chaos, caliber, contention, and compassion

Not posting drama for all to see. Just expressing my sorrow as yet again education and self-actualization separates me from yet more people I love and contention builds in my home. Belief systems are what they are, and like attracts like. The real challenge comes when you change and someone doesn't, and the blindness of others causes grief. Then again, I was never very good at agreeing to disagree. Selfishness and egotism are two things I do not tolerate well, either, nor do I allow myself to be mowed over. Not willing to write this person out of my life, however, which is my SOP normally. Don't know how else to handle it, though. I'm pretty hot-headed myself.

All I know is that where I want to take my education and succeed, and help another succeed, someone else's lack of education and ego is creating a quagmire of ill will.

...I'm getting a lot of practice separating business from personal. A lot.

it rhymes with "assloads of money"

today i spent a total of four hours and something-something minutes masterminding with the CEO of paradice.net about some really heavy-duty, hit-the-ground-running-or-be-taken-for-a-drag kind of stuff.

i'm so jazzed that three hours later, i'm still working on details, exchanging emails like greased lightening with him, talking to artists across the country about what's possible, and it's just so effing exciting i can't even really contain myself.

i'm tired, but it's a good kind of tired, y'know?

but i just wanted to share how proud i am that i lit a fire beneath that CEO's butt, and now our small gaming company has plans to go global very soon. even our (extremely modest) projections will yield a profit that rhymes with "assload of money." you know, the "quit my job" kind of quantities.

while doing something i truly love, and believe in.

with people i love to be around.

earning money to fart around with my friends and have fun.

and it's not only possible, but it's so farkin' within reach that it has us alternately dropping our jaw and gasping with wonder, and giddy with excitement. you know, the stomach-flipping, eye-bulging, bladder-busting kind of excited that lit a fire under our ass and fueled four hours of intense master planning and strategy building.

it's going to be intense.

intense.

AHA! Moment: "And I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing"

y'know, lately i've felt really horrible about missing out on all the wonderlicious stuff happening in our little iVillage.

though, i think with how often i've not been posting, i might've been relegated to the outskirts of town, over by the dirt road, in our iVillage, out by no one, lol.

sorry, ladies. i truly am. i miss all of you, and whole days go by where one of the few thoughts in the forefront of my mind is how to convey that since, y'know, we all only really know each other online. and life is, well, Life. we're out there living it every day and coming home to our blog is for most of us a haven of sorts, where we can be alone with our thoughts and have the time to validate ourselves as women.

i know that's what it was for me. my blog has always been a place where i could toss up my thoughts --like paint splatter on a wall-- and just look at it from a more removed location than the overwhelmed tangle it was in my head. it was also my introspective home; i live in my head a lot. i mean, who doesn't? but for me, my inner life is actually more real than the physical life i have.

don't know a lot of people who can honestly say that. i mean, what an egotistical, scary-hermit-like thing to say. then again, some would say what an existential thing to say. so i suppose it's all how you look at it. but really, for me, for years...my thoughts were more to me than the actual physical experiences of my daily life.

now it's just the opposite. it's the ebb and flow of life. something in me shifted, i think, and suddenly i was ready to take all that i'd processed in my head and heart, and go make things happen. and i did. and i am. and now life is so much fun that, for the most part, i don't want to miss it by sitting down at my computer and living online.

there's not much that i have to think about right now. i put the important things together, found where i was out of alignment and put myself back into alignment, and finally learned how to say, "screw what anyone else wants, this life is mine." ...but in a good way.

because i finally realized what it was i wanted. and i'm going out and getting it. i'm kicking ass and taking names, building bigger plans and watching them begin to unfold.

and...i...

...i just don't have the time or --if i'm honest, the desire-- to live online and blog like mad like i used to. my life rocks, honestly. really, truly rocks. and with what i'm building, it's gonna rock even harder here shortly. but i don't want to give anything away, or speak too soon. i just want to keep my momentum.

but i miss my iVillage. just wanted to mention that.

the variety-pak of life

there's so much going on inside my head right now, and honestly i don't know where to begin. life just does that funny, meandering, mixed-up thing it does, and suddenly i'm sitting here trying to blog and wondering where to begin.

life has in no way whatsoever settled into anything remotely resembling a routine. i find i miss routine. just thinking about the lack of routine makes my head hurt and i wanna lie down. then again, that could also be from the gluten attack i had on friday night that laid me up until pretty much today. careful avoidance of gluten has made me extremely susceptible to even small amounts now, and wow. it felt like i'd just been kicked by an elephant.

