The Practice of Decision-Making Part 3: Writing is so awesome

This is the third in a series of articles about The Practice of Decision-Making – situating the experience of decision-making in the context of healing. Decision-making is an anxiety-riddled experience for many folks navigating this age of information. By transforming the process of decision-making into an opportunity for self-healing, we step beyond the bounds of the decision itself, reclaiming our inherent value. And, conveniently, we learn to make better decisions for ourselves.

Hi sweet humoons! We’ve manifested a New Year. We did it. I’m glad to be writing to you, to myself. I decide to call this a New Year, a new beginning, a re-set. I could call it just some more days, but I choose to take on the cultural consideration as my own. Sure. New Year. New Life. Let’s go there. I’m into it. Thanks for reading, if you are just now joining this discussion of decision-making as a mindfulness practice, you may want to go back to the introductory article posted on December 24th, 2013. Or just jump in. Enjoy and please comment/message me with your own stories. Without further ado:

Writing is so awesome

Writing is a great technology. In school most of us spent years of our precious youth learning how to use it for criticizing and memorizing. At this point it might be your go-to relationship with the written word. However, there are unspeakable benefits to writing on your own terms, for intuitive reflection and self-healing. Imagine if your high school English class had a final exam on making mind maps and dream journals! Here is how one can use the tool of the written word, and listing specifically, to scaffold their decision-making practice.

These tools are particularly useful if these experiences sound familiar to you:

·         Avoidance of the decision
·         Obsession with the decision
·         Both avoidance and obsession with the decision

• Thinking about the decision induces a sense of discomfort or anxiety

·         All thoughts and actions somehow make you think about the impending decision
·         Resistance to taking action
·         A lurking suspicion that there’s some factor being ignored, but an inability to name it
·         Guilt about time not spent on working out the decision
·         No time spent not working out the decision, cause you’re thinking about it even while you do other stuff. Stuff that might even be interesting if you weren’t so consumed with the impending decision.

Enter the list. At that first moment I realize my head is doing somersaults, right then and there is my in, my opportunity to interrupt my own flailing and channel that very flailing into the foundation of my decision-making process. There is good information in that flailing; the key is to utilize the flail instead of letting it dump unproductively into the chasm of brain chatter.

At this point, sit down with a pencil or a keyboard or a very pleasant-to-use pen, and start writing 2 lists –

Your Game-Plan List (or whatever you want to call it) and your Personal Reflections List (still, whatever you want to call it).

It doesn’t matter which list your write first, they’ll probably both co-evolve and you’ll jump from one to the other. You need both and you need them to be separate.

The Game-Plan List is purely a list of action-items: people you need to contact, emails you need to send, websites you need to look at, things you gotta/wanna do. The Personal Reflections List is where you put all the pertinent questions that underlay this decision, it contains the underlying foundation of a solid, healthy and relevant choice. Both of these serve the purpose of mapping out what you’ll need to do to make your decision. Don’t drown in your mind’s endless ability to invent new things you haven’t considered. Write it all down.

The Game-Plan List

Ask yourself “What do I need to do to make a good decision? What do I need to know to make a good decision? What do I need to feel to make a good decision?” and write down everything that comes to mind. Whatever you come up with will be perfectly suited to your unique situation, because you know best what’s real for you. Everything at this stage should be an action step for further investigation - jot things down without laboring out the details. You don’t have to think about details yet! That alone is a huge relief. Don’t think about details before you have somewhere useful to put them. After you make the skeleton of your list, you can go back and start filling it in as fully or simply as you want.  The Personal Reflection List is definitely an action item.

So for example, if you worry that “If I do this, it might mean I can’t do something else, and I’m not even sure what else I might do” then, perfect, there’s an item for your list –

·         List all other options

This game-plan list does lots of things. It will help you keep track of what you’ve already figured out, so you don’t waste your time figuring it out all over again. It will empower you to take a break from thinking about the decision, because you’ll know concretely how far along you are on your list. When you’re working on your list, you’re working. When you’re not, you’re not. Think about something else. Watch a movie. Touch yourself with various pleasant smelling oils. Etc.

This was my game-plan list for a recent big decision:

o   Research (who should I talk to?)

§  Call

·         Platypusbuttqueen

·         Etc

§  Email

·         Lizardfacenelson

·         etc

o   Make Personal Reflections List

o   List all options I know of

§  Do it

§  Don’t do it and do X

§  Don’t do it and do Y

o   Research other options

§  Tinselbackhounddog’s suggestions

§  Google Search Landia

o   Get any other information I need

§  Cost

§  Scheduling

§  Etc.

o   Tarot

o   Check in with my experience throughout

Yes, Tarot was one of my action items. And it rules. I highly recommend some form of divination as a part of the game-plan. It makes it that much more obvious that this should be playful; it helps you get out of your own way; and it makes it more likely that you’re gonna light some incense which is nice.

The Personal Reflections List

This is where we step beyond the utilitarian get-it-over-with approach to decision-making, and enter into a process that is firmly rooted in healing and transformation. Oh it’s so rich. Your personal reflections is a list of questions that you are asking yourself. Deep questions, questions that lurk in the shadowy centers of our doubts and our dreams. This is a great home for our brain chatter. That chatter is there for a reason – you’re rehashing traumas from your past, insecurities, nodding at topics you’ve been trying to avoid. Translate each anxiety into a question to ask yourself. Trust your gut – if a question appears but doesn’t seem relevant, write it down anyway. There are no dumb questions on this list. In fact, I find it really helpful to write essentially the same question several different ways, opening up new angles of understanding. After you come up with a good mess of questions to ask yourself, sit down, check in with your body, and start answering as honestly and non-judgmentally as possible. As you go along your day, add more questions as new topics of brain chatter appear or as other information comes in. 

Here’s my list:

·         What are my fears around this?

