The Impulse, Itself

Mom and I watched Grey Gardens last night, the one with Drew Barrymore that HBO did. I never knew about it, the two Edith Beale's their relationship to Jackie Bouvier or the 1970's documentary about them. The madness of a woman, or women, when dreams get deferred.

Creative madness. Genius. How it levels you, pummels you, brings you to your knees--your knees the only place, of course, and credit here to Erika for the reminder--that, so humbled, you may find your redemption?

The Impulse to me comes on in many different forms. Which is to say, despite the Muse or not, life shutters me sometimes it just does. Ahhh god and to feel that shutter. To feel for that shutter! In meditation It said that is true desire. Photos that capture the lines of distinct, but wordless. Longing or wonder, or boredom. Sacred human fucking boredom! Colors, no matter what form or aesthetic: clothing, a painting, a tree dropping leaves or the grand fall sky. Music that makes me feel like a bullseye by what, or how, it's said. (Right now in fact that would be Cant You Hear Me Knocking by the Stones) Certain people. Conversations. Late night fires. The way the air breathes. Kir and LDubb do it for me a lot of the time. For a long time it was this guy, his name is Josh, he still does it for me but it hurts to feel him gone so most times I just dont know what to do with that. I told my mom today that I remember being 15 in the Goodwill, the smell of the books and the way the little blue corduroy jumpers from the 70's made me feel Like I actually heard the little bells ringing, the spheres of heaven grind in unison on axis' gold in their tilt, I mean the soft moths of my heart fluttered aloft--the Goodwill closet!! I'd discovered myth! I found me! Being on my moon, that too is Muse, or sacred certain Impulse, to me. Being so fervently swelled when my Moontime is here. I mean there are times, like today, that I actually talk like that!

And more, I do things like I did tonight, with a vintage apron on that I found last week and a scarf around my neck that I bought today at an Antiques/Bookstore located on the dusty bottom floor of someone's old farmhome, I waltzed around the kitchen. The scarf is the most gorgeous shade of ivory that I have ever scene, it makes me feel royal, or sophisticated and that is because it is made of lace. It is from 1962. I got it for a ridiculous cheap price. And the paisley apron still had the original tag on it. Mom came in and there I was dancing with the arms of my scarf up off my chest and in the air in either hand. She grinned at me, me back at her. Then we were laughing our asses off cuz, my god, were like the two Edies? That cracked with the madness or the love?

No no, I've been there before. Cracked with the madness. But when it comes from disruption, fear. Repression. I mean I been there. It's like Joan Burroughs said Either you know now what I know (and dont ask me just what that is)...or you just dont. And that's the thing I hate how long it's taken me to trust what I know. I mean, for years creativity was struck up by madness to me, the bad, scary might not make it back kind. Period, it just was. That's what happens when you really follow that clean kissed line far, far out there. Sometimes, it's amazing, but you dont get all the way back. Or safely that is. And then, if like me you do make it back, you do get let down from that lone tree well ever-after you struggle: do you walk the clean Safe line rather than the kissed one? Cuz then like a stubborn ol asshole you still pride your self on your aesthetic, on your discipline, but at the end of the night unwittingly you court the madness anyway cuz you're not being true to yourself and besides no one wants to be a asshole. For me it was never so stable, I had to fight for it, have to. Just for the conviction of kissed. It's easier now, I trust it. Trust the conviction. Trust the moony witchy psychic thing, too, just as much. For me there's no separating either of it out. I can trace back to when I first came to the gate, face to face to claim my own conviction in a open-eyed way. Can look back to the fall of 2006 and a car ride to Baltimore with Patty who gave me the book that I studied on Christ and our conversation about Gandhi. A party in Philly. A night all night long with the poetry it was Fishing Rock still in those days and my friend Paul asleep in the next room all the way from Oregon. A conversation with Kelly Johnson and a prayer, specific, beseeching on my knees. The spiral way I've revisited that lesson of then, of conviction at the far side between the gaping space at the end of my hand, again and again since then.

And that's it. Miserable clean KISSED line. How very fucking hard I've fought to take the kissed, golden, one. How I'll fight for it, now that I'm actually starting to live it these three turns of years flick flick swish goes the page, these three years later. How I'll fight, and surrender, and fight again to surrender, just to keep up now, and maintain....

I'll fight, smiling, even. Gladly!

The only thing one can be sure of changing....

Ughghgh. So, here's the skinny.

I'm about to drop it in a heavy honest way, too, so I surely hope there is someone out there that will benefit from this confessionalism. I am just about on my moon and dig it gals, whether or not you have found this to be true I am going to tell you what I know experientially and from the heart as a fact of the matter: whatever incessant emotional nags or swirls, rages or guilts or issues that cause stress and tiredness the week or so before your period, these are the ones that are chock full with the messages of your soul. The ones with the gifts, these are actually the invites as to how and specifically where to honor yourself and love you a little bit better. Well. Don't you know for a week or so plus (since the second half of my cycle kicked in) I have been resisting doing the "Real Work", or at least one very specific aspect of the Real Work. Which would be dealing with one very specific nag. Instead I have been trying to control said nag with the same old codependent behavior that I am working on getting to the bottom of in the first place. All busy trying to fix what's broke with what's broken and mad as a buzzing hornet's nest of on their moon mama wasps that's it's not going my mutherloving way!!