work is going pretty well. as a pest inspector, i'm expected to squeeze myself into some pretty icky places beneath houses, and in attics. i find it fun, actually, and i enjoy people's reactions when they see that i --a cute, smiling, cheerful li'l chica-- is gonna go dungeon delving in their crawl space. it's kinda fun. and i'm starting to really get to know the technicians that follow after me to perform the actual services that i've sold our customers. i like to leave little things for them, like gift cards to mc menamin's, etc. just to say thank you for taking care of these people and backing up my word. we all work together, y'know? but it's nice when i know that these wonderful guys got my back. i'm starting to get further into the business where the teenie details that i don't know are bubbling up, and they look out for me. so i show my appreciation.

school is still...hmm. i don't know where i'm headed with that just yet. i got back my transfer results from the Admissions office regarding the classes i had taken years ago in cali. now, instead of being 66 credits until my degree, i only have 30 to go. and i still have my 4.0; i'm a little relieved. of course, this rather derails my plans for which courses i was going to take, so now i have to sit down with my councillor again and re-plan everything. and i still don't know if i'm going to take a fall course yet. spring semester threw me for such a loop, and now i admit that there's so much dread it turns my stomach whenever i think of enrolling.

*mj*, eager darling that he is, sat down with me last night to start talking about things like the menu for samhain. it might be early, but i suppose he's like me in that he wants to be as prepared as possible. i can appreciate that. i told him that what i really wanted was a cake. i haven't done any baking since the "yay, i can't eat guten!" news, and i really, really miss baked goods. you know how long it's been since i've had a brownie?! and plain ol' yellow cake with chocolate frosting, i miss it. no real baking gets done during the summer, but even at the stores i can't eat anything there. i keep thinking of that little place on the east side that apparently makes a phenomenal gluten-free chocolate cake...and i'm wondering if it's worth the drive...

so yeah. just a yellow cake, homemade chocolate buttercream frosting. that would make halloween such a special holiday for me. kinda funny.

and my li'l sister *t* is coming up on monday! i'm so excited sometimes it feels like i'm going to burst apart. my li'l sis is something else, i swear. i tell everyone that i was the rough draft, and ten years later the finished product was born. she's everything cool that i am, only to the nth degree, plus she's got so much else going for her. she's so awesomely awesome! and even more, i can be myself around her in a way that i really can't anywhere else except with her and my li'l bro *aj*. we just get all of our jokes (hell, a lot of them we invented together), and she gets my subtleties like no one else. she's been there for me through...well, my entire life, and she just knows those things for which there are no words. those things that help make me who i am that can't really be explained but influence me nonetheless. she gets me.

when she visits, people up here see us together, then look at me...nod...and say, "Now i get it!" see? it's not just me! and she's the only one that i can laugh 'till i die with. you know when you're laughing so hard you're flopped out on the floor, tears streaming down your face, with absolutely no more breath for any sound at all...but you can't stop laughing to take a breath? yeah, that's us.

a part of me relaxes when she's around. hell, we grew up together; no such thing as a mystery between us. but also, i just really farkin' adore her.

when i grow up...

...i wanna be just like her.

brezsny-on-the-blog

CAPRICORN (December 22 - January 19): It makes me famished just to think of you there stewing in your hunger. You almost remind me of a bear that's just awoken from hibernation or a political prisoner who's been on a hunger strike. And yet I know it's not a craving for food that you're suffering from. It's not even an impossible yearning for sex or fame or power or money, either. You're starving, you're ravenous, you're mad for something you don't have a name for -- something whose existence you don't fully understand and can't quite imagine. But I predict you'll uncover a fuller truth about this thing very soon, and then you'll be more than halfway toward gratifying your hunger.



i must admit, mr. brezsny, you actually kinda creeped me out with how accurate you are this week. I suppose it's because i've gradually been growing more restless over the last several weeks. there's been something gnawing at the back of my mind and it keeps me up at night. i pace in my bedroom, i'm distracted at work, i can't focus. i brood. i look out the window sometimes and picture myself crashing through the glass and flying away.