   This is, to me, the most important thing to come to terms with. What am I afraid of here? Write out everything and anything that comes to mind. Then investigate these fears – Where is this fear coming from? Is it valid? Is it suspiciously similar to a fear you have about other situations? Is it directly linked with the choice on hand, a result of the inherent quality of the options? or is it a fear that you carry in general, that would inevitably crop up given any choice or commitment? Once I realized that my fears around the situation were just my own all-purpose baggage and not specific to the situation, I could think more clearly about the actual situation on hand. I also figured out what my baggage is, inviting self-acceptance and compassion. Sweet.

·         What are my judgments?

I can be pretty judgy. I think a lot of idealists/activists are. My own judgments usually have to do with selling out and fulfilling standard societal expectations, and/or fulfilling stereotypical archetypes of alternative radical communities. It feels good to just write that down, acknowledge that that’s going on.

·         What are my expectations?

Do you already think this is dumb? Do you already think everyone else will judge you? Do you already think this is so freaking awesome and perfect?

·         What are my assumptions?

This one is hard. It’s hard to step outside of yourself enough to know what you are assuming. But it’s all linked with fears and expectations so just try your best. I often assume that the decision I am making matters very much. And that it is a firm life-long commitment. And it will be the pivotal decision on which all else hangs.

·         What do I want to get out of this?

Not what you should get out of this; what you, in your life as a humyn bean, want to get out of this.

·         Does this align with my goals?

This is a time to tap into the whole story of you; not just the “you” who is being faced with this impending choice. You have been evolving an orientation towards life and a set of morals and personal wonderfulness for your whole damn life; respect that and let it work for you. The truth is that you’ve already done the vast majority of the work in terms of deciding. You’ve already lived for your whole life, brought yourself to certain situations and cultivated certain interests and ideas around you. Does this choice align with the “you” who wrote your New Year’s resolutions? Does this make any sense given what you’ve even vaguely been moving towards, or is this totally a different direction? Which might be fine, it’s just good to own that.

·         Is this what I’ve been looking for?

AKA what I’ve been asking for, what I’ve been praying for, what I’ve been longing for, etc. Sometimes when we want something, we form an image of what that thing is, how it will look, and how it will present itself. We get so swept up in the story that when the answer to our prayers comes, we can’t recognize it as such. It doesn’t smell like the dish we cooked up in our brains. Reality rarely mimics our pre-conceived notions, so be open to the possibility that this is exactly what you want. Also be open to the possibility even though it looks deceptively like the dish cooking in your brains, it might smell and taste totally different. You don’t have to force it to. I myself get distracted by the delivery too – I often feel that valid opportunities should arrive accompanied by a crystal in the crusty palm of a strange medicine woman who I met hitching in the hills of a small town way out of my way. When that opportunity actually arrives via facebook comment, I need to get out of my own way to recognize it as the synchronistic love note from Goddess I’ve been asking for.

And how do I even know what I’ve been asking for? I re-read my journals. I look back at all the New Moon Intentions I’ve set lately. I think about I’ve been excited to talk to friends about lately.

·         Who is affected by this decision?

Are there people besides you who are affected by this who you are not thinking about? Is there a potential that someone might be hurt? Is there a potential that someone might be helped? Do you need to clear something up with anyone before you step forward in good conscience?

·         Is there something I’m not thinking of?

Yeah, that herbalism class sounds awesome, but do you realize that Beyonce is playing a free live show in your buddy’s basement the same night as the final? I mean, certification is cute and all but let’s keep our priorities straight. Jk. No but serious.

Empowering much? I say yes, deeply. Journey forth with courage and confidence, may we learn from it all.

The Practice of Decision-Making Part 2: Yo’ Body

This is the second in a series of articles about The Practice of Decision-Making – situating the experience of decision-making in the context of healing. Decision-making is an anxiety-riddled experience for many folks navigating this age of information. By transforming the process of decision-making into an opportunity for self-healing, we step beyond the bounds of the decision itself, reclaiming our inherent value. And, conveniently, we learn to make better decisions for ourselves.

Yo' Body

This is the first thing.

It’s the last thing.

It’s the thing in between all the other things.

But don’t stress if you forget to check in with your body after every phone call. Whatevs, it’s still there whether you actively check in with it or not.

Checking in with the body is the embodied way to connect with the meta-process of self-healing while decision-making. It reminds us of our wholeness and value that exists far beyond the margins of the impending decision. It reminds us that this thing that seems so incredibly important right now is just as temporal as all of the transient sensations in the body.

Different folks check in with their bodies infinities of ways. Essentially, checking in with your body just means that you take a moment or twelve to direct your attention to your physical experience. I often start off by directing my awareness to my breath. Not changing it, just noticing it. Then I scan my body and occasionally ask myself questions. “Where do I feel this right now? What is the quality of that sensation? Does it change when I pay attention to it?” I make it up as I go along. You’ll intuitively know what questions you need to ask the more you practice. It’s true. Try right now – get still and see what question comes to mind. Trust that question. It’s a good question.

 That’s how I figured out the stuff about my solar plexus, shoulders and heart (see part 1 of this article). From this body-centered awareness I also notice the qualities of my mind, as though it were just another body part. “What types of things am I thinking about? What is the pace of my thinking?” And emotions - “How do I feel right now?” Always No judgment, I’m not trying to find specific things. I might just notice numbness all over. The point is to take that time, not to make fancy breakthroughs of understanding.

For me, the hardest part of checking in with my body is remembering to do it. A good way to remember is to link it with some other action. For example, every time I realize I need to pee, I remind myself to check in with the rest of my body while I’m at it. Or put up a reminder on your computer. Now I link up body scans with basically any strong emotion, but I’ve written reminders on my palm, I’ve drawn pictures on my coffee makers, and I literally have a tattoo that pretty much serves this function (no, I am not suggesting you go get a tattoo, but if you’re getting one anyway it may as well be functional… just sayin.)

