disintegration of functionality. It’s a dead end wall I run into every direction I turn, every interaction I invest in, every relationship I attempt to cultivate.

This is an idea which relentlessly derails my attempts to live alive, to be well, to live happily or contently as me. The idea that I can only be whole by being some fragmented partial incomplete continuously wounded and wounding version of me. Maybe I am different. Maybe only most of us are born loveable, and others are merely love, embodied? I think people use relationship as excuse not to be. Not to become. Not to step fully into ourselves. Yes, in that regard, extreme independence is a logical response to the trauma of intimacy with wounded, un-whole, fragmented beings.

To my perception, the reiteration of this as our main goal continues to erode the wellness of individuals and hence, disintegrate the very fabric of intimacy which the sentiment of that very shallow and small-minded meme was born of. That my completeness is dependent on my ability to be contained by some other. The further I get into this life, the more traumatic it becomes. The more I am reminded that ‘somehow’ I am ‘supposed’ to overcome the trauma of failed intimacy and become capable of holding that space the further from possible it seems to become. Idiocy, lobotomy, complete zombification and domestication seems to me to be the only hope of that, and is fairly unappealing to me. I’d rather die, or even kill, in fact, than that.

The fact that the blog post I wrote about this last year has hundreds of times more views than all my other posts put together tells me I am not alone in my confusion and frustration. Or, at least, that is the AI’s current best guess of us. I can see humanity struggling with this in every direction I turn. It permeates every interaction, and colors every speck of entertainment and education I see. Do we have it wrong then? Is interdependence the goal? Codependence? Maybe less extreme? More extreme? I think wrongness is a human construct, like waste, and intimacy. We are all One. All is One.

There is no such thing as separation except by way of the stories we create about our uniqueness, our independence. Independence is a cute story we like to play in. Interdependence is the single state of all. Whether you die alone or surrounded by what you love and by those who love you is merely an illusion of the mind. A fantastic story. A dream within a dream. Why so much suffering then?

It turns out, I don’t know everything. I don’t know most things. I know nothing. I enjoy feeling close. I enjoy feeling connected. I enjoy and know a fair amount about the healing potentials of touch. The pulling apart is traumatic though. If we don’t feel whole on our own, then every goodbye feels like abandonment. Every breathe of solitude feels like some betrayal of this false ideal of missing some ‘twin flame’. To me, this is the cost of that story.

I don’t see any way around it. This is the ongoing nature of things. The yin and yang with spins from the Wu. Something comes from nothing, and then returns to nothing again. That is all. What we make of it is up to us, a matter of habit, matters of habit. Context matters. Intention matters. Matter matters. It’s all made up though, through my perception. The snake is simply swallowing its own tail, endlessly.

I say go it alone. You are born alone and you will die alone. Striving to create partnerships when we have not learned to be okay independently seems like a recipe to end up less than we could be. First, learn how to stand on your own feet. Learn to love independently. Hold your own hands. Heal yourself. Make your own bed and dare to dream in it on your own. Learn to loath yourself less. Learn to forgive your trauma and your faults and your falsehoods. Learn to live with yourself, be whole, and then, then, then–now–shall we dance?

Sum Work, 8 23 21

There are things I have been putting off, which press and press. Sometimes they dissolve, in which case, I am happy to have delayed them until they diminished themselves. The 5 D’s of good time management often do take care of themselves. Other times though, the things pile up, clutter up the kitchen and the hall and the bedroom closet. Clutter up my heart and mind and take up so much of my increasingly rapidly diminishing precious time. I tend to avoid processing when I can, like most humans, hoping the processing will take care of itself. Perhaps this knot will simply dissolve. Healing happens, and so this is not a bad strategy to my current thinking.

Nonetheless, when I find repeating patterns, statements which have planted themselves into my sub or super conscious and sprout again and again, then, now and again, it is worth taking a scalpel to them, digging them out with the head of a pen…

To the splinters then.

These are them. Statements which repeat often, when my mind is left unguarded, or sometimes when it is most guarded. I catch these statements which suck my energy and do not seem to be serving me very well. Let’s examine the truths and untruths of them. The roots of them.

I will start by listing the most prominent ones, as they come up, and then I will crunch them through the questioner, the processes, the Alchemizer, and see what we end up with.

1. Fucking idiot. Fucking jackass. Fucking liar.

Is that all of it then?

lol.

No.

2. How can you be so small, so stupid, so cruel?

3. You are doing harm, you have harmed me, you are harming the ones you say you love.

4. How can you be so shallow? How can you not see? How can you act this way seeing what you see?

5. What the fuck is wrong with you?

Okay, okay. I will start here. Enough. Worthy. Enough. Enough.

Uncle?

That is a strange development…and perfectly logical. We do need to get at it through the side door, come in with a tangent view, a multi-faceted reflection. Some new, fresh perspective.

“That is a hell of a thing for you to say to me.” (Doc Holiday, as portrayed by Val Kilmer–oh delightful irony, how I do appreciate “thee”) [lol omg AI, that was one “hell” over the positivity line, apparently]

We’ll start with the flip.

1. I am a fucking idiot, a fucking jackass, and a fucking liar. True enough. As are you. Takes one to know one. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Is it the true? The whole truth? Nothing but the truth? Is there any god who can help or will or should fucking help you? No. Nope. Not really.

Alright. None of us is an idiot, and we all are. It isn’t something to put down anyhow. As defined. It is deviation from the standard curve. A classic case of collateral ‘damage’ created by definition. Easy peasy. Jackass. Fuck face. Fucking liar too. Name calling is immature and unproductive. Clearly this is coming from your wounded child, perhaps teenage rebel self. Renada? Dee? Jane? Awe, Jane. Sweet Jane. https://youtu.be/Fa9nN3G2CSg

Humanity is a fucking jackass, a fucking liar, and a fucking lie. How does it serve me to focus on this? I don’t think it does except if/when I want to relate to most of them. Is this what you choose to be? This is simply where most of us live. This is simply what is being sold on TV. It is the prevalent programming. We eat anger and rage for breakfast lunch dinner and desert lately. It is becoming the most nourishing thing we have available? No, no, no. That is illusion folded into illusion. It only becomes true when we say it, when we think it, when we act it out. It is a choice then. Always available to me. We can do better.