...or flying toward something. i can never be sure.

but then you said "stewing in your hunger" and it hit me just how right you are about that. the stewing part, and the hunger part. i'm pacing because i'm hungry. i'm restless because i'm hungry. i can't focus because i'm obsessing on this nameless thing that i'm hungry for.

part of me thinks it's hunger for a relationship. part of me thinks it's hunger for a relationship and something else. but both parts of me are in agreement that i'm ready for the real thing. a while ago i came to the realization that i am not happy alone; that i am just plain built to be part of something special with another person. however, i wasn't exactly ready back then for anything special with anyone. but at least i wasn't denying my nature any longer, saying that i was fine by myself and all that other post womens' lib crap.

but once i made the decision that a relationship was what i wanted, the hunger and restlessness began to grow. when i make the decision to do something, i don't waste time. i get up that moment and begin doing things to bring my end goal into fruition. i don't stop until i get what i want. it's just how i am.

however, i want the right relationship, and that's just not something you can rush. it's also not a goal you can work on that has any sort of measurable progress. you're alone, alone, alone...suddenly you're with someone. and i don't want just anyone, either, but the right one. i'm talking about the one, my one. my funkalicious groovemate.

if he's out there.

but i made the decision it's what i wanted, and aside from continuing to groom and mold myself into my own perfect, funkalicious groovemate, there's really nothing i can do. i'm not out to meet people, or get back into the dating scene, or play the field. i'm not out to waste my time or tire myself out "making the rounds." i'm just not.

but going about my life, trusting that it'll "just happen" is rather discouraging. my life consists of work, work, work, coming home and playing catch-up on chores that never get completely caught up. in the fall there will be school, and homework (which i'm dreading, but for entirely different reasons), and i've decided to pick up Freedom Revolution again, because i deserve it.

i don't have time to "play the field," and some would say that i don't have any time for any sort of relationship at all. but i say that i would have all the time in the world for the right person. however, i can't do anything to make that person show up. i can only continue as i have been.

and that sucks. hard. it's frustrating, and disheartening, and in the meantime i'm so lonely that it actually hurts right in my solar plexus. pathetic as it sounds. "lonely" is such an ugly, pathetic word. i'm surrounded by pairs of happy, comfortable partners and am so lonely i'll take affection from any direction it's offered right now. and i'm sorry if that doesn't sound quite as funktastic as Delena of the Funkywild is. but no matter how intelligent, or smart, or cute, or strong i am, i need to be touched and hugged and kissed and held while i sleep and told i'm pretty, and an entire host of other things that are so pathetic for a Wild Amazon to be admitting.

but fuck that, and fuck womens' lib, and fuck how it makes me look, and fuck what i think about what's pathetic, and fuck what anyone else thinks about what i need. i know what i need, and i know i want, and i know what i've had to live without.

there's also the conundrum of my love and loyalty for my parents...and my own happiness. if there were someone out there who was perfect for me, but who did not exactly meet my parents' standards, which would be more important? my loyalty to them, respect and obedience? or knowing i was passing up my chance to live a happy life with that perfect someone long after my parents are gone? the thought of either one twists a knife in my heart. there's injustice with either choice. but the thought of being kept from happiness brings a special pain. i've been abused so much, and had so much taken away from me from a very young age. the wish to be happy seems such a small thing to want.

i don't want to go another thirty years still pining for happiness, walking around incomplete.

brezsny-on-the-blog

i was lying upon my naked back and staring up at a sky as vivid as a bluejay's wing. clouds decorated the blue expanse; big, fluffy bundles like the goddess had come with a huge frosting applicator and squeezed out perfect little puffs of white frosting.

was the weather always paradise perfect, here in the Valley? it couldn't be Paradise; i wasn't dead. perhaps it was enough to simply be, to feel paradise around me. perhaps it was Her telling me that anywhere is paradise, depending on my own state of mind.

it was difficult to feel, though. the pomegranate priestess' words had pierced straight through me. i reached up and rubbed the place between my breasts, where the other priestess had invoked the blue-skinned, flame-haired vulture goddess aspect within and lain my breast in twain with her sickle.

there should have been a scar there. the wound had rent the bone, leaving my beating heart open to the sky as my life's blood poured into the River Funk. but my skin was smooth and perfect. i had long ago discovered if i brooded too deeply upon the remembered pain --vivid and sensitive as my memory was-- the wound would reopen of its own accord as if freshly cut. if i focused on the lessons learned, the wound closed. if i brooded, i bled.

lesson learned. self-pity and holding onto past trauma injured my body, mind, and soul as if freshly inflicted..and i was the one applying the pain. musings upon the lesson, and the strength i gained while floating half-dead along the River, strengthened me. nourished me.