Our bodies are our wisest teachers, hands down, BLAM, easy. So freakin convenient, too. Check in to your whole self, and regularly – you are still whole, you bring your whole emotional physical intellectual and spiritual being with you. You are not the decision itself, you are essentially and always yourself. And this is you, making a decision. Interesting. Just like we get familiar with the experience of being “on” alcohol, or being “on” caffeine, learn to get familiar with yourself “on” decision-making. The adrenaline rush. The quality of your thoughts. How you view your time and how you view yourself. This is you on decision-making. This can be fun.

The Practice of Decision-Making

This is the first in a series of articles about The Practice of Decision-Making – 
situating the experience of decision-making in the context of healing.

Decision making. OH. There is that feeling in my solar plexus – tight, full, dense. My shoulders squeeze up along my back in hopes that if they could just cover my ears then I wouldn't hear all the voices of doubt in my head. 

My heart races to match the pace of my thoughts.

My heart races to evade the claws of commitment, each choice threatening to define and confine the rest of my young limitless (until now) life.

I’m standing still but I’m panting from the loops my brain dances.

Decision making. That shit stresses me out.

I’ve noticed that a lot, and by a lot I mean all, of my friends have had to deal with anxiety around decision-making. I think there is something generational about this – we do live in an age of endless options and infinite information, after all. Many folks nowadays are over-educated, over-informed and over-whelmed by the possibilities of existence. If this is going to be a theme then we better start developing our decision-making skills accordingly. And let’s not settle for simply reducing anxiety. Let’s actively thrive. I mean, we might as well while we’re alive and whatnot.

I recently faced a deep ‘ol decision making experience with all the trappings of a Big Decision – time commitment, monetary commitment, potential commitment to career and life path. Dear Ones, I came through, and I’m damn proud of my decision. Not because I think my choice is so awesome, which it is, but because I feel so empowered through my process of decision-making. I got to know myself better, especially the parts I usually try avoid. Through this experience I’ve singled out some tools and approaches to decision-making. I hope they will help others find healing and clarity as they navigate their own juicy, possibility-filled lives. This advice is mostly geared towards life-path style decisions – where to live, where to work, where to learn, etc. If the tactics I mention don’t resonate with you, great. The main point is that we deserve to feel empowered and inspired by our decision-making processes, and we can be. Figure out what works for you; then tell me about it.

Decision-Making as a Practice

People have yoga practices and meditation practices. I’d like to talk about developing a decision-making practice. That was the big switcheroo for me this time around – as I realized that a big decision was going down, I took a deep breath and some wiser voice deep down inside reminded me that this was just one more opportunity for self-healing. The narrative went something like this –

“Well A-Ro, we didn’t see this one coming, but for today’s self-healing exploration, we will be 

investigating how we deal with decision making.”

Cute. Don’t get blindsided by the decision on hand. It might appear that the biggest deal in your life is figuring out the right way to turn, but that’s a decoy. The biggest deal in your life is your life, and this moment is an opportunity to get intimate with your own unique anatomy of big-decision-navigation. Say “yes” to this learning, let it be valuable in and of itself, and the immense pressure on your decision will lift and all that ensues will be caste in the light of self-love and healing.

So now we have two co-developing processes – the process of the decision itself and the meta-process of you, beautiful holy and complex creature that you are, making that decision. The tools I am offering address both processes simultaneously. In other words, the very way that we go about making decisions should be self-reflective and healing, while supporting clarity and good, solid decisions. One hand washes the other, eh? But actually. It’s true. You will make a better decision through holding a healing lens over the process. This is pretty standard knowledge. Has anyone ever told you to “just follow your heart?” Yeah, easier said than done. It’s not like you can knock on your chest and ask if anyone’s home. Listening to our hearts means radical self-acceptance - accepting our truths, our unspeakables, our vulnerability. It requires grounding and meditation, even if that is a 2-second meditation. When someone tells you to follow your heart, they are asking you to engage in a self-healing practice. They intuitively know that our healthiest wisest selves speak from that still place, and that’s the self we’d like to enlist in decision-making. Please. Thank you.

So then what?

The next few posts will go into a handful of aspects I’m currently finding important for decision-making. I have too much to say for one post. Some are tools and some are perspectives to hold on to throughout the process. The whole practice is always spiraling back, reflecting on itself. So I’m not posting in order of “steps,” but rather in the order of my own natural flow of awareness through the process. Mix and match, jump in and out, develop your own story. Here’s what’s up in the posts to come:

Yo’ Body – Centering and re-centering the body as home-base throughout the Decision-Making Practice.

Writing Is So Awesome  - Game-Plans and Personal Reflections. Utilizing the written word to articulate our underlying needs, dive into the bigger truth of the situation, and alleviate stress.

Play All Day – How approaching your Decision-Making Practice with an attitude and expectation of playfulness transforms the experience, motivating you and honoring your dignity.

I’m looking forward to hearing others’ experiences of decision-making and the approaches that have helped them. Please share! We’ve got lots of big ol’ decisions coming up on in the world, what with the need to protect the planet and liberate the majority of people from massive marginalization and oppression. Here’s to walking our truth with every step and loving the crap out of ourselves. May this practice and all practices serve all beings, sentient and not, through space and time. Bless it and be it. MMmmmmm.

The Half Moon – Her lessons, Her possibilities, and an Embarrassing Story involving Mentrual Blood

The Half Moon tips over herself tonight. Tonight is the First Quarter Moon. I haven’t done any formal research into quarter moon rituals, and I would LOVE and NEED to hear whatever insights and information you may have. But technical knowledge or no, I do know what intuitively resonates with me about this Halfling in the sky and I’m pumped to share these thoughts

with you!