I choose to be less of an idiot, less of a jackass, and less of a liar, and to forgive myself and you for our collective fallibility. I don’t know what else to do about that. Plenty of life is idiocracy and jackassery. That is just par for course. You still get to choose your own adventure. What serves you best to focus on?

I suppose you and I are also quite bright, witty, smart, eloquent, and ongoingly educated. I imagine we can get through entire days and sometimes even weeks without giving in to utter jackassery. I accept that everything is a lie to some degree, and we are collectively doing our best to find and agree upon working truths. I will continue to show up and do the best I can with what I have. You can count on me to do that, and also to fail at it frequently. Let’s forgive each other and continue doing our best to be better?

Agreed.

I can see all the rest of these flip the same way…which is always the case. Amazing that I still find value in the process. The second process then. 7 layer dips. The why’s.

Why do I think I think this is true?

I think I think it is true, because the pattern repeats so often. Because the interactions seem so unconscious and so cruel. Because we don’t seem to be able to keep enough space around our thoughts and feelings and actions to assume positive intentions, and instead, we take things personally, accumulate and harbor resentment, and then act out as wounded trapped animals, only we mostly create it, mostly make it up…much of is collect though. I can give more allowance for that. Much of the programming is automated. It isn’t anyone’s fault. It is mine to remedy. Bringing light to the darkness is all it takes to dissolve it. See? No one is in the back seat.

That part feels fine.

The part that wrenches, lurches, guts…is the part where we feel separate, where we feel desperate, where we feel stuck. Can you see a way out of it? Just sit still and wait for the universe to turn a notch… Or put your fucking back into it. Put your heart into it. Put your soul into it. Put your guts and your shit and your boots into it. Yeah, no. I think it must be both. Tension and release. Yin and Yang. Push and Pull. Hold and let go. Fuck, fight, freeze, dance, and hold the light. Get in flow? Or is it flow which has distracted me from being content? Knowing there is a feeling so full, so right, so fast, so aligned, so Super…makes it difficult to be content with mere mortalism. Beautiful, delicious, magnificent, mysterious mortal. We are more than this, and only this. Both. And.

On the ‘ing’, and putting ANTS to rest… 8 20 21 1000 Words

I’ve always been a light sleeper, and slept less than most people around me. When I was young, I would get up around 3-4am and hike up to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise, or sometimes clean the kitchen and surprise my mom with breakfast. Okay, I only did both of those a few times. Mostly, I lie in bed and ruminate. Drift around. Masturbate. In my 50th year, I have adopted some new morning routines which seem to be serving me well.

When I am feeling relatively healthy, I do well on 5-6 hrs of sleep. If I am getting 7-8 or more that is usually an indication I am ill or injured, and need extra healing time. This used to stress me out, and still does cause stress in relationships if I sleep near other humans, as lying awake trying to be quiet is a sure recipe for rumination, and rumination leads to ruin. Those unguarded, automatic negative thoughts. ANTS. They are the most difficult to subdue when they latch on to an injustice which is evidently true. I’ve been getting a solid 5-6 hrs a night for at least a month now. I am feeling less inflammed than I have been since…probably sometime in the spring, maybe last year.

In the early morning hours, usually before I am out of bed, the ANTS begin to crawl around in my head. When I can remember, I ask myself, “how is this serving you, to think about this?” Usually, if it feels bad, it isn’t. Anger is the most obvious exception. Defensiveness and anger can be energizing, focusing, and enlivening. Ultimately though, much like other stimulants, it leaves me less coherent and burns up a lot of energy that might be better spend in a more calm, creative state.

About a decade ago, I became aware of how much my negative thinking was having a negative effect on my life. I have long been aware of how vibration effects vibration–resonance, or the ‘law of attraction’, as is the current popular phrasing. And still, left undisciplined, my mind did what seemingly every undisciplined human mind does. I blamed. I complained. I created narratives about how much I had been victimized, how much I struggled, how much I sacrificed, how unseen and unheard and unloved I was. It is a popular story among humans. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

This year I have started ‘belonging’ myself to my neighborhood again, after many years of neglect and isolation and resistance…I walk around for 10-20 minutes, most mornings and evenings, and over the months and years, have come to know many dogs and trees, some gardens, and a few humans. This morning I howled with a pack in one of my neighbors’ yards.

The last month or so, I have been experiencing a marked increase in acknowledgment from humans. They make eye contact and smile more. Increasing numbers of them mutter a “good morning” or “hello”. I few even venture into friendly exchanges along the lines of “beautiful day” or a reference to their dog, and a couple have even graduated to full on recognition. I have a neighbor who knows my name now, since the butterfly mural went up, and another who recognizes me as a neighbor who also walked the dog of another long time neighbor.

This is the most intimate human interaction I have, excepting my two long distance girl-friends, my band mates, my mother, and my son. I do still have a few friendly acquaintances, many of whom I love. We just don’t actually see each other often anymore, and our exchanges are mostly rooted in memories of who we used to be, and no longer relevant to who we are wishing to become. Becoming… I am the “ing” of all of this. I feel something about belonging to a neighborhood, a geological terrain, some specific architecture, which I have nearly always felt about whatever place I am in a broad sense, but rarely feel in this, more specific way. I did not expect that to be true of my home in Albuquerque, though after nearly 30 years in the same house here, and some years here before that, it does not come as a surprise.