the skin between my breasts itched. i was brooding, and i knew it. so many questions, and no experience in my entire life was sufficient to lead me to an answer. how to choose among the sisters? how to know to which sect of them i belonged? i felt a kinship with them all.

the vial was its own weight, and dilemma. whom to bless with its contents? who was deserving, or in most need of a baptism in blood? the mystery of turning water into blood was mine, but how? what to do, how to use it? such responsibility weighed heavily upon me, and i could feel it in the weight of the vial itself. it grew heavier by the moment.

to leave Valley-in-the-Glade? its beautiful colors and gently rolling hills were no longer a safe haven for me; i felt it in my blood. the presence of the blood priestess had changed all that. i was free to remain there as long as i wished, but i knew it was time to leave. however, leaving terrified me. i didn't know how to leave, or even if i truly wanted to. i was comfortable there, and all my needs were attended--

...no, that wasn't true. not entirely. something within me ached, but i couldn't name what it was. the longer i remained in the Valley, the more of its bounty i ate and by every pampered night, it would feel emptier and emptier to me. soon i would be starving. but for what?

i closed my eyes and gave up trying. all i was doing was going 'round in circles trying to figure out something that couldn't be solved.

"the last mystery of the Valley," said a voice.

i sat up, startled, and looked around. up above me sat the most beautiful man i had ever seen. for once and all i knew the Valley was not only alive, but aware. how else, then, could it know to show me my ideal man, perfect in every detail to my own tastes from his long hair and stubble around his mouth, to his broad shoulders, barrel chest, kind eyes and broad proportions?

i was breathless. he was naked, as was i, and i was blushing!

cheeks burning, i curled my legs beneath me to hide my sex, and shook my dreadlocks to cover my bare torso.

he laughed. "too late. i already got a good eyeful." at my pained expression, he laughed harder. "but i shall pretend i saw nothing and that my mind is as pure as the water of the pool in which you bathed earlier."

my jaw dropped.

"you're very pretty," he said.

i buried my face in my hands and squealed with shame and embarrassment. suddenly i felt hands around my shoulders, large and warm and gentle.

"come now," he said. "is it so terrible to know you had an admirer watching from the trees? like actaeon as he spied artemis at her bath."

"and was torn apart by her hounds," i finished, face still buried in my hands.

he chuckled, and gently pulled my hands away from my face. "true, but you have a much more generous heart than she perhaps had, and would have mercy on one such as me. i was simply unable to keep silent any longer. and you looked in need of a friend."

i shook my head. "it's nothing," i said. "it's stupid. but it's nothing." i was already burying it deep down, hiding it from him as i had always hidden everything from everyone.

"dear priestess," he said gently. "now don't do that. don't bury it. i don't care what you feel, as long as you don't feel nothing. get inflamed with hunger or justice or sadness or beauty or love," he laughed, "or embarrassment at being caught naked when you thought you were alone. but don't submit to apathy."

...apathy? was that what i had been doing? no, surely not! all i was doing was putting it away, where it wouldn't get in the way of what needed to be done. emotions always got in the way, were painful distractions and conspired against me to leave me tender after yet another betrayal, yet another abusive relationship as the illusion of love disintegrated and i saw it for what it had always been. by shoving them down into the deepest, darkest little corner of my mind, i had made sure my emotions did not rule me.

pragmatism and a refusal to romanticize things had been what kept me from hurting. from wondering why i was so unlovable that everyone i had ever loved had thrown me away. that was what i had been doing...right?

he smoothed the back of his hand down my cheek. "don't let yourself be shunted into numbness. you can't afford to be cut off from the source of your secret self, even if it means having to feel like hell for a while." he leaned in closer to whisper in my ear. i closed my eyes and inhaled his nearness. "and the odd thing is that if you're willing to go through hell, you won't have to go through hell. so to hell with your poker face and neutrality and dispassionate stance."

eyes still closed, i gave a small, wry smile. "be a wild thing, not a mild thing, huh?"

he kissed my forehead. "precisely."

Ex animo, Delena

i looked at the priestess for what seemed an eternity. the small vial of water-turned-blood was as heavy as sin, and getting heavier.