We sing rollicking songs and feast ourselves by communal fires for the Full Moon; we solemnly lay our seeds of personal intention on the New Moon. For a while now I’ve felt deeply at home in these lunar rituals. They are so blunt and relatable – moon is big and round, I can see at night, let’s party. Moon is dark, the infinity of the starry sky is revealed and internal shadows come to the surface, let’s set intentions that may come to harvest by the next full moon. But the quarter moon has remained mysterious to me, an untapped invitation for ritual and healing.

What does the Half Moon have to teach us?

The Half Moon teaches us to find our stillness by noticing our stillness. The Half Moon is a fleeting moment in the sky, a tender instant strung between the slightest tip one way or the other. We catch sight of this moment and it appears so solidly decided, HALF, a line brazenly drawn straight down the middle. But in fact we are witnessing the space of quiet between exhale and inhale. She teaches us that stillness is not a final destination that follows years of meditation and holiness. Stillness is what comes when we notice that we are, at this moment, already still. Look at the moon and imagine that there is no where she is coming from, no where she is going to. Let expectations and memories fall away and accept her as she is. Notice in yourself how you are at this moment still. No where to go, no place to leave. What if your present moment on your path was the only place you had to be?

The Half Moon teaches us to accept our duality. The Half Moon shares her darkness and her light equally. Her darkness gleams down, unafraid to sublimate into the expanse around it. Her darkness accepts its place in the infinite, the chaos and the unknowable. Her light shines down without a doubt of its worthiness to glow right there amongst the stars. No mind that she is as much in darkness as she is in light, there is no need to wait for complete cheery light to take her place in the sky. The Moon shows up even when she shows up in pieces. She teaches us to hold up our value unapologetically, raggedness and all. Both darkness and light are gifts to be honored and revered. How do you react to your own darkness? How do you react to your own light? What are you afraid of sharing with others and how do you talk to yourself about sharing these things? Do you ever feel pressure to feel one way or another, but not both? Look at the Half Moon in her proud expression and consider how you might speak to yourself in a way that accepts your complexity.

It’s important to understand that connotations between darkness and negativity are often rooted in historical attempts to validate racism. How might a culture that works to spiritually reclaim its darkness also heal its engrained assumptions about dark skin? Perhaps we can heal our own personal engrained racism by doing the spiritual work ourselves. I believe that personal healing is directly linked to cultural healing and the moon offers countless opportunities for us to experience how.

The First Quarter Moon, Specifically

Ok, so technically this isn’t The Half Moon, it’s the First Quarter Moon. Which is nice phrasing, because it reminds me that this whole this is a cycle, not just a ping-ponging back and forth between New and Whole but a stretch across New, past Whole and a pull even further into a new New. Fun.

For me, the First Quarter Moon is a time for reflection and recommitment. On the New Moon I set some intentions for myself. How have I been relating to those intentions, if at all? Are those intentions still relevant for me or can I release some of them from my consciousness? And in general, how have I engaged with my life since the New Moon? I take this time to re-read journals and notes, give myself permission to radically change, and finally to Recommit.

Recommitting means ruthless honesty – what can I truly commit to; what do I truly want to commit to? I may have gotten trigger happy on the New Moon and made lots of intentions I don’t want to or can’t truly hold to, now I have a chance to reconnect with my truth and stick with what’s real. Recommitment should feel celebratory and like a relief – Yes! I get to hold on to what I care about and stop trying to commit to things I don’t care about! It should not feel like a promise or a burden. It’s more functional to commit to processes rather than goals. I commit to saying “I love you” to each of my body parts as I lotion up after a shower. I don’t commit to completely accepting everything about my body. That’s an end goal; I’ll get there one day. For now, I’m sticking with “I love you.”

And Finally, An Embarrassing Story Involving Menstrual Blood

I bleed on the Half Moon. That’s right, as in now. It has been my practice for a while to collect all of my moon blood in a jar (I use a menstrual cup so that’s fairly easy) and honor a piece of sacred ground with it after my flow is over. Moon blood is seriously nourishing and I love to offer it to sacred herbs and trees. It’s nice and feels way more reasonable that wasting all that nourishing goodness on a cotton swab stuck in someone’s septic tank.

But today the worst nightmare happened. I was packing up and getting ready to leave after a day working at the restaurant. I was in the bathroom and decided to take advantage of their running water (my cabin has none) and dump my cup before leaving. I had my jar and everything, did the deed, and left the bathroom. And left the jar in that bathroom. In the 2.5 minutes it took me to realize my fuck up, someone else used that bathroom and TOOK MY MOON BLOOD. I searched and searched but really there was nothing to do. Someone went in to that bathroom, lord knows what they think they found, and lord knows what they did with it.

No one said anything to me, and I’m pretty sure no one ever will. We will just go on, me and whoever it was, working side by side, never acknowledging that both of us have held a jar of my menses in our hands. Now that’s a special bond to share with someone. Who knows, maybe there are covert witches at work who need some blood for their own moon altar. I know that my moon altar is pretty bummed about the whole thing.

 Don't waste your red gold down the drain, grow a tree!
I wouldn't put it on houseplants though, to be real.
This ain't me, I found this image online.

So on this First Quarter Moon, I am learning to accept my shame and to accept that I stand out. I’m learning to accept that sometimes my internal matters physically and emotionally come to light when I don’t intend them to; that’s the risk I take on by dealing so  intimately with my internal matters. I am more willing to handle the consequences then I am willing to tuck my darkness away. I just hope my co-workers can handle those consequences, too. Yeeeeeeesh.

A Return to Communication! A Poem about Loving Myself! Maybe communication is loving myself! WOOOOAAAHHHHH

Oh the Juicy Yummy Goodness of writing, of output! It can all seem so arbitrary at times, right? But that doesn't matter, what matters if the feelings excited in my belly by writing things down, by sharing them with others. Hello Others, already so much closer than we could have ever expected.

I am grateful to share this moment with you.
First I am going to catch up a weeeeee bit but if you'd just like to read a poem you can scroll to the bottom of this post.