What is the Real Work? To quote as explanation from the book I am using, put on me by a mentor whom I trust with my life, in order to move through some necessary healing of old behavior in regards to self and relationships, I will define it as "...focused work. It can be intense. (ha!) What are we searching for? The darker side, the side that prevents us from loving ourselves, loving others, and letting others love us--the side that blocks us from finding the love and happiness we want and deserve.....Often, present responses are connected to our unresolved feelings from the past. To free ourselves today, we must heal from yesterday's feelings...." A page later it says "And yes, healing is possible. We can heal at as deep a level as we have been affected." It is a step by step process, a process that I know works and with which I am familiar. But ooooh my god do I feel like I am in a big pot of midway meltdown and suddenly everything has just gotten stuck. In intake, when I meet students who are like just a handful of points away from the range they need at assessment to sit for their GED, I usually tell them some version of the same thing. I steeple my two pointer fingers together like a mountain, look down over my glasses at them with big stern pointed love in my eyes and I say now look here and listen good. Here is your goal (I indicate the top of the "mountain" of my fingers) Here's you. (I indicate the top knuckle just underneath my left nail.) (Over the glasses, re-engage the eyes.) Now dig it, dig how realdeal close you are. You are SO close, but these last steps are crucial to make it to the top, and I'm just gonna level with you, they are the toughest steps there are. See how steep it is here? (Indicate knuckle again.) But you've almost made it. (By now we both are usually misty-eyed.) It's gonna take some hard, committed work. I'm talking real effort, a real commitment to yourself, for yourself. Can you do it??

Can you, Kel?

(By the way I found out today that at least 21 students from just two of my 7 Adult Ed classes are receiving diplomas and walking in a cap and gown in June!! Holy sugarnuts what I do does count!! And I dont even have the numbers for the year from my other 5!)

In traditional recovery, where I am at has been defined as the searching and fearless part. Later on, from the same book as above: "This process became experiential. I began to live (it.) Life prodded and poked me until I looked so deeply within that, as last, I could truly see me...This fearless searching, this looking within, became a forced process, imposed on me by my recovery, life, and my Higher Power. I didn't like it, but I learned to accept it, to go through it..." Man I so totally, totally get this. It has been forced upon me but force is the total wrong word, and I dont think it's quite what the writer means either, it's more like when she says how you just do it, "go deep, start with the top layer and then let the process take you deeper" and that's what happens. Once you get in there holy shit there you go and it's like a spiral down down down that just sort of happens from within your soul. And all the coincidences as you're going along--all the outside circumstances as you continue with going about living your life, they seem to magically align to help reflect back at you again and again deeper and deeper exactly what you need to see. My pal Beth from Oregon when I told her the Real Work I'd decided to take on, she was like, holy shit just hold on. I remember when she did some of it, all the pain she went through. I HATE IT. I freakin really, really do. But holy shit, hold on cuz the only way out is through...

The first three or four weeks were miraculous my god I thought oh this is it! My intimacy shit is cured. No no that's just the sparkle allure the soul uses to hook you. Now that I'm here, with the legitimate nags staring me down with pointed stern eyes straight in front of me ohhhhhhhh I dont want to look, which sucks cuz it's times like this that you really learn wherever the hell you go, well, there you are.

I dont want to be stuck here on these same old things anymore. I will do this thing damnit. No matter what. I just hate hate hate that now's the time that I really, like it says, have to look at me. And look at how (gulp) it is me, and my old beliefs, AND NO ONE ELSE, that have caused me the most harm.

Great magic of being pray for me people.

And also, in case the real work aint enough, Walsh reminded me today that Mercury Retro's on Wednesday. And we got the rest of the week, here backeast, full a rain.

Put on your wastehigh waders kids, things about to get thick...

On Mercury Retrogrades, from nightlightnews.com, used with permission from Risa (last retro ended mid Jan, we get one a season and recall that each season stimulates a new phase, and all phases are linked quite circularly if i do wax esoteric a moment myself, of inner growth):

Wednesday night (May 6th, 10:00 pm Pacific time) Mercury turns retrograde for three weeks. We prepare this week (tend to details, plans, purchases, etc.). When Mercury retrogrades the information received since Mercury’s last retrograde must be reviewed and organized for our minds have become overloaded with data. Retrogrades allow us to “houseclean”, put thoughts and ideas in order, and bring closure to previous events. We all become detailed Virgos during Mercury retrogrades.
~~
Yea. So. Be about it.

(insert picture of me rolling my eyes at me in the mirror over steepled fingers and eyes full of pointed stern big silly love)