Head Noise

The head noise is bad this morning. I got persuaded a long time ago that this never does stop. Meditation and other things do help, but in the end the noise is always there. It is more about what you DO about this that counts.

So at 5 a.m. I am wide awake. *I hate typing* And I start ruminating on the usual stuff.

Not all is bad and ugly,

For example, it came to me that the way to plow through the dissertation is to start with the main question, to elaborate that quite a bit, not necessarily by asking more questions, but posing it in different ways. Then, for each following chapter, restate in some form the main question. This is very effective when I consider the "Why SXM?" chapter. I could start that by asking "If I am interested in technology and how it affects / interacts with the informal economy and tourism then this place is good b/c ..." See how that works? History could start with something too - perhaps "In considering the present and how ITC and I.E. and Tourism intersect, it is useful to look at the past."

But most of it is bad and ugly.

But then the same head noise quickly degenerates into my issues around K and why the relationship isn't working too well, even though part of me knows it is working. The part I am more in tune with now has to do with this sense of having to compete for time and energy and affection. I do not like competition at all, never have, probably never will. But I feel like capturing her attention is a matter of competing for her time. Then of course this whole part spirals down into all the things I hate about myself, which I think I am at least a little better at managing now. That whole cognitive shift bit still is there, for sure, but when I am overtired, and far from home and not at my body best, it is a lot harder to try and avoid the painful parts and to stay aware of how that works.

Part of me knows with certainty that the underlying drive at 5 a.m. is due to the body factors - lack of sound sleep, uneven nutrition, too much wine, off cycle, etc.. But that's not easy to let go of when I am simply lying there wondering it all. It gets away from the rational mind really fast.

I've learned in the past that usually (but not always) simply getting up shifts it around in odd ways, and I'm left with this sense of "WTF?". But underneath that is often a funny sort of body thing - something is off kilter there and I have no easy handle on what it is and therefore even less of a chance to try and fix it.

How can one fix the head noise?

Meditation helps, but does not eliminate. I should do more, but the goals now for me are so different.

Sex is an odd escape. I often find that playing with myself, getting really hard, building the energy that way is a useful escape, but wonder: is it simply an escape? Is it a simplification of things in a way that, like so many other approaches, merely tucks it under the rug kind of thing, leaving the harshness of what it is or might be festering in the back rooms of the head?

Writing is useful at times, but I'm never really sure I can separate myself from the mechanics of it all - I'm left slightly empty by the fact that the damn interface is so limiting. Is it what I really think or feel or is it driven by the curse of whatever I happen to choose as an interface? I think at times real pen and paper wrk better this way, but not always. I lose something "in the translation" which is to say that I never quite feel I capture what is IN my head as Itry and get it out onto a page of any sort.

Challenge time

If indeed this cognitive shift is real, settled, part of me to the extent that I can ward of demons more aptly, then I wonder: is it time to challenge me ins some way? Should I venture out and find venues that I know from past experience are likely to be hard? Some possibilities:

- Visit my dad. Invariably this pushes huge ugly buttons that leave me breathless with pain at times.

- Stay up too late. I'm a lot better about this one, but I also know that past 1 or so, I move rapidly toward panic. If I chose a weekend with a safe tail, it would be a good experiment.

- Attend large social gatherings and make myself ask for something. This is impending, so it'll happen regardless.

There's also an intersting "companion" to all this: discovering and AFFIRMING what I like and don't like. I can envision this as being across fields of myself, places where, until now, I've often been reluctant to open up to myself. What do I like? What do I dislike? Those two questions alone can span so much of me, so much of the hidden me, that it makes me tired jus' thinkin' about it! But it is, I think, a very real possibility.

Part of this stems from my reading of Orloff, suggested by a dear friend (thank you!). It's not just about opening up my intuition, but as much about sensing, becoming sensitive to, my own limits and desires. She talks (or is going to talk) about overload and has talked about pace. When I did that particular exercise the other day, I was a bit startled by the rapidity of the result. It was clear and unambiguous. In sensing my own pace, I am in a very real sense connecting with my own needs and desires. If my pace is such that I am capitulating a lot, my own needs and desires are being shunted. I would do well to unlearn that, to learn how to manage my pace in a manner that suits me.


