I am on vacation in Chicago, I've been here for a week.  I enjoy the ebb and flow of vacation; complete enjoyment of being away, then the gradual pull back to return to my life.  I haven't written on this blog for awhile.  I'm glad to take a break, but the tide is coming back in now, and I need a refocus. 

The Taste of Chicago was spectacuar.  Top restaurants from around the city, all gathered in Grant Park to sell samples of their cuisine.  Personal favorites: The Original Rainbow Cone, turkey sausage deep-dish pizza, toasted raviolis.  The best part, however, was the Tums station that was set up in the middle of the park.

I have tried to do some drawing while here... I've just finished a great book on perspective (Perspective! For Comic Book Artists by David Chelsea, I highly recommend it).  Now the challenge is incorporating the principles of perspective into my fledgling style of drawing.  Most of my style is curvy and somewhat whimsical.  Perspective demands a lot of lines and angles, and this has thrown off my style.  I am becoming frustrated with a particular two-page spread.  I need to be patient and recalibrate.

My triathlon training is nonexistent right now... although I did go for my first open water swim in Lake Michigan.  Correction: I was tossed from wave to wave in Lake Michigan, and I only made it from one buoy to another by the grace of God alone.  Now that I know what that's all about... I can see why solid technique is so important.  Must get membership at the Y!

So what's the difference between genuine sadness and the ego throwing a fit?

I woke up this morning, laid in bed for a while longer than I intended, finally got up and put my running clothes on.  I went for a nice, easy run (20 minutes) and was home, showered and dressed, and eating a nice breakfast before going to the train.  But once on the train, I started feeling a heaviness in my chest, a weird sadness.  What is that?  An emotion just passing through?  A reaction to taking action instead of bunking out in the safe harbor of my imagination?  Wanting to immediately be the best at something, and realizing that I won't be?  Does it even matter?

I guess I'm wondering if I even have to KNOW why feelings come and go, and why I'm affected by some things.  If I observe something and strive to understand it, it give me tools on how to move forward.  If I make an erroneous judgement, however, that holds me back.  So if I decided that I felt sad because running is actually bad for me (which I have done in the past), I stay stuck.

A workout journal would be good for this.

It's becoming painfully obvious that if I want to pursue my passions, I should set goals, so I can understand how and when to put one foot in front of the other.  This is particularly and literally true for triathlon training.  Apparently there's a base aerobic fitness period, then a build period, then a peak period, and a recovery period, all mapped out in weeks and minutes of progress, etc.  It's extremely scientific.  I'm such an emotional butterfly, I prefer to flit from one sweet-smelling idea to another as the winds carry me.  So strapping myself down to a specific program and keeping consistent notes on my progress, and making preplanned adjustments therein... that's pretty foreign, and totally against my grain.  (This will be a completely different kind of "resistance training".  Ha!)

I really feel that my resistance to this comes from my concept of the present moment (is that an oxymoron?).  If I am totally present, how do I work toward a future goal?  Aren't I thinking about the future?  What about this moment, now?  I'm writing in this blog, something I planned on doing.  I feel completely invested in this present moment, feeling the keys on my fingers and hearing that keyboard chatter when I strike them.  But I planned on writing something this morning, even if I wasn't sure what I would be writing.

More on this mystery later.  Time to draw now.  (Something I planned on doing.)

So I'm prepared for this resistance, even one day after my passionate dedication.  What I wasn't prepared for was the fear and anxiety that accompanied it.  About the most mundane things.  "Did I leave the burners on at home?"  "Did I lock the door?"  "Did my girlfriend lock the door?" (something totally out of my control, just for variety)  But mostly, it's the burner, the burner that I used this morning to make eggs and didn't double-double check before I left.  I am 98% sure that I turned it off.

And so I deep bow to my anxiety, allow it to flood me while I stay as rooted to the ground as I can, and I get out my pencil and drawing pad.

...right now I am feeling INSPIRED.  I have learned about the world of triathlon, and I'm delving into it sprint-style; full steam ahead.  I know from experience that once the bubbly high of inspiration wears off, it's difficult to continue working through the hangovers of resistance and apathy.  But I feel I have to hold myself accountable.  I have lived in this safe coccoon for five years, and the eros inside itches to explode outward.  I have to come clean with myself:

I am an athlete.

I am a filmmaker.

I am a meditator, a student of Zen.

I am a storyteller, an artist, a musician.