"you feel it calling, don't you?" she said.

i sighed. "more like i can't deny its calling any longer," i said. "i've stuffed it down for so long; my whole life. but now...lately...it's shouting so loudly it's like some white noise in the background that has slowly gotten louder until it's all i can hear." i shook my head. "everywhere i turn, it's all i can see. every sound is drowned out by it. every lesson turns me back to it. there's just no escape."

"and why would you run from it, then, sister?" she said, smiling. "if it is tied to you, it does not matter how you run, for it will always follow you. do you not recall our sister, skeleton woman?"

"but reprieve!" i almost shouted. "not one second of peace! i need a break from all that noise so i can think! i know she's down there, and i know i need to deal with it. but i need time to get used to the idea and decide what i'm going to do about it."

the priestess shook her head. "and how much time have you had already? you knew everything was there, and you ignored it. that part of yourself you run from. how long have you ignored her, trapped her down, silenced her, kept her in the darkness and neglected her?"

the vial of blood weighed as much as a mountain now. the loose knot holding the ragged scarf around my head came apart, and my dreadlocks tumbled down my back. i remembered how my silhouette had looked so medusan, and in the back of my mind i could hear the faint sound of many snakes hissing in my ears. they sounded angry. ever growing, snakes continually shed their skins, and i could almost hear words in their hissing as they reprimanded me for refusing to shed my own skin.

"she needs to stay there," i whispered, horrified. "she gets in my way."

the pomegranate priestess stood, then, and brushed herself off. "then perhaps we were wrong, and this affinity for our path is only on the surface. stay here in the Valley, then, little sister. for apparently this is as far as you go."

she turned to walk away, but i reached out and snatched her blood-stained hand in my own. i was staring off into the distance, unable to look up and meet her eyes. "she's hated," i said. "perhaps not by me, but she is hated. when i embrace her, i am scorned. they mistreat me, and scold me, and cheapen me, and use me. i am not some cheap, simple thing to be cast aside!"

"they don't understand," she said gently. "they have lost their own innocence, so when they see yours they cannot bear it. some would subsume it, as ancient societies believed consuming the body would absorb the spirit as well. others would destroy it within you, for your obvious power reminds them of their starving lack. this part of you, this other, is someone you run from because of the pain you believe others inflict upon you because of her.

"i say to you that you have done yourself --and her-- a grave injustice. you have misunderstood her, and yourself. you have hidden her away so none could abuse her, yet you continue their work and abuse her far worse than anyone else could ever dream. and so i ask you, sister, why you curse those who have deeply wronged you, why you refuse to forgive most of them, when you do nothing but continue their work upon yourself? do you do this for some measure of control? to please them? to make sense of things you could not possibly have understood when you were young? some other reason entirely, or perhaps some combination of them all?

"whatever it is, my dear sister, it is something you will need to conquer before we can allow you your first crimson of our sisterhood." she pulled her hand free from mine. "if that is still your wish."

and she left me there in Valley-in-the-Glade, naked and trembling and clutching a vial of my own blood. few ever come this far, they had said. fewer survive.

...i was beginning to understand why.

if...

i follow tony robbins on twitter, and earlier he asked what we would do if we knew this was our last day here. i've heard that question before. we all have. it's everywhere. but for some reason, tonight i thought about it.

if i only had 24 hours, i'd call someone up and confess i'm falling in love. nothing huge, nothing grandiose. just quiet, and warm, and there. i'd fill up the Funkmobile and drive to the coast, sit at Hug Point on the huge rock at the south end and write haiku. i'd call up suzi and *t* and li'l *c* and tell them how much i love and miss them. i'd fix myself a huge, honkin' plate of spaghetti and say to hell with celiac disease. oh! and cake. yellow cake with homemade chocolate frosting. i'd buy neat new toys for my cat and give him catnip and just give him the happiest day with me he's ever had.

the next, natural question is, "so then why aren't you doing those things now? why wait until your last day on earth?"

well, to be honest, aside from the whole eating spaghetti and confessing something akin to love (which is probably more like trust, which considering it's me we're talking about, it's probably even more miraculous), i already do those things. i call up the people i love. i tell them i love and miss them. i make sure my kitty is the happiest kitty on the planet. everything else takes care of itself.

right now, i should be taking care of me. and i'm tired. i'm headed to bed.

just thought i'd share...

delena haiku

it's a gorgeous day,
and for once, i'm not working!
took a day to rest.

thoughts of freedom are
once more circling 'round my brain.
just can't let it go.

all it takes is rest.
just a little, and i'm back:
Funk Soul Goddess, yeah!