The not coming as a surprise part is what I am really trying to get at here, I think. How we tend to do the same things out of habit, and perhaps some degree of predestiny, one could easily argue, based on our genetics and family history and specific cultural programming. The reason I want to bring it up, so often, and so much, is I do think we can shift our destiny, if not completely turn it in any direction we want…well…maybe not in any direction we want. Those humans who make into our history books and stories as heroes and heroins do so at the expense of their fallibility. Denying our faults is a sure way to grow them, generally, and so those same heroes and heroins often have a contrasting ‘dark side’, which only sometimes comes to light. There does not seem to be anyone, at least none I have seen, or perceived, who can control the way they ultimately go down in history…wait, wait, wait…that is, unless you count those purveyors of education and writers and signer offers of the text book industry. Journals.

Yes, yes. I went to college long enough to see behind the curtain of that too. Behind every great show, every great orchestra or symphony, there is at least one little man (or woman) behind the curtain, so to speak. Often literally. I think the first time I got to the end of the Wizard of Oz I understood that pretty well…and also, I remember wondering why that character was so underdeveloped…just a little man behind the curtain. Nothing much to think about or see here…just, the orchestrator of everything. Really that is not so interesting to the story. Our little micro dramas. How we do love them so.

Follow me then, I will lead you around the lake, to the center of the forest, and show you how there are no wrong steps. There is only dancing.

Let’s Get Around To It. 1900 Words, Still Elementary, 8 17 21

I’ve been reveling in those good feelings: of connection, of feeling understood, of feeling a part of something great. When I catch myself focused on lack, I turn around. Face the shore again. Face the ocean again. Wait, which way is it again?

Spin me ’round. Pin the tail on. Now, wag the dog. You got it. Let’s dance.

I love knowing that you are supporting me out there and smiling, winning, growing, healing. I love thinking that you smile when you think of me, knowing I am out here supporting you. I love that your body continues to learn to trust my body and also that you are always so curiously loving when we get to share physical time-space. I love the way we can relax together, play together, work together, travel together, and be apart, together. I love knowing we are on the same team.

I love greeting you and kissing you goodbye, knowing I am you and you are I.

I walk.

The morning air has a crisp Augustness to it that is familiar and also fresh. Every year, it arrives. Right on time. My human tribe is in a frenzy. They have taken the blue and the red and the purple pills. They are eating tide pods and removing starfish from tide pools; arguing and competing to see who can become the most diseased.

Humans are fasting and slowing and waiting and hating. They are sure they are right and everything is someone else’s fault. They have bought the pseudo-science and the incomplete conclusions and more than anything, continue to gulp down fear and cookies and bread and stresses and fucking junky chemical water in cans…what’s that called when you just shove it down the young throat without allowing anytime to chew? Gavach? Gavage. foie gras…yeah, just another example of how we deserve every terrible things we could possibly get and then some. Will we be herded underground, liquefied and sucked up unceremoniously through a straw? Without even any pleasure at all? That’s probably too good.

Everything is going soft and disabled. Humans are mostly pathetic shells of what we could be. “Worthless and weak”, just like metal said. Disease is the new ‘health care model’. Insanity prevails. I exaggerate.

I walk. It’s 8am.

Now it’s 8:26. The sun is warming up the streets. The laundry is in cycles. The coffee is halfway down. I was thinking nostalgically about my favorite ‘failures’ of relativity this lifetime. And how they are also my favorite successes. Bud Lee. Taco. Orion. Rockit. Chen Te Shen. Missy. Tymora. Sundancer. So many Bear-dogs… Alex…and of many of my favorite successes which have also been my greatest failures. Master’s degrees. My own company. Branding. Labels. Systems. Home. Alex. John. Jon. Tom. Jaxx. Cochise. Leif. Ah, yes, all just laundry in the end. It all does work out in the wash. There is no order to it except the orders we put things into…and get put into. It’s just a great song is all. Or, one verse of a song…that is what we call it anyhow.

Destruction is failure and failure is fine. Just feedback in the end. Nope. That was not the way. Not it. Not it. Not it. Duck. Duck.

Goose egg?

You are “It”.

Ironica that I find myself the archetypical washer woman, and enjoying it more than many other roles. There’s a satisfaction and a simplicity, and a freedom in it. I don’t belong to anyone and no one belongs to me.

Not another human on this earth needs or notices or even really knows or sees me. That feels heart-wrenching to the tribal socially bound community identified human animal parts of me. Sometimes. It also feels powerful and free and able. I frequently feel waves of sadness wash over me, when I think of so much squandered potential that is represented in humanity. Then I see what we collectively do with potential and see it is best that most of us remain asleep. We seem too diseased to do much of anything, and too distracted by lame programming to even dream much of the time.

Ironica. That is a happy accident. Perhaps that is the name of my new country…a digital land where I am happily in charge of everything and nothing. This has potential. Yes, I see.

Yes, I love when I feel you see me, know me, love me. I love seeing you and feeling your smile. I love when our breath syncs and our hearts beat coherently. I love the places that my fingers meet your skin. I love the warmth of your arms around my body. I love the spark of your lips on mine. I love when we can combine this creative energy and create new fantastic systems, trips, businesses, books, games, strategies, experiences, living rooms…

I love when you trust me to show up for you and I do. I love when you call me just to tell me about your day and the things you are into. I love when you share your heart with me and mine too. I love your questions and your answers. I love your arms and your lips and your thoughts and your words and your style. I love how capable you are, and I am, and how much more capable we become when we combine our weaknesses into strengths.

I get hung up on the questions of compatibility and conformity and progress. It seems the AI we create gets smarter and smarter, and as it does, finds me to be more and more immature. I wonder if that is relative to its own maturity level, or if I really am getting stupider by the second. I suppose academically that must be true, unless I remain submerged in the illusion of that. There is so much else; so many other forms of intelligence to step into…limitations…boundaries. Fourth grade it is then. Fifth grade it shall be, maybe. The levels are arbitrary, as it turns out. I am fairly confident of that. I am not ashamed to be whatever and wherever I am anymore. My mother and grandfather and great-grandmother don’t see my grades anyhow. No one pays me or shames me for any of the things I do or say, at least, not in the retrograde. Lol.