I am signing back on to this blog because I think we have more conversations to have. I'd like to hear from you. So this is me leaving you the first voicemail. Tag. You're it. Ha.

Since we last shared moments, I have been in many places. Physically, my body has rolled around the island of Puerto Rico, it has sublimated into ether on the mountains of Tennessee, it has condensed into cold rock at the altitudes of Colorado, and it has spread broadly into the countless memories and creativities of Upstate New York. Emotionally and spirituality, well shit. That is many stories. All of which have shaped me into this present moment, so though we can't catch up on all the juicy details I trust that the all tastes I've accumulated along the way will flavor the words I put out today.

What's real right now:
I am living alone in a one room cabin in New Paltz, NY.
I am spending most of my time on self-healing practices, which right now looks like yoga, journaling, and meditation.
I am alive.
I am very excited to use this space to get real about healing, about gender, about hope. Themes coming up are boundaries, commitment, lunar ritual and coughing.

For now, here is a poem I wrote in my attempts to address my intention of the day: Absurd Obscene Self-Love. Sometimes it's easier to embody something by pretending it is a dream. What does your dream of Self-Love look like?

Self-Love Dream

In my self-love dream I have many fishes to tend to.

My thighs cup the glowing bay where they found a safe place.

Their flickering muscled movements paint me back my secret colors

So I’m cultivating many, many fish.

Each Spring I spill them out into the roadside gullies and they feed the whole Earth.

Even you.

In my self-love dream the struggle is the best part.

Strangers gather on Thanksgiving around TV sets and watch me weep on the big screen

They eat chicken wings and knead moist tissues in their moist hands

Afterwards they are silent

Or they cheer

One sighs            “Masterpiece” 

 and another pledges that one day they will weep like me.

In my self-love dream

My fingers are my lovers.

My palms orient to the soft parts of my hips

And the whole truth is renamed                              

pressing.

I hold up Pleasure again and again to marvel

Before I melt back into the tide.

Inevitable.

In my self-love dream all of the ants know my name

And even when no one smiles at me at the library

All of the ants still know my name.

In my self-love dream

I am not sitting in this chair.

My ass sits in the outstretched hand of Mother Earth herself. She’s just holding me here.

Even though it’s silly and I could really just use the chair,

She doesn’t mind.

She says              

 Sometimes Love is silly.

In my self-love dream

I am sitting in this chair.

I am breathing and I notice that

                                I am still breathing.

It’s too late,

And im too tired,

                                                                And my hair’s wrong,

And I cannot believe how impossibly beautiful

I am.

In my self-love dream

I wake up.           

     

Words in space! Permaculture, Queerness and Feminism Article is up!

interview with Nicole: http://www.permanentculturenow.com/permaculture-queerness-feminism/

What a surreal experience. Nearly 9 months after I saw down to answer the questions of Nicole Vosper of UK's Wild Heart Permaculture, I get the email. Our interview is published online on Permanent Culture Now.

9 months (i dont have to mention the symbology). This article was written lifetimes ago, and yesterday. Of course I winced at my wordiness, the buzzy vocabularly, the backwards and forwards grammar. But I also smiled. Because I love the person who answered those questions. Back then (yes, back then... only 9 months ago) I was burning fresh from Occupy, I was frustrated with activism and an activist, I was tired of wary of revolution and a revolutionary, i was disgusted by academia and an academic. I was angry and thought the right words could explain myself into wholeness. And in some ways they do. In so many ways they don't.


Just like a child, a project that I started at one moment in my evolution has suddenly been born and has an identity unique and throbbing on itself, separate from the journey of me, yet still connected.  My own jounrey has moved away from the wordy venom of that time - I feel tenderly towards those who inadvertantly oppress, because I recognize their foibles as my own and embrace the opportunity to learn and heal these habits together. Still, I respect where I was coming from at the time; it was a necessary step before the turning inward that is now my teacher. I think my favorite point of the article is that diversity is about joy and real-life friendship. Ironically, my main point was that words just get in the way and there is real relationship at stake!

And of course, there are lots of parts of the interview that now have an even deeper truth, so much more physicalized now that I smile to know that back then, I already knew:

Nicole: Big question but in short how does society need to be re-designed for real gender & sexual liberation? What role can permaculture designers play?

Annie-Rose: Start loving yourself! Love other people, people who are different from you! Stop being afraid! To me there are many correct answers to this, all of which require that folks believe that they have the right to be happy.

Please take a look at the article and share your thoughts. I could talk more about the article, but I'm more interested in your thoughts!

guilt.

credit: http://www.thegully.com/essays/puertorico
/010430vq_calderon.html
learn more

I have not dared to travel outside of North America for almost 10 years. Let me be clear - I haven't had the cash or the need to leave North America, and 10 years without international travel isn't exactly something to whine about. What I mean though is that I couldn't conceive of it; I couldn't let my mind imagine my body elsewhere. Cash was one reason, another was that I have wanted to understand the upsurdly huge country I was born in before I expanded my brains too much. But guilt was the biggest reason that I couldn't imagine international travel. Internalized colonialist guilt. Shit's real. Allow me to explain.

I have been terrified of what it means to travel, as a United State-ian (what is the word for that? there is no word for that! only more colonialist-whiffing "american!" WTF?!?). How could i possibly eat authentic local food, when the words authentic+local+food are probably in a new McDonald's ad for McRibs, coming to a puebla near you? I was frozen with fear of extracting resources, cultural, spiritual, and material. Of furthering a well-worn pattern of American self-centeredness ("All the world is my oyster!").

I have been stuck in a stasis of guilt. 