I am an imperfect being, I will not be able to keep everyone happy, I will learn the courage to say I'm sorry, I will accept people where they are in life.

I am a lover, and I am loved in return with the strength of the ocean.

I may not always be able to articulate it, but I know at my core that

I LOVE LIVING THIS LIFE

and that my responsibility to give everything I have is also my fullest joy.

Let it begin today.  Let it begin now.

Does anyone have the cure for this?

Other names it goes by: Prejudgemental Asphixiation, Self-Imposed Stagnation, Overabundent Pondering, Egoic Apology, Spectral Inhibition, Swamp Feet.

Feel free to add your own.

This is the delete key over which my finger is poised, even before I've typed a letter.  It's the eraser that I pull out of my artist's bag before I reach for the pencil.  It's the questions from my audience I'm already trying to answer in my head, before there's anything to answer for.

Whatever it is, it totally sucks my ass.

I know where it comes from.  Some people need beer, others need crack, or sex, or food, money, power.  My addiction is the approval of others.  While growing up, my creative process depended completely upon the praise of whoever was most important to me; parents, teachers, amours.  It totally whacked out my perspective.  If I wrote something, or drew something, or learned a new piano piece, and I showed it to these Sentinels, their reaction would shape my own.  They loved it, and I was convinced that no one had created something so magical, so rare.  If they didn't understand it or reacted with anything other than awe and adoration, it was instantly transformed into dog crap before my eyes.  I'd think, "How did I ever find this meaningful?  What was I thinking?"  And not only was the work rendered meaningless, but the experience that informed it as well.

That didn't last too long; as a teenager I developed the good ol' "Well, I like it, so FUCK YOU" attitude, which was wonderfully protective, but socially unproductive.  So I learned how to turn less-than-stellar reactions into a dialogue, and to separate my identity from my creation.  Seems like that should have solved it, learning the adult art of accepting constructive criticism.

But there's still a tether in me that keeps me from flinging myself open and pouring it all out, even though I know I could sort it out later and turn it into something.  Am I afraid of a major regression, of reoccupying that psychological space of complete openness I inhabited as a child?  Or is it so much more complicated than that?

I'm going to the Ken Wilber talk in New York tonight.  I deliberately left all KW books at home, because I am NOT going up to him after the talk to get them signed.  I refuse to look like a groupie.

Where does that come from ?  What's wrong with a little enthusiasm?  Why shouldn't I be able to rush up to him after his talk, clutching Sex, Ecology, Spirituality in my hands, and tell him how he changed my life and made it easier to live, and ask him if he wouldn't mind, to sign my book?  What's the big problem?  Well, of course, there's always that old, comfortable fear of rejection.  That reticence that I might get blown off; scram, kid, I've got better things to do than sign your book.  This most likely won't happen, and I know it.  Most limelight people are decent, and they'll sign a book or a poster or a baseball glove, they know it comes with public territory.  But my interpretive mind won't let it go at that, it wants to find the tiny grimace at the corners of the lips that preceeds the smile, the small sigh of irritation that escapes before I'm asked "Now, who should I sign this to?"

Don't worry.  If there's none there, I'll make it up.  What is my freaking problem?

I remember being a child, an energetic, enthusiastic one at that.  I was forever creating, writing, pouring myself out on paper and piano keys.  I also remember being the butt of many jokes at school, being pointed at, laughed at, slinking from class to class in fear, please God, just get me to Social Studies without being made fun of.  I had weird hair and I said strange, socially inept things, I fixated on the emotional state of my friends and couldn't understand their fixation on boys.  I didn't know why this was.  But I did know that being enthusiastic about anything was automatic ammunition for the laughers and pointers.  So any outward love I had for anything became gradually compressed into a tiny cube and placed on a shelf, as far away from myself as possible.  I became the ultamite cynic.  I was even cynical about cynicism.  If someone thought something was stupid, I thought it was stupider.  No way was I going to show anyone that I liked anything.  No way.

I know I'm not the only one who felt like this growing up.  But that doesn't mean I didn't feel like the only one.

So here I am at 30, and the demons keep resurfacing.  My girlfriend is an incredible person, totally sure of who she is and unafraid of public opinion.  I remember, not long after I'd met her, she thought she saw a soap opera star on the street, one from her favorite soap, and she wanted to get her autograph.  I remember my reaction, uncomfortable and restrictive, stemming from my own past.  But I couldn't help but marvel at her complete openness, her enthusiasm.  Where was my enthusiasm?  What had I done with it? 