Conflict over retrograde becomes me. I know my newest mentor, Makiva won’t be happy with my argumentativeness. She has already expressed a shortage of patience…and I feel no impulse to curb that enthusiasm for disagreement.

I’ve ruled out the vaccs another day today. The risk to my body feels greater with a jab today than without. It is difficult to get any unbiased or convincing information, though I still sift through global headlines and scientific studies once a week or so. Headlines remain increasingly crazy-making. Science is ongoing and disturbingly incomplete with respect to current proclamations of certainty. Separation and fear and disease and dependency seems to be the only consistent aim to most of it. And distraction, of course. Probably sleep walking through life is the best most can hope for in these conditions. I try not to lament the losses.

On several occasions, I have come close to going in to subject myself to latest wave of domestication; to sooth my clients and bandmates and fellow humans in general. I grapple internally with the ongoing disparity or mal-alignment between my beliefs and understandings of my personal atypical immune system, my lab numbers throughout this lifetime, and the prevalent touting of misinformation and incomplete data collection as some sort of factual evidence. The entire thing is a complete mess. No one will get out alive. If I am lucky, I will continue to figure out how to thrive…a little longer? My strategy is strategic interactions. Focus. Letting go. Play. The invitation is to dismiss everything. I hold space for connection, comprehension, and compassion.

Three times in the last two weeks I have actually gone in and up to a pharma counter, intending to get jabbed. I figure, I survived selling cocaine to crackheads in the 80’s, I can survive this. It is deeper and more insidious than crack though. This continues to devolve and escalate and inferior-ate everything. I am grateful this morning that all attempts so far have been a ‘no go’. I already live with most of the long term symptoms everyone seems to be afraid of. Decades I have survived despite their attempts to ‘treat me’ to death. I already know that death is the cost of being alive, and it’s not something to dread. I intend to do my best to make it worth it. No one gets out alive, so, why not live a little first?

We can die another day. Okay? That part does not scare me. It’s the decades of suffering. It’s the living as a zombie, programmed to be exactly what you consider the enemy. Conformity. Soullessness. Fucking pop music and auto-tuned cover songs. It’s enough to drive me to drinkin’ or killin’ or something more fun, like…spinning my wheels in mud. I already tried all those things though. So now, for something

completely different?

Slightly the same?

Whatever it is, just do and say it with conviction, please. Put a little passion into it. Flex your back a bit. Come on then. Fucking MOVE.

This is how the west was ‘won’. Incoherence. Chaos. Mistrust. Silence. Static. Stagnation. Accumulation. Horses.

Metal.

This is how you burn it all down…every ending is a billion new beginnings. And every beginning is a billion endings. It never ends and you can’t get it wrong. Relax then. Breathe. Smile. Let’s ride this one out. Get to the bottom and go back to the top of the slide.

Helter Skelter.

I think about buying or building a motor cycle. And an airplane.

Protein spikes. Sheddings. Sheds. Long term effects. Experiments. Hype. Lies.

Storage units. Solid waste. Steamy waste. Wasted space. Such an interesting and wasteful human construct. Well then. Back in fourth grade in the end. This where we begin then.

The prevailing and increasing fervency of certainty over incomplete and incorrect information in the media and spewing from most human mouths is astounding. It can literally blow your fucking mind. Turn off the tele. Breathe. Gratefully drink filtered water. Suck, savor, chew and swallow some fresh herbs.

Plants and mushrooms and soils and trees have so much to offer in the way of wisdom, but we are not listening. Beings much smaller and larger than me. My own immune flares are undoubtedly influenced by the current genetic mods going on at such a scale in my fellow humans, though it is impossible to make any sense of any of it beyond my own feeling. Being in my body. This addicted, chemical manufacturing, virus and fungus and bacterial transportation machine is not really designed to last as long as it has without exhausting all jing. So all this is ‘extra’ then? A work in progress. Somewhere between extra and wasted/squandered is some space, some time, some…trick of the mind?

It is pretty ironic that we are determined to destroy the beings that created us while creating beings which will destroy us…ah, yes, ironica…ruled by irony. That is as close to a concept of god as I can conceive. If it is funny, or unfunny, then it is alright by me. That’s a pretty big net. If we manage to stop killing the oceans and flattening mountains faster than the earth can make them, I think we may have plenty of fish.

Confident. Curious. Courageous. Connected. Communicative. Collaborative. Consistent. Calibrated. Coherent. Collected. Cool. Colorful. Coordinated. Clear. Cohesive. Community. Alchemy. Irony. Ice cream.

Rapid Transformational Experiences, 8 11-12 21, 1000 Words

Being willing to get the words wrong, is such an important component of rapid growth…transformation requires some messiness. Naturally, evolution enjoys a prevalence of trials and feedback and adjustments. Keeping myself on track while also allowing myself to veer has long been one of my challenges. I do make people nervous often, and sometimes get a notice of violation, but I rarely lose control and careen off the road.

At least I’ve got that going for me.

Distraction has been coming around a lot for me. As I examine that, it occurs to me part or maybe all of that is my attempt to realign, get back on the wellness track, adjust to the feedback I got from my body that I was not living sustainably… It is still a work in progress. Imagine that…some for all intents and purposes infinitely ongoing zero-sum game called ‘progress’.

You are here.

Imma get out and get some on me. Back in a flash.

.. https://youtu.be/Tx6g0hVxCWU

“Go out and make a bunch of bad decisions, loose everything, and enjoy!” Marc Maron/Rick? Good stuff.

..

*Get more general when negative emotions are high–not just yours, other people’s too…and yours…I can see how I will be a better soother if I can discontinue being specific most of the time…put things in the right container, and if the system is not working, reorganize. The containers of therapist and facilitator and guide are much different from the containers of lover and friend and employee…though we met in this great container of life among lives…and so, naturally, it got messy. It works alright to just kill it all, burn it all, destroy everything and begin again. It’s just much easier in the long run to slow down, back up a bit, and try, try, try again. Don’t give up. Just reframe.

Game on.

..