This is stasis, cause guilt doesn't do anything. It is an important stage to go through, cause it's so very sad what has happened in this world and it shows some useful empathy to internalize it just a touch. But guilt, in my case, has resulted mostly in fear and motionlessness. It has gone on too long. It was well intentioned, yay, awesome, but guilt doesn't change the screwy importation patterns and misplaced government spending; it doesn't undo cultural shame and imported diabetes. For me, guilt damned my learning about these issues to paper only. Without real engagement, all I could do was read zines and get mad, get more guilty. That is an elite, detached sort of learning that leads to out-of-touch non-profits. It was so obvious to me that to learn about helping the earth, I needed to get my hands into it. Why did my desire to heal some of the United State's international impact convince me that the best thing i could do was stay silent and as far away as possible?

I bring up this issue because I think it has pretty darn broad implications. People have guilt because they are cis-gendered men so they freak out and leave the room when rape is discussed. People have guilt because they are not a person of color so they start sweating and panicking as soon as they're the only white people in the room. This guilt has important roots, but it is distracting us from the work at hand. It is distracting us from the reality that oppression is not the end of the story. Oppression is the first step on the path to liberation, a path which we must actively create. No one else is going to do it.

I am asking, of me, of you, of your cat if that is somehow applicable, to take your tinges of guilt as an invitation. Here are some loose steps:

1. Look at your guilt-moments closely. Those are teaching moments. They are telling you what your shadows are; they are telling you what boundaries your soul is secretly aching to press up against. This is not easy work! Guilt comes cloaked in many guises - you may feel offended, attacked, isolated, defensive, bored. Learning to identify when guilt is at play may take awhile.
2. Press into your guilt - ask questions of those who trigger guilt in you, be humble, research more about the sources of your particular guilt. Read some history. Be honest about what you do and do not know. Mostly, mostly mostly mostly, listen.
3. Be an ally. Talk to those cis-gendered dudes friends about what you've learned, talk to other United States-ians about what you heard. Help bring these topics out of the shadows. And, following all that most deeply satisfying listening you've been doing, see how you can help. No, you don't have to found an organization, but maybe you can contribute to efforts that are already underway. 

This is serious healing work. In this gloriously changing universe, it seems we need to look at our wounds and our burdens, look at them honestly, and embrace the pain of healing. It will be uncomfortable. It will make you cry. It will situate you in the community of life and transform stasis into freedom. Change comes from tiny itty bitty individual actions - don't doubt the importance of this work, even if it seems self-involved. Everything that flows from it will be far stronger, wiser, and kinder.

So anway, I'm in Puerto Rico right now. Of course I start my international exploration by diving into the belly of the beast and landing in a modern-day colony. I have no grasp of what's going on. I'm only at the beginning of asking my questions. But in this quiet space of listening I can feel minute layers of my silence and ignorance evaporating.

I still have no answers, but I am no longer afraid to look for them.

yes yes yes, there is a home for this! Earth and Activism and Spirit orbit with Starhawk and the Earth Activist Training Permaculture-Palooza

there is a home for this!
yay yay yay!

those words kept landing with a thud in my stomach throughout the 2 weeks of Earth Activist Training. They landed like comfort, like warm tea on a cold day. Mmmmm, relax, spread out, there's a home for this and you're inside it.

I've had a funny hunch that permaculture is an important lens for me. I've worktraded on permaculture sites, tried (unsuccessfully... so far) to get permaculture classes started, written articles about queer permaculture (more on that some other time). But honestly it was all a hunch - my own experience was my greatest proof that permaculture and real liberatory social justice are one in the same. we can talk about composting our poop into fertile soil one moment and then discuss effective methods of direct action the next? we can talk about dealing with police brutality in the same breath as rainwater harvesting? oh wow oh wow yes!

Starhawk's E.A.T. course, which she taught with Charles Williams, is freaking amazing. As she went over the syllabus each item lodged itself in another nook of my brain, found a fold yearning for exactly that flavor to chew on. There was already space for this knowledge, all i needed was the content to fill in the corners and expand the edges of this now-huge space.

this approach to permaculture constantly examines the human relationships that go down alongside the earth sustainability work. we spent 2 nights talking about non-hierarchical organizing and methods to make a meeting functional fun and effective. we talked about magical activism. baby we even devised some magical activism.

On the activism front, this shit is potent. After so much analysis, heartache and headbreak over Occupy, I came to quite a few conclusions about what makes organizing work. It all aligns with permaculture principles. Observe first.  Value the marginal, the edges, those with less power. Form coalitions that can thrive autonomously, not with constant leadership from outside. I could go on. Permaculture extends these ideas into physical realities. It explains through a lens of natural systems that makes these abstract concepts so much more tenable. Diversity isn't just a cute thing people think theyre supposed to want. it is the core essential necessity of a healthy reality. Blam. If you look at something as if it's a problem, it will stay a problem. if you look at something as if it's information, than it's a solution. Blam.

Also, the intergenerationality of the group was as important as the course content. I have been hungering for relationship with my elders. Here i found many generations interwoven and conscious of how important this fabric is for any future progress. We talked about the struggle to expand the narrowing confines of gender binaries, how to talk about a goddess who is not only a goddess, what earlier feminist movements have to teach youth today and what healing needs to take place. Many new questions, and damn it felt good to sit with people who aren't within 15 years of my age.

Permaculture is as ancient as humanity. This word encapsulates a whole history of people living together with the earth. These past 2 weeks I felt for the first time that I was honoring the ancestors and indigenous peoples of this land in a way that was authentic and active, not guilt-ridden and defeated.

this is the beginning of something.  Spirit and magic can be manifested and harnessed to increase human capacity for love and creativity. this is no joke, no subtle thing. This is the power ritual holds for the transformation of life. I'm telling ya. I've held such a distance between myself and spirituality for so long, the vestiges of scientific conditioning clinging to me and hissing "that doesn't make sense!". But here i found that the things that inspire me about science can be the wellspring from which my spirituality gushes - i can marvel at cells and water and star dust and pound the earth in ecstatic frothing. Woopee!

O.U.R.Ecovillage: Kids Camp!

I got a call Saturday night, 9pm, 2 weeks ago.