Why are all my Wilber books on the shelf at home?

This may be my only opportunity to meet one of the greatest consciousness philosophers of our time, and I don't think my inhibitions are going to recede long enough for me to ask for an autograph, or even just to say 'hi'.  So I'll say what I'd want to say here:

Ken, I was introduced to your work by sitting next to a man on a jet plane going from Phoenix to Albequerque.  (Ask me sometime, it's a funny story.)  It was really meant to be: Your work didn't change my life so much as focus it.  I was at the height of my frustration, tired of picking through religions, political views, even personal arguments, wondering which one was right, when they all had valid points.  AQAL was like a beacon, showing me that all those points really were valid, when they were framed in the right way.  Also, before hearing about you and the work of Integral Institute, I was under the impression from psychology classes that one's personality and aptitude was cemented into place at age 25.  I felt cemented into my life, with no option of moving on (why bother, when everything has already been determined?).  Learning about states, stages, lines of development, and their interaction, Spiral Dynamics integral, 2nd tier, 3rd tier etc. radically changed my perspective.  Suddenly, life seemed like a true living process again, and I felt unlimited.  I AM unlimited.  I've got big plans, lots of ideas, and I can't wait to see them come to fruition, in whatever way suits them best.  And you are partly to thank for that jumpstart.  So, thank you.  Thank you for being you and for all that you've done.


P.S.  Hopefully, this blog illustrates the importance of Shadow work.  I've never done any, and I really, really want to.  I've been sending out questions on zaadz in various pods and emails, and I am becoming frustrated as I've gotten no responses as of yet.  If anyone is reading this, and could point me in an educational direction, I would be very grateful.

So I'm up at the Catskills last weekend, visiting my girlfriend, who is participating in an Opera Commune-Camp run by crazy Italians.  (I'd explain more, but that's a whole blog unto itself.  Just go with me here.)  On Sunday, we all attend High Mass, held at the home which constitutes the camp.  We're singing beautiful Gregorian chant, the incense swings back and forth, erupting in clouds of sandalwood, the sun shines down through the tall glass doors and windows.  I'm really enjoying the whole experience, and I find myself in a calm, centered place.

Then the sermon starts.

The topic is Saint Pious X, apparently one of the only Popes to ever be cannonized.  He is responsible for the inclusion of Gregorian chant in High Mass, and he issued some proclamation against modernity during his Papacy.  To illustrate the point, the Priest says that during the chant, he could hear the angels singing, and when he turned the radio on, he could hear the devils howling.

At that point, I knew we were in for it.

Having established his launching pad, the Priest whips himself into a frenzy, railing against the devils of culture, stating that the Devil's greatest accomplishment was convincing people that it was ok to believe different things, that the Catholic Church was the only one true church of God, that interpretation of the Bible was BAD, and that the only thing that other religious beliefs accomplish is to steal our (Catholic) children and drag them into the depths of depravity.  Indeed, we are "engaged in SPIRITUAL WARFARE, people!"

I'm like, "Daaaaaamn! Girlfriend has got her collar on WAY too tight."  That's really one of the only times in my adult life that I actually almost started laughing during a church service.  (Well, when nobody had farted, anyway.)

But then, I have the odd sensation of watching a relic in action.  And I wonder how "old school" this type of sermon truly is.  How many people and groups across the world carry this same theme in their own contexts?  We are the keepers of the one true way?  And it's my way or the highway?  How much strife happens every day because people meet each other with this unbending, unflinching belief?

And that makes me stop and examine my own overwhelmingly strong desire to dismiss this man as a total quack.  I don't have to like what he says.  But does that mean that I should deride his entire being?  I really, really want to.  I'm already dreaming up great zingers to be hurled at his expense.  I am so deeply annoyed by his limited view (in my opinion) of reality that I have already labeled him as a whole.  So my question is, how do I meet this man on his own turf while maintaining integrity and respect?

Later in the service, I have an opportunity to answer that question.  And funny enough, I both succeed and fail in the same action.

The Priest offers a blessing to heal memories.  He says that our greatest difficulties sometimes lie in our inability to let issues go.  The blessing he will perform involves annointing our foreheads with oil, saying a prayer, and holding this small, circular metal artifact of St. Catherine to our oiled-up foreheads.  He wants to put us in a place where we are ready to offer our total, clean forgiveness, if it is asked of us.  I still find the terms "forgiveness" and "forgivingness" archaic and personally stigmatized with negativity, but I love what he's saying about letting your past go.  That, I feel, is a universal truth.  THAT is where I can meet this man.  So I go up to receive the blessing, pleased that even after being thoroughly offended, there is room for common ground after all.