8 12 21

Lions Gate Closing…if you look softly, you can still see the silvery pink glow.

This time I was no longer able to show up quite so unguarded…in fact, every time we were both more and more guarded,more and more not quite trusting, and yet, also, we did keep showing up. I am proud of us for that.

I didn’t bother to try to get the words right in the end, and for that I am sometimes a bit regretful. Ultimately I know it doesn’t matter, and I knew it then. Or maybe I am just lazy and don’t like to commit myself to perfection. Or maybe I like to keep things a little messy…

Whatever it is, is what it is. It will be whatever it will be. I won’t bother wishing. I will continue to do my best to be the best me I can. I will continue being willing to change. I will continue to examine my programming for validity and take my own life into my own hands to the extent I feel compelled to do that. I will keep playing, keep loving, keep building, keep tearing things down. I will keep putting things into and taking them out of containers. Framing and reframing stories. Playing with color. Light. Open-heartedness. Coherence. Wellness. Breathe.

That feeling of connection, of belonging, of trusting, of being seen, of being accepted, appreciated, included, part of something good…that is a feeling worth showing up for, worth beginning again for, worth risking another blunder, another traumatic scurry into the wall…We are not cockroaches though…we are not mice. I am not a man.

I am getting better at this, from my perspective…that is all I have, though I like to think I am rather good at ‘putting myself in someone else’s shoes’. I often marvel at how the human imagination can experience itself into any animal or plant or stone or combination of things…we can make up mythical creatures and gods and then imagine ourselves into them…or rather, in the imagining, we do create ourselves as in them…

I will get some shiny pink shoes and a pink hat, I think.

Imagine that.

I am feeling good, even as my body hurts some and the fog in my brain continues to interfere some…and fires rage on and humans continue to create senseless suffering in themselves and one another…I am feeling good. Imagine that.

So…same, same. Contracts are broken. They are silly made up things anyhow. So third grade. Programming. There is only now. Now, I enjoy dancing. Now, I enjoy smiling. The deliciousness of life beckons. I have a lunch date with my son. We plan to try a new little Persian place. I am excited. This is an incredible life!

More coherence. More flow. More recovery. More sensuality. More letting go.

I have plans for some pink and green paints. I am excited about that as well. Things are holding up. Things are alright. I am taking time to be more satisfied with small steps. My arms are still an issue, somewhat increasingly. Overall though, I am settling into what feels like a healthy routine…50 is feeling pretty great at the 2/3 mark…I have big plans to produce this CD, more books, more art, more connection, belonging, ritual, soothing, satisfaction, efficiency, effectiveness, tools, systems…and to keep planting trees, keep learning about mushrooms and everything under and around and before and after the moon.

I have a reinvigorated sense of enthusiasm to learn to fly, improve my editing skills, and keep adding methods and mediums. I’m also excited about diving deeper into a few rabbit holes I have enjoyed getting into…passive temperature control, solar, roofing, windows, housing, NFTs, digital art, cryptocurrencies…travel…still overdue for some beach time.

My friend took a breath of air in Galapagos for me two days ago. That was nice. I love that I have friends who will do that for me, and who understand the value of maintaining connection. Let’s begin again.

Repeat after me: I will rise to the standard I want to be. I will not use comparison to put myself or anyone else down. I will rise to the standard I am. I will rise to greet what is coming to meet me. I will rise, and get ready for what I want, which is always flowing to me with ease.

On Ebbs, Then Flows… 1000 Words, 8 9 21

I am leary of anything with a label on it these days. This includes diets and disease diagnoseses. I still eat plenty of things in packages though, and I still spend a significant amount of my time labeling things…literally and figuratively.

Today has the labels of Monday, and of the second day of Lion’s Gate, and of band practice…it’s been a decent day. I’ve done more accepting and even embracing of imitations and boundaries lately, and in so doing, I am feeling more and more on track with my endeavors to alchemize the limiting beliefs I identify as holding me back, and systematically improve my life. Navigating and riding out the unexpected challenges of course…and the ones I see coming ‘from miles away’.

I feel okay about not feeling great. I don’t feel bad, I just run out of steam quickly, and have not felt like pushing it. I still get sore easily, and I am increasingly aware of the shrinking in my arms…still think the nerves are over firing, though it is much better than it was a couple months ago. Much better.

I feel better than I have felt in awhile, and that is great. Healing, wellness, living…the risks and rewards of trying new things, being willing to be messy, tending towards quickness and at times even recklessness by some human standards…of course…by most standards…the standards of wolves or stars or mantises, for example, I am not particularly reckless or courageous. For a human in the US, I suppose, which is saying a lot that ultimately counters the point I thought I might be making…I do my best to be courageous, confident, and curious. I often am aware I could be doing much better, and at many junctures of this life, my abilities and energies and synchronicities have been much greater. I trust they will be again.

Today though, is another day of slowness. Relative recovery. I am learning to embrace and appreciate those. Didn’t I already say that? Being mortal…I’m not used to it, and still not fully convinced of it much of the time…and still not completely convinced of its appeal much of the time…yet here I am. Human with you all. That last paragraph really knocked us down a notch or two didn’t it?

It’s smoky, hazy, and hot.

I wonder if it is worth pondering what causes these pains, and how they compare to ‘normal pains’…I think there probably isn’t such a thing, and probably it isn’t worth much pondering at all and so I drag my bulldog brain along to better arenas. The topic of today has been, goal setting, self discipline, pushing forward and pausing…the value of recovery…the uncounted value of the backstep.

Cha cha cha, my darling.

The backstep is crucial to the dance. And a willingness to get things wrong is crucial to true exploration. True freedom requires me to be okay with your vitriol and your admiration…admiration is actually heavier to carry in many cases. Both are irrelevant to an extent if I am doing it right.

Am I doing this right?

Funny question to ask one’s self. Only you can answer that, and your answer is arbitrary. Your ‘right’ could turn out to be someone else’s bad example, and that could be the thing about it that is most valuable. You can’t know and I think I shan’t worry about it.