Brandy said "the person who was supposed to be running kids camp on monday cant anymore. If you still want to do work-trade for the E.A.T. course, can you come out? tomorrow?"

GUH.

I ran home, hyperventilating and sweating. I had applied months earlier to do work trade at OUR Ecovillage for the  EAT Course. EAT = Earth Activist Training, and it is the Permaculture Design Certificate course that Starhawk started and teachers. Why was i so rabid for this course? instead of re-capturing how i had been feeling, heres the blurb i sent my new permaculture friend Nicole in the UK describing my desires (sent months ago) :

"I am hungry for all permaculture skills (I have a lot of experience with
natural building, composting toilets, and rainwater catchment systems,
less experience with gardening), but what I'm looking for specifically is
a permaculture practice that places social justice at the center of the
work. I am very interested in permaculture as a lens on liberation. I am a
queer, feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist individual, and all of
these things are very tied in to permaculture for me. I believe that
permaculture has the ability to transform how people organize, how we
create self-sufficient alternatives to dominant structures, how we achieve
liberation of oppressed people, and how we shift activism from an
"anti-domination" stance to a "pro-liberation" stance. To me the
domination of women, of queers, of people of color, and of the earth are
all part of the same nasty mindset. I am most interested in projects that
have strong racial, gender, and economic diversity. I'm super excited
about learning from women and transfolk."

So basically i was searching for permaculture that had social justice at its core. i searched and searched, but was having a surprisingly hard time actually finding groups that were doing this work. lots of people sprinkle it on top, but really focusing on social permaculture? it was often an afterthought.

Starhawk is one of the founders of Eco-Feminism and modern Paganism; she is a huge social justice activist and one of the most important nonviolence advocates, particularly during the anti-nuclear movement of the 90s.nAnd I didn't know this at the time, but she's also super involved with, basically, organizational theory. How groups of people work. What sort of organizing is empowering, inspires action. What meetings make us sing and what meetings make us glaze over. How to achieve non-hierarchy, easier said than done. And ths is basically all of the stuff i think about all the damn time (thus, this blog.) Social Permaculture. give it to me.

ok ok ok ok ok okok okokokokokokokokok,
there needs to be more conversation about this class, which actually started a week ago. Spirituality, building, solutions, direction, acceptance, expansiveness, ritual, forgiveness, coalescence, magic, challenge, etc etc all come to mind. seriously folks, this shit is poppin off and we gotta chat. but for now, let's get back to that phone call.

Basically, it was ridiculous and meant taking a plane, but i couldn't turn away from this. i had been holding this in my heart for months. i found out a had a bunch of miles that would expire unless i used them, and on monday morning i was on a 6am plan bound for Victoria, BC, Canada. Tuesday morning, Kids Camp! began!

and it was great. no one involved knew they would be earlier than the thursday before it started (thats 4 days). there were 16 kids, ages 5-10. 3 counselors. Us counselors joked often about how crazy it all was - all thrown into it, no schedule, everything and i mean just about everything off the cuff. but the kids were so creative and amazing, kind and ready to learn. and this place, this place. this place is an endless well of fun stuff to do, cause guess what, that's what happens when communities come together and decide to do stuff. this ecovillage is full of projects, from farm work and animal care to building with mud and clay and making your own butter and wandering in the woods. we actually pulled it off because the community held space for the kids, because us counselors were badass at checking in about each others needs and boundaries, and because this sort of place is ripe with spaces to learn. oh, and mostly cause the kids were amazing. if anything our realization that it was actually chaotic was the most negative part of kids camp, cause the actual days went very well.

it's a funny thing. Brandy, the director of OUR Ecovillage, kind of irresponsibly dumped a huge load on 3 unknowing people, assuming theyd figure it out. And we grumbled that it was irresponsible, but you know what? She was right. We figured it out. And it was great. Learning can be funny.

WHATS BeeN GOinG On?!?! 1st: Grandma Turned 90

My grandmama turned 90 a couple of weeks ago. Me, my mama, her two sisters and everybody's respective kids and partners gathered in western mass. to celebrate. and wow.

my grandma was always extremely strong, direct. encouraging. with her dementia she has softened; she is kinder than ever, constantly grateful, always smiling, shaking her head and saying things like "i cant believe it" or "youre gorgeous." it's like all of the love juice that has always been a part of her actions is now bubbling to the surface, being articulated in the only words she thinks worthwhile saying. what used to be what she did but never said, now she says. she says love.

i realized that this wasnt new (i used to think that her dementia was bringing on this new uber-loving thing) when i saw all of her children gather for her birthday. her children are all, first and foremost, incredible mothers. the three sisters are strong, deep, giving, unbelievable mothers. they are fierce. they support eachother. the incredible mothering that my grandma provided has extended itself and thus increased exponentially, as the next generation has taken her love in, digested it through each personal lens, and spread it onto their own families.

at the birthday i saw the magical transmutation of love and skillful mothering through the generations. it doesnt stop. it is steady fire. the more you give it, the more it grows. this is a clan, there are secrets to these skills; not discrete things you can write down, but ways, intentions, care.


all hail grandmothers.

Asheville, NC: Who's laughing?

Undocumented, underpaid, migrant labor was used to make this mouthwatering corn-fritter, not the henna-ed hands of that white guy with dreads at the farmers' market? What a zinger!!! Photo credit: Ashevile Travel Blog

stream of consciousness poem:

Being in Asheville is so...
beautiful
confusing
money
organic
white
lies
normal
bubble
disappointed
obvious
vegan
gluten-free
accessible
priviledge
everywhere
pseudo-liberal hippies
confusion
what's real?
whole grains
farms
work-trade
secret possibilities
hidden currents
normal abnormal
cool different
real different?
mountains
sunsets
clouds
dramatic
jokes cause we're uncomfortable
jokes cause we have to
running up mountains
running down mountains
yoga
cultural appropriNation
duh
is it funny?