That's how I succeeded.  Here's how I failed.

As I'm standing in line for the oil-and-artifact blessing, a little uncontrollable part of me that lives in the back of my head dances around, saying "I'm going to go up to you for your Catholic blessing, wearing my Pagan pentacle, and you're going to see my Pagan pentacle, and you're going to have to put your Catholic oil and your Catholic artifact on my Pagan forehead, and say a little prayer for my Pagan soul, and I'm going to wear your Catholic oil around on my forehead all afternoon, and at the end of the day, it's coming off my face with the rest of my make-up when I use my Pagan washcloth!"

Hey, nobody's perfect.

You gotta be kidding me.

Awareness?  Brought on by a horror movie?

Wait.  Let me start at the beginning.

Last night, my friend Austin and I decided to go see The Descent.  (Read: Austin duped me into seeing The Descent.)  Yes, I knew it was a horror flick going into it.  Yes, I was aware that the movie would get out at 9:30 PM, afterwhich I would have to take a long train ride, walk home from the station in the dark, and go to sleep, alone, in my dark, creaking apartment.  I told myself that a movie is nothing but a series of images projected onto a screen, accompanied by a soundtrack.  I thoght I could handle it.

For those of you who don't know, The Descent is about six rock-climbing supermodels who go into a cave and get eaten by pale, slimy, mutant humans.  Austin's sitting next to me, saying things like "Damn, she is fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine," and I'm like, "Who cares!  She's about to get eaten!"  Projected images be damned; Human carnage disturbs me, no matter how cheesy the acting, or how inane the dialogue.  I don't like watching people screaming in terror, writhing in needless pain.

Here's where the awareness comes in.

Fast forward to me, at home, all lights blazing, brushing my teeth, pissed off at Austin.  Staring at myself in the mirror, thinking, it's just a movie, it's just a movie, it's just a movie.  I lock all my windows and doors, check all my windows and doors, and turn off the lights.  And as I crawl into bed, I am so totally AWARE.  Of every creaking, snapping sound of the house settling.  Of every leaf on every tree that brushes the windows with the wind.  Of my own heart, which refuses to beat less than 95 beats per minute.  Of how loud my breathing is.  And of my own mind, which returns to key scenes of hightened nastiness like a stuck CD, fabricating slimy pale mutants in the corners of the room.  I don't think this is the serene, buddhist-on-a-mountaintop awareness I'd imagined.  I know I'm experiencing an emotionally charged state, wrapped up in traumatized past visuals and terrified future projections.  Doesn't matter.  I'm still (sensorially) hyper-aware and freaked out.  And I can't turn it off.

I do fall asleep eventually, only to jump out of bed like a startled cat when my alarm goes off at 5:00 AM.  That does it.  I'm up, and I might as well turn all the lights back on.    I go downstairs, turn on the radio, and start making an omlette.  The newscast this morning features an arrest in the Jonbenet case, a little girl who lost her entire family in an accident on the New Jersey Turnpike, and three teenage boys who are in critical condition after being hit by a car.

Here's where more awareness comes in. 

I hear this kind of news every day.  This morning, the real-life horror stories people are living day in and day out grab me in a way I haven't experienced before.  This morning, it hurts me, really cuts into me.  For me, the curse of all this integral stuff is that I've turned it into a convenient way to explain away anything that happens to anyone.  Someone's devastated because she lost her daughter in a house fire?  Totally understandable reaction from the upper-left quadrant.  My friend's mother passed away?  Well, we're all connected, and we are everything already, so nothing was really lost.  But this morning, I can't do that, the devastation of what these real people are feeling is too much, and it makes it so clear that I've turned these tools into my reality, and it's NOT reality, it's just the damn MAP, it just points to reality, and that doesn't fit in a box, it can't be pushed into a nicely wrapped package and put away on a shelf.  The only thing I've been boxing up is myself. 

I've been avoiding visceral reality for too long.  Integral theory saved me, but then I got it wrong.  And this experience has been a friendly reminder of how to get it right.

But, come on . . . a horror movie??  What the hell kind of bait-and-switch is that?

Maybe that's a heads-up that my concept of exalted life lessons needs a little openness tweaking, too.