My digestion is not perfect. My hormones are edgy. Waves come crashing in, just as I have learned to expect. Storms on the horizon. Nothing eminent, just a bit choppy in the seas. It’s still smokey, though better than it was. It was eye-burning and hard to breath yesterday and the day before. I am wearing a sweatshirt in my office because my guest/s keep the cooler running always, or nearly always. I wonder if my current guest prefers it that cool, or if she thinks it needs to be kept that cool…or maybe it is warmer over there. Could be. My temperature regulator tends to stick/not work perfectly. Part of the thyroid thing.

Clearly the bursa rupture is some new things. I review my latest lab numbers and see the same unexplained elevations. Looks like a straight infection…only it moves around throughout my life, according to my immune system…it is in the lining of my bones most recently…maybe in the nerve sheathes. It does hurt badly sometimes. Other times, barely. Not much lately, thankfully. I learn to be grateful, more and more. Things continue to get better…relatively. They ebb and flow, more honestly. I get better at going with the flow, and utilizing the ebbs.

Some days you just show up and stay in the room. Do the work as best as you can. Today I did okay. I didn’t cry. I didn’t break. I didn’t fly. I just got through. I am not overly tired. I am not mad or sad. I am not feeling frustrated. Just…mellow, and maybe a bit low energy…looking forward to gaining momentum as the ebb turns into more flow…wax on begins today…I can feel it…can you feel it?

lol. Damnit Wax. Everything makes me cry today. Not everything. Not the ugly kind of crying. That beautiful tearing that comes from watching the best of humanity push into athleticism at the Olympics, old Little House on the Prairie reruns, and the beginning of Wax Tailor videos…

This celery is good. I could I would but I am

am I?

…more satisfied than I should have a right to be?

Am I entitled to that? lol

I mean it. Really laugh. Out loud. It’s good therapy. Open the throat chakra. Sing too. Maybe breathe.

Of course, you don’t have to. It’s all up to you. You get to choose…or do you? The ongoing ultimate question…is it destiny, or is it freewill? Can we actually fly? I say yes, because I have seen it…and no, not quite yet…because…well…I still need a jet or propeller plane…I still require external wings to fly.

I still look for approval outside too, though not very seriously, and maybe less and less…

What is up with that?

The Infinite Sum Games (to be continued), 8 7 21, 1000 Words

Coming to terms with some of the reasons that many people do not want to resolve conflict, and rather, are getting needs met by keeping conflict alive. Significance, belonging, power, righteousness, control, identity, the security of triangulation, trauma bonds…closeness via common enemy…victim self concept…holding onto anger and resentment allows a person to feel successful and right and ‘better than’…it does all seem to work out in the ‘zero sum games’. This is at the heart of the work I have been doing, and I am feeling more and more ‘steady on my feet’ in navigating the turbulence of this in human relationships. That does not keep the turbulence from happening. It does help me feel more calm, confident, and curious, as I

sail the seas of cheese…

Most often I see us recreating conflicts from childhood traumas, and holding on to resentments, judgments, defensiveness, offensiveness that we have not seen or resolved…usually completely unconscious. Subconscious. It creates narcissism. I have been on both sides of this equation…and through the middle. Frequently. I am learning how to better regulate my nervous system through this, alchemize it to discover new aspects and areas and arenas in which to again, grow into…though I still have much room to grow/improve in this arena. Things take longer and shorter than you think…I think we assign unmerited meaning to time and to size/scope…little things are big things…little while’s add up to lifetimes, and lifetimes go by in the blink of a sheep’s eye…

My stepfather and I engaged in ongoing toxic conflict for years. I didn’t remember most of it, and probably never would have, until I had the great opportunity to spend regular time with my mother in her 70’s. As she recalls various details of her life, some of the details of mine come into a broader, more mature focus. I can see now how much of my challenges in having true close connection with other humans has been influenced by the lack of closeness and connection that was prevalent throughout the majority of my childhood…contrasted to the…perhaps toxic attachment to my mother as an infant, at which time she admits she used me to comfort, as part of her identity, as the reason for most of her successes and failures. I can see how our family dynamics ingrained a sense of great power and responsibility in me by putting me in charge of the entire Universe in many ways, energetically of course. This started to come to the surface when I began doing psychedelics.

Actively looking for resolve. Actively looking for alignment. Willing to resolve. I am. I continue showing up, with all my imperfections…I will continue to do the best I can with what I have, from where I am. I am often able to stay in the room…and I will just about always come back if invited, even if I do sometimes get overwhelmed and run. I think most of us do. We all have our coping strategies, when we get to the threshold and then

spill over.

Being in a relationship with a partner who now seems to be getting more from our (and a long history of other) unresolved conflict than he perceives he can by resolve presents the choices all relationships that have grown stagnant or apart offer. Should I stay or should I go? Oh, I was already gone. You know.

I can understand his need to “never forgive”…I wish more people could feel the freedom and sweet power one can return to self through forgiveness. It is never to make the behavior of anyone else right, it is to release it’s hooks in you. Forgiveness is for the forgiver. It can free you. Resentment is the strongest snag we humans seem to get hung up on.

I continue to find my own satisfaction and familiar self-rightous chemical satiation in contemplating how “right” it all feels. I suspect he is still unconsciously attempting to repair his belief in ‘the one true love’ potential. Ironic that it has been there all along, in his wife who has faithfully loved him through all of this…he loves her as well, yet, also cannot seem to forgive himself or his mother or his brother enough to forgive his wife or any of us lovers for our humanness. Our imperfections are unacceptable, as he still has not learned to love himself in imperfection….doesn’t see how that rawness is the best stuff of life…still prefers pop music. For ‘heaven’s sake’.

It can’t be anything but perfectly aligned, can it?