I've been around a lot of jokes about the lack of people of color and the general homogeneity of whiteness here in Asheville, NC. It's an effort to make it funny, to acknowledge it, to let people know that you notice, to make you feel better about it cause you're in on how fucked up it is so you can't be a perpetrator of racism. I'm not sure it's very funny. It's good to acknowledge it, better than to pretend it's neutral or absent. But I can't help feeling that this is a handy little tool to make folks feel better about it instead of getting mad about it. Instead of asking hard questions about why that is; instead of doing something about it.


The people who I'm thinking of have excused racist behavior as "just a part of things." which, yea, is obviously true, but the whole point of bringing up how things are racist is to change the fact that they are a part of things, not to prove that alien's must be temporarily inhabiting the flesh of these usually-normal-but-suddenly-extraterrestrially-racist people. These jokes come from people who say things like "all people have a responsibility to know what compost is," clearly assuming middle-class, mildly-liberally-educated, and most likely white people. These are, I assure you, not bad people. They are just isolated in a white-dominated culture that teaches people how to think critically about earth practices but not how to think critically about modern race in the U.S.

These jokes come from me too, so what's that? Comedy can play a huge role in getting folks to talk about what they don't want to talk about. With all of the controversy around Daniel Tosh's fiercely defended rape jokes, it's clear that there's a real re-evaluation of the role of comedy needed in this country. Comedians have long held an important role in airing out dirty laundry, getting a nation to see what it wants to ignore. But it can also reify bullshit. So if I respond to someone's comment about a black person with "What? a black person in Asheville?" what does that do? My intention is to show how ridiculously homogenous it is here. The snarl of my lip is there because this upsets me. But am I actually just doing what white people have done for ages and ages - made jokes at the expense of people of color? normalize racism?

well shit. I'm going to have to think about this.

Some bitty thoughts on Resisting Racism: Queer Liberation is Collective Liberation Workshop

Jenna and Damien (facilitators of the workshop) and Ian (Provdience-based queer organizer and artist extraordinary) celebrating the warm feeling of "woah, we talked about some heavy shit" after the workshop.

Traveling organizers!
what a thought!
what a dream!

Last weekend Jenna Peters-Golden and Damien Luxe blew in to town for a weekend of doing. The two bad-asses facilitated a refreshingly (not being sarcastic! truthfully!) 4 hour long workshop about how racism manifests itself and what queer liberation has to do with all forms of liberation.
It was refreshing cause it didn't have to end as soon as we got started.
15 people came, which is wildly wonderful considering the time commitment. It speaks to the hunger of people to connect the queer movement to broader struggle.

We almost had enough time to and enough detail to get really specific with our dreams. One exercise had use imagine the collaboration of two historical activist groups who never actually had anything to so with each other. I was in the group combining the American Indian Movement and the Boston Women's Movement. This was surprisingly fruitful, but so rushed that we couldn't get very creative and I felt anxious the whole time about getting a chance to speak or about one person talking the whole time. So, note to all facilitators: give lots of time to the creative side of things! I felt like most time was spent on clever tricks for understanding racism, taught by the folks in the front of the room to the folks in the back of the room. Because it was an audience of activists, I think more time could have been spent sharing our own opinions and experiences, and spent on building alternatives. Remember y'all, i'm in a hyper-action-ey mood lately, so i guess take this criticism with a grain of salt. or don't.

There were almost only white people in attendance, which we didn't mention, but I just mentioned, so there. Is there a growing attempt on the part of white activists to get real about their anti-racist work? Is this just guilt? Is this just a tiny subsect of people who were already convinced that there's such a thing as modern racism? Where is this coming from and where is it going to?
My hope is that more folks are waking up to the pervasiveness of racism in the United States, that more folks want to figuring out how they can DO something about it versus comment on it often, that folks are increasingly seeing how racism operates at every level of society and identity.

What is the conversation around race in organizations and communities that you are a part of? What are the actions people are taking? 

I'm particularly interested in groups that aren't explicitly anti-racist, such as feminist groups and queer groups - are y'all organizing around race?

Fuck This; or how I feel on Youtube; Or Sexism is more than a Feeling

This was set off by a conversation with my father. He was complaining that he'd heard all about this "war on women" thing, but couldn't see how women's rights are being particularly eroded right now, why there's a war on women specifically at this moment in time.

I answered that it's harder to get an abortion now than it was ten years ago. That one in six women get raped. That women still get paid an average of 77 cents to a man's dollar, less if you're a woman of color. All these arguments seemed to fall flat on him - those were issues of access, of economics, not gender. Those were long-standing issues that have gotten better, not worse. None of those things are rights that the national government has impeded.

I realized that I need more facts in my toolbelt. I need numbers, ratios, trends, graphs that help break down the invisible oppression that mediates most women's lives, killing them, raping them, preventing them from realizing their dreams, keeping them from health, love, and intimacy. Ok.

 I will begin compiling my own and create a post with the most poignant information (i'll cite whoever sent me the info), so we can all use this in our toolbelt of education. Please send your factoids (cited if possible) my way.

 Re-post this or respond, and we'll make a great resource for everyone!

In the meantime, here are some interesting youtube trends I've noticed. I was really excited to find Anita Sarkeesian's series, Tropes vs. Women. Get's into some of the nifty bullshit I'm almost entirely used to. So I get all excited and then start clicking on links that pop up on the page - featured videos, etc. At first I'm thinking - wow, Tropes vs. Women is so smart, so well produced, and it has so many views! Until I noticed how many views these other videos were getting.
Note how youtube works: you see an opening image, a title, and the number of views. With that in mind, check out these popular videos and imagine what sort of culture results in these numbers.

#4 The Evil Demon Seductress (Tropes vs. Women) : 95,978 views

#1 The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Tropes vs. Women) : 145,746 views

Anti Feminist : 326,101 views

Mumbai Girl Forced in Jungle : 740,762 views