And not forget to not be mean in the process.

Difficult moments and fucked up dreams

It finally got a little nicer weatherwise here. It's odd to see after so many cold gray crappy days.

So I worked outside last night until 7. It was nice to do, to connect that way, to have my own space to do it the way it suited me. Not in any sort of cantankerous fuck you I never liked your way way, but more a finally I can just let go of that past and move ahead way. It was nice. Of course, I got sore. It's my own fault, I know. I haven't been doing the requisite back exercises, and I am under-exercised due both to medical and weather, but still...

A quiet evening alone was the ticket. An hour phone call with a soon-to-be playmate was nice, even thought I was frustrated about the likely need to cancel a planned visit to her. Vehicles can suck at times, Bad cash flow can suck even more!

I turned in late, and didn't even douse lights til almost midnight. I was surprised to then wake up, body hot, at 4:06, and toss and turn a lot. I finally decided after some false stops to shave and then have a little play, which of course cycled on and off - that wonderful tantric-like energy flow - I love that in the morning. THEN, of course, I fell back to sleep.

And those fall back to sleep dreams - they are WEIRD. This was no exception.

I'm at a banquet of some sort. The dining room is long, with a bit of a curve. I am sort of in line to get my food The plates are all individually separated by a cloth napkin and a tarnished silver platter like thingy. I take my plate (the napkins are just there to separate - napkins for eating are at the tables). The first food area is lasagna. There are several types, two primary variants. The main type is more or less conventional lasagna, but is really pretty. IT is cut perfectly clean and square, and looks almost like a plastic mime. The other type they call "British Lasagna" and I have no clue as to what it is. There is a lot less of it, and the pieces are quite small. It is dense looking, dark red, pungent. I take a piece and it sits on my big plate next to the regular beauty pageant lasagna. I move ahead. By the time I get to the next separate table of food - just vegetables and not too many of them - it looks like my beauty lasagna has somehow slipped right off the plate. There's not a trace of it. The British Lasagna is still there, clinging, stuck, to the plate. But no regular. Odd. So I move on, taking some green beans. I can't quite picture what was next, maybe nothing, but I do recall then turing round the last table to the other side and heading back. On my way, I see some poor service worker trying diligently to clean up a HUGE mess on the floor. I say as I pass, with a smile, "That was probably caused by me" thinking it was my missing beauty lasagna. But as I pass her, I realize that no, she is cleaning up a spilled quart of ice cream that had been dropped or fallen and melted on this nice rug. How it got there, melted, in the first place, seems odd to say the least.

I get back to the place I thought I was supposed to sit, a large round table, well, not quite round, but I recall somehow before I got food - you know how you often go and sit down and claim your spot? And I was with someone, I have no idea who. But I recall at that point I got into a bit of tiff with someone who, after I had quite clearly claimed my spot somehow (who knows how? jacket on the back? Turned up glass? Personal effects on seat?) simply took it and stated to sit down. I recall saying quite audibly "That is my seat" and she either ignored me or did not hear, at which point I repeated, VERY loudly "THAT IS MY SEAT". She turned and looked somehow stunned or insulted or maybe both? And proceeded to sit down anyway. It was like I was not there. Hmmm.... So I took the seat next to her. But, at any rate, when I did get back with my food, I realized that that seat too had been taken by someone, and even the person I was with simply looked up and smiled at me and then motioned me over... to where? IT was odd, but I recall thinking, oh no prob, I will go and sit at another table. And then there was this odd internal mental processing going on about how I normally (?) would have decided to go FAR away and pout, sit alone, act hurt, etc., but that this time, somehow, I simply wandered around and looked for a seat. The dream seems to have stopped before I actually sat down, but the last point is the one I am interested in.

Namely: I think I have some sort of fundamental cognitive shift in place. More than once in the past, oh, week, I have recognized that I was in a situation where I *should* have felt one way, *should* have acted one way, but did not. I was even aware several times of almost trying to direct my mind to that dark shitty place of the past... and realized it was like the door was locked, and my mind could not get in. Instead of "poor me" or "s/he won't like me anyway" kind of thinking, I was more "oh well. S/he likes me, it just didn't work out" thinking. It is a very fundamental change for me, one I like, but is a bit disarming.