No matter. I have turned the page, and that feels good. I put in my best effort. I showed up. Again, and again. I held space, and still do, for positive evolution of all involved…and uninvolved. We tried out the roles of cosmic intimate partners, experimental lovers, playmates, and business endeavors. We played ‘house’ and used one another in ways we both were able to enjoy for a time, or at times. I suppose I enjoyed the limiting excuses, the distraction…probably all for the best in the long run…how could it not be? It always is. It never ends and you can’t get it wrong…

It all works out in the wash.

Things are definitely getting better and better, and continue working out for me, delightfully.

Business continues to improve as I continue to clear the clutter of past roads taken and abandoned, and realign my focus on the feelings I want to cultivate more of. That feeling of having someone on the inside, someone on my side, someone seeing the real me and loving the mystery and fallibility of it…Supporting me. Are we just fractions of one whole then, and, as we learn to reintegrate our individual fractured selves, will be get closer, or

farther apart?

Both, and… I maintain that sexual reproduction and the visceral, unpredictable, fallible, uniquely colored, diverse methods of our current evolutionary process are a delight. I am grateful to have a body to appreciate them in, from, and through…with?

The idea of watching and enjoying the discovery of two people unfolding, separately and together in this world…making the world so much smaller and grander and more manageable by having and being someone’s confidant. The feeling of belonging. The feeling of having a man secure and strong enough to hold space and contain the wild feminine in me. Oh yes, that was, and is, a delightful feeling. I will cultivate more of that. I can give myself that to a large extent, and, as I have, find aspects of it in other relationships as well. My bandmates hold some of that for me. I am lucky for that. And also, I give it a lot of time and energy. That is true of whatever we have in our lives…it is whatever we keep giving our time and energy to.

I give mine to love, to growth, to learning, to exploration, to adventure, to the playing and the living and the loving and the blooming and the “ing” of all of it.

On the Everyday Things, Living Presently, 1000 Words, 8 6 21

Ah, those subtle distinctions that help us determine crazy person from artist, insanity from genius, love from abuse, and so many other seeming paradoxes in this life…

Pondering Bansky art, and how the AI skipped from 14th to 8th grade level just now when I typed that one word… The meaning we humans give things. The constructs we pretend are truth and live and die under…I use being an artist, art itself, and indeed, this writing stuff, as a method, a means, a tool, a device, for processing my own insanity. I try to do it in a way that other humans can relate to, because if I do, if I can, if I will…all three of those…if ultimately I do… ..

I suppose it is even more remarkable if I can manage to do it accidentally, without trying, without the tension of demonstrating the use of

my own free will.

Did I forget to cue the dramatic music there? Yeah, it belongs somewhere in there. Some, dramatic and some comedic flare, if you please. There, there.

Most of this year I have been writing through this app, and noticing how it responds to certain words and phrases…I am starting to get a feel for it. Often it reads the negative and/or positive intention of my words wrong, which then often leads me to ponder weather I am that out of touch with the vibrational intention of my words, or it the AI still has some subtle nuances to iron out. Both, and, to be sure.

Anyhow, back to negative and 8th grade, which seems to be the more frequent bandwidth for my writing. I did notice when I allow my anger/ego off the leash a bit, that grade level goes up, and the AI misinterprets my scathing sarcasm as positivity. I wonder how often that happens among my fellow humans. A might bit, I bet. So, then, what to do, what to do? (yes, that cost me a grade level, and rightfully so)

In any case, where I was trying to go, is that those common, everyday bits are the bits that matter the most. The please’s and thank you’s and smiles. The goodbyes and the hellos. The good mornings, and the Hi neighbor’s…ironically…it occurs to me that on the internet I find them trite, overused perhaps? too impersonal? I shall continue to examine that. I come around to assuming positive intentions, again and again. Resetting, again and again. Begin again. Begin again. Yes, we still ‘got this’.

Oooo–that there got us to neutral…a place I have rarely been in, according to this app anyhow. I do find what entertains me entertaining. It’s like a whole basket of onions around here.

Aaand we are positive again.

Funny that. The conclusion to all this is merely a subtle art of tuning the not giving of fucks towards the pleasantness and politeness that rubs the greatest number of people ‘the right way’ in this life. This is where we get tricky. Right into the sticky trees. Man, I do love accidental alliterations and analogies. I hope that my last parting letter landed unpainfully. I don’t like that the truth I bring tends to come in so brutal. I continue to temper, fold, iterate, begin again. It’s still a work in progress.

Back to the dramatic creative flare and the seemingly inherent tension between it and the domestic droll of mainstream society…are we not in times of excess and catastrophe? Are we just going down like zombies, not even singing or dancing or kissing or anything? Seems like a bit of wastefulness to me…that is a human construct we enjoy casting upon one another, I can see…wastefulness, that is. There is really no such thing.

So many of the thoughts I have are ultimately just chemical cascade machines, recreating patterns that my cells are addicted to…I think about how they manipulate us in and out of relationships and towns and maybe soon planets…how we are just fancy meat and yeast transportation machines for viruses and bacterias and whatever other little and big puppeteers we have yet undiscovered. It’s okay. Nothing really matters. Life really is a dream. The chemistry that dictates these waking activities is set in motion more before and after we are born, and propagated most while we are asleep…when our programs are updated. I see the mist, more and more through the fog.

I really hope I make it out for more snowboarding this season, and back to the beach too. I am looking forward to expanding my knowledge, my horizons, my languages, my passport stamps and my bank accounts. I am grateful to be feeling mostly back on top of the wave regarding my health and my home. I giggle at my occasional sighs of relief that I feel ‘done with love’ again, as I know that one way or another, those ‘shen pas’ come into our life, the only choice we have in that is our own vibrational alignment. Which direction we are coming, and which way we choose to go.

We don’t stop learning. Maybe we learn to enjoy our individual and collective journey a little bit more. Love ourselves and thusly one another a little bit more. Stop and smell the roses and honeysuckle and desert broom a little bit more. Savor the flavors of our meals and our lovers and these times we get to share together, a little bit more. I will continue to do my best to choose this way, and I trust this is what you will do too.

