Tried to turn the sauna up to hotter, drunk a whole jar of holy water, but it won't let go

Can i just thank Erykah Badu for capturing these feelins so succinctly...?

Thank you, e. badu.

I especially love the ambivalence of the last part
[just because i tell you i love you...don't mean that i do]

cuz i'm a ambivalent mofo

---

Last Sunday I went to a meditation group that a buddy of mine put me onto. One of our assignments for this week is to construct a love altar, or add symbols of love to our preexisting altars. I don't have an altar, and I barely have space to construct one, but i'm really going to try tomorrow. gotta get some rose quartz

I'll let you know how it goes

Random Thought # 265

It's so weird...

when you find yourself caking on an unexpected phone call...

from someone you never thought you'd cake with.

I feel strange.

Oh...work is cool. Extremely busy. Out of control busy. I have no social life busy. The kids come on the 18th. I met all of them (the kids from my class) today at an orientation. Yesterday I was feeling anti-social...today I'm realizing how little time I have to even get in touch with friends when I want to reach out. In fact I should be in bed, but I had to spend a few hrs preparing for tomorrow's day @ work.

my night owl ways are going to be the death of me.

work work work.
i miss people.

Kindergarten

I just got back from the Hunter program not too long ago...

I just feel compelled to blog...again...because I had SUCH an amazing experience today @ school. Today our entire lecture was centered on the art of effective classroom management. I was really challenged to grow today, and we had an entire presentation by a PHENOMENAL principal and educator from a charter school in Newark, NJ. Like...her presentation blew me away. She taught us about classroom management by putting us in the place of the students we'll be dealing with, modeling behavior with us so we could get some approximation of what it feels like to be a young learner again annnd so that we could learn the info she was presenting in a manner that was different from the typical workshop format that would truly stick to our memories. I was resistant at first to being treated like a kid...especially when she corrected how I wrote my own damn notes...but by the end, I was SOLD. It was such an inspiring day for me...that I wrote a little um...poem thing? ballad? about the feelings today inspired in me. I really connected with the budding educator in me today...we were in alignment, and were just really feeling each other's vibes. I really...GOT today how deeply revolutionary the teaching profession can be. I found myself anticipating and feeling mad affection for my students, most who I haven't even seen yet...kinda like a parent who anticipates and joyfully prepares for a child just conceived. I felt so ecstatic on the train ride home today that I had to get it out on paper. I hope you (the general you) can just get an idea of what I was feeling when I wrote the words...how humbled and honored I feel to be entrusted with the job of helping kids get in touch with their ability to learn and grow, of finding that precious balance between guiding them through the world safely and giving them the freedom to develop into their authentic selves, without imposing upon them archaic rules and limitations which have their soul-snuffing basis in colonization, domination and oppression.

In the spirit of sharing, I give you



Kinder Garden

Not having known you,
I already love you
And am creating space in my awareness
For your arrival

I'm pruning old, dying, and dead edges of me
Tearing down poison plants grown
From the soil of my conditioning

and clearing away bags of clutter
(deposited by old masters not myself)

So that when you come in,
There will be boundless room for you to

move

j
u
m
p

S T R E T C H

change me beyond belief

think

and breathe

Clean oxygenated air

and eat

Fresh fruits vegetables and grains

and drink

Plenty of fresh water

And love yourself
And the wide world
Without qualifiers

or endings(.)

<3


Maybe rather than a poem, it is the beginning of my teaching philosophy.

Meanwhile...

I have developed a strong desire to get my bottom lip pierced, on the side diagonal to my nose piercing. Wonder if a funky kindergarten teacher can fly...maybe I can get some real small, inconspicuous flesh toned jewel to wear for a while.

On Being Nice...and Oppressive

Definitely been guilty of this. And I should know better, as much as I hate when it's done to me:


::Ellen says something I find funny, and I think to myself, That is so funny, and then, without my necessarily recognizing it, I say to myself Ellen is so funny. Notice how my initial experience (that I was amused) turns into something about her (now she is funny).

It may seem odd to you that we're urging you not to make statements of this sort: "Carlos, I just want you to know how much I appreciate how generous you are" (or: "what a good sense of humor you have" or "that you always know the right thing to say"), or "Alice, you are so patient" (or, "so prompt," or "so never-say-die," "always there when you are needed"), and so on...These seem like such nice things to say to someone. What could possibly be the problem with saying them?

The problem we see is this: the person, inevitably and quite properly, relates what you say to how she knows herself to be. You can tell Carlos he is generous, but he knows how generous he actually is. You can tell Alice she is very patient, but she knows her side of how patient she is being with you.

If we characterize people, even if we do so quite positively, we actually engage-however unintentionally-in the rather presumptuous activity of entitling ourselves to say who and how the other is. We entitle ourselves to confer upon people the sources of their worthiness. We say, "This is the shape of the person," or if we are direct, "This is your shape." We dress the person in a suit of psychological clothes. As much as they might appreciate the fancy quality of the cloth, they are likely to feel, "Well, it doesn't exactly fit. You need to let out a bit here, take in a lot there."::

Emphasis mine.

This is from a reading I have to do for class at Hunter College, which started today. From a book: How The Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work by Robert Kogan and Lisa Laklow

Wow. What a presumptuous bitch I can be sometimes...what an oppressive way to walk around in the world while remaining under the guise of "niceness"...it makes me want to read the book. Shit. Navigating interpersonal relationships is so tricky in this world. This is what I like about class and school, sometimes...sometimes when you're given the right language to illuminate why certain things are the way they are, or how other things should be different...your whole world kinda shifts a little to the left. (Random song interlude:: "to the left, to the left, everything you own in a box to the left..." Resume.) Even if you had some vague notion before about why some shit just ain't right...finding the language to place it in context is really a powerful thing.

Rocky Mount

My family is away in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, participating in the first ever first-cousins reunion for my mother's side of the family. I was supposed to go with them...but I opted out, because I start a graduate school program in early childhood education (that kinda "fell" into my lap and complements my post-graduation job as a kindergarten co-teacher at a charter school...I kinda feel like I haven't had adequate time to rest up from graduation! But that's neither here nor there at this point), and I want to be as well rested and prepared as possible. Though...I'm kind of sad that I didn't go, because I've never been to a family reunion before, and i have never really felt connected to my extended family, on either my mother's or my father's side of the family. Hopefully there will be other opportunities to try and forge connections. I'm kinda tired of feeling like I'm sorta floating in the winds, like I have no roots, no tangible point of origin that I can point to and say, "yep, that's home, those are my folks. I'm not the lone crazy bitch afterall..."

Fantasies.

But as part of preparation for the grad school program, I have to take a couple of online workshops. One of them is entitled "School Violence Prevention," and there's a segment on suicide. It just got me thinking...about how navigating adolescence in our society is so tricky, and confusing, and downright depressing at times...how much support a child/young adult needs to be able to rise above the impulse of killing themselves off before their life has even actually begun...I wonder if there is anyone who has not thought at one point in their lives that they would rather be dead, especially at any point in adolescence...I wonder if fighting off the urge to kill oneself is a familiar narrative in the human story? And it can be such a strong impulse...Suicide can seem so seductive when it feels as if there is no way out of the small, restrictive, airtight narrow space that might be one's life under certain circumstances and points in time. The less support that a child/teen/young adult has in dealing with rage and depression and despair...the easier it is to be seduced. (And by "less" I'm not referring to quantity, as if there is a set formula of what "