I think it may be a combination of things.

First: regular SAMe. I think this has helped. IT may finally be at the point where I have a stable level in my body and so it works a little more consistently. One of the odd things that I have recognized about the past week is that I have had all or a combination of "hot buttons" that I know from painful experience have frequently led me to the black hole - over tired, lack of food, etc. But having had these in place and NOT having fallen in...

Second: I have somehow gotten over the toxic parts of my relationship with a lover. I love her deeply, I know, but in the past 6 months it got ricockulous. I was having separation anxiety when we said goodbye, I was taking her "I can't see you tonight"s really hard. I was not liking her other lovers. I recognized it was getting toxic for me. Somehow, I let go. I still love her deeply, and I would still consider a move to where she would go in 6 months to a year (if she goes). BUt now? It is like it is OK to NOT be so glued to her, NOT be so stick that every thing she does or does not do is somehow a reflection of my own failings or limits, or of her somehow deciding that I am not good enough.

I don't know where or how this happened, this cognitive shift, but it seems to be here.

Beltane Sacred Sexuality

This was Beltane number two for me. A decidedly mixed bag in many respects save one: the event was a lot of fun!

I hosted 3 workshops. The upside is.... I love giving this. The downside is that I miss almost ALL of the workshops I would like to attend, and here, that's quite a few!

Sexual meditations is really about a personal technique, and after 2 runs, and a small audience, I am gonna rethink this one. I love the method, I know the attendees love the result, but I'm not conveying something about this in the blurb. I either have to hard sell it or change tactics.

Body Image. This is ALWAYS a hard one. I had a good group this time, and all of us really put ourselves way out there with it. This time we had enough time each, and that made it a lot better. I also managed to remember to include a connect time at the END of the workshop - a simple circle and hold hands and an embrace one-on-one for each of us. I think that's important. The REALLY cool part about this is I was asked to present this workshop at a totally different venue later this year. This was a real honor, and I am hopeful I can pull it off (long distance to travel).

Body Painting. This was a first in this format. Last year I did a piece on the sacred mark - the idea there was to draw on the 50,000 year legacy of human beings to apply colors to the body. That went well, was quite different. This year, I decided I would have fun with it, plain and simple! So that we did: assembled about a dozen people and set up a nice range of crazy colors (silver and gold were huge hits!) and went at it. Lots of very cool designs, lots of interesting ideas, and then B and I paraded up vendors row with it! It was really fun. I plan to at least bring this to LR.

The Beltane rituals are really well done here. There is just the right blend of sacred, sensual and silly. They manage to be respectful while adding in a dash or two of irreverence to make it fun. It works well. I respect the process, and in fact wonder if it would make sense to go ahead and somehow require attendance at at least one of the rituals. Don't have any idea how that might work - maybe would have to be a carrot kind of approach, but I do see parallels here to the Winterfire no community meals issue. Shared participation builds bonds in ways that nothing else can, whether it is food or ritual, it's something that I think in the end really helps all the participants.

Turning to somewhat more personal matters....

I became aware at some point that every time I went near sex, this tape rolled in my head - "I am not good enough". I worked that for quite a while, trying to both notice it and overcome it. Of course, simply overcoming something like that is often problematic - without any knowledge of its root, overcoming is a little too much like ignoring. It doesn't work too well. I did not seem to make much progress on that approach. But then somehow it dawned on me: the problem is not so much I am not good enough, but rather that the same tape - "I am not good enough" - is a response to a deeper voice that scolds and reprimands and chides and denigrates. Once I found this vector, it felt different. Where did this voice come from?

And following a deep and heartfelt conversation with another participant - a conversation I not only did not know I was going to have, but also had no idea that it would take the crying painful direction it did take for me, I made this connection more tenaciously. He asked me at one point in reference to something else "Do you know whose voice it is?". that got me thinking a lot. IT is a way, I think, to try and approach the resolution or at least the management of this particular tape. If I can get to whose voice I hear, then I wonder if I can get to stopping the tape, perhaps beginning to erase it.

These are deep wounds, and I am not entirely sure I can heal them. They may continue on until I am dead. But I suppose in the end it makes more sense to at least try and work on them, to try and ameliorate the effects, and not simply let them continue to run me.