When I presume positive intentions, of myself, of you, and of life itself, then it is easy to enjoy this day, it is easy to forgive us all for any perceived fallibilities. It is easy to reach for better feeling thoughts, sparks of joy, synchronicities and other delights. It is easy to steep in the depths of wellness which are always available to me.

Probably after this cycle, I am putting in much more time to refining, and at the same time, holding myself calmly, confidently, clearly, courageously

in curiosity.

1000 Words 8 1 21, 50th Truth drafting, holding loosely

Do what you feel is right, child. There will be those who disagree and disapprove, and, even more often than that, those who unconsciously project the things they are unable to love in themselves onto you. Their affirmations and degradations are all mere distractions. Your opinion of you is all that matters. Even that doesn’t really have much to do with your worth. Your worth is inherent. In that, you are a speck of life. Every speck of life is of equal worth in this grand totality…isn’t it?

Ah, well, yes. Toenails, indeed. Good point.

(Have you ever ripped one off? That did happen to me, and, well, makes a terrible case in point, unless we are getting to the next layer already…under this turtle’s back what have we? Another turtle? Yep. It’s just turtles, all the way down. The longer I live the more often I think this is as good and as beautiful and complete a truth as any. Nothing is the whole truth. No truth can be the whole truth…)

Back to the front. There is no one singular truth with a capital T that stands unwaveringly through all time, space, distance, relative size… there are fluid notions of truth…reciprocity, like attracts like. We focus on what we see, and see more of what we focus on.

The coming back around is where the value is created. In the upswing. Or is that the downswing? The details are arbitrary. The point is, there is potential value in the falling apart, and it is realized more deliciously, more delightfully, when we come back around. Reiterate. Let’s get it right. Then move on. That too is a delicious irony. If you do get to the top of the mountain, and go for a ride, you end up back at the bottom again. If you take the full ride…I see many people standing relatively still, or trying to. Maybe wanting to avoid the climb. The work. The uneasy thrill of the ride. It takes some doing to keep your balance in those rapids. We used to practice falling a lot more often, it seems to me.

I woke up angry this morning, and so set about dissolving that. I worked at it until I felt better, which thankfully was relatively easy today. Some days it is more difficult and some days I feel like I fail completely. I still go on trying. I don’t think that part is fully up to me, ironically. It is a pleasant cloudy day so far, and I have given this first day of August fully to myself. I am choosing to clean my room and take care of business tasks. Plant some magic. The usual things overall. I have two new guests arriving tomorrow, and today is the only day I will have the house to myself in several months. Ironic I am not blasting music, yet. Perhaps I have trained myself out of it. I need less and less to feel complete.

It has taken me some time to figure out he doesn’t have that ability. To hold space around a story. To hold potentially conflicting truths. To tell the fallible whole plain truth in any given now. I thought he did for a year or two. I see now I may have deceived myself at the start, or maybe he did. I like better, the story that he did have that ability, and that the feelings I felt were founded in a true honest foundation of possibility and openness. I don’t know if there was an aneurysm or a schism or a violation or what it was exactly that caused it to shift…in any case, it did, and then it continued to shift into places of reactivity…I think perhaps he has been stuck in a triggered-semi-triggered state for a long while, and unwilling to admit that could be it, so still projecting that onto me and anyone else he lets get close to him. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I wish us both well and we both will do very well, probably. I have offered many times to try to gain clarity between us. He continues to refuse every offer, sometimes quite cruelly. I am no longer offended so easily though. I see it is him, and his pattern, and not me. I have my own, of course, which I continue to do my own work on, for the most part, successfully.

…you know how you think someone is super intelligent, you look up to them even, and then, little by little or sometimes, in some big leap or bound, they begin to disappoint you? The fragmented selves get more and more difficult to navigate in compatible ways? Maybe eventually they seem like a completely different person to you…indeed, maybe you become different people with each other, and maybe you are not sure you like what you see anymore? The awesomesauce gets a bit weak or thinned down and the dance moves get tired and fewer and fewer, as time gallops on relentlessly in between? Yeah, that also has happened to me. Recently, it has happened again. Heavy sighs about. Misunderstandings and refusals. Missed opportunities and whatnot. The details never matter. It’s funny we are so preoccupied with them. What does matter is the clarity we get from the contrast. The deciding then. What DO you want? What do you WANT? What do YOU want? WHAT do you want? WHAT DO YOU WANT?

We used to talk about things like, how that would probably happen in a relationship not kept fresh, not kept real, not kept wild…you need to make containers for things and also, allow some space for the wild, wild. Both, and.

This is where we are now. He wins top certificate of jackassery, and I am still a cray cray cunt, just like all the rest. I would say a bit heavier on one of the crays, but, when I reflect on the whole book, thus far, I am confident to say, same same. Oh well. I can’t help it ’bout the shape I’m in. I do still try.

I gave my last guests a copy of my last two books. The Head Hutt, with the Story, in black and white, and a copy of 47 truths. I didn’t sign them, though I sort of meant to, and she sort of asked me to. It doesn’t matter. The details rarely matter…and also, they are all that does.

Iterations is where I am, then. Still. I will continue. I feel reinvigorated this year. On the other hope of complete despair and hopelessness, on the other side of surrender, sure enough, just like every other story says, we find hope again. We find love again. We find success and inspiration and magic and color and flow again.

I think I am in a pretty good place. Just gotta hold. Hold. I just moved the Ax which is forged with some of Leif’s ashes…probably has a name I should know. I got it from Bo. I have no idea who to pass it to. I probably need to figure that out. I am enjoying holding for now though. Lots of circles. The rituals of circles, circle back.

Containers, and edges go way back with me and Leif. Edges of things. And our dogs. We tied together a few frayed edges. Mostly we tangled and untangled things…left them pretty much the way we found them I think. The way Alex and I ended up entangled this last loop has been interesting and entertaining, to say the least. Maybe even a bit wild at times. Domestication permeates nearly all of humanity now however, and so I am happy to have my cave, my dome, my rides… I’m feeling primed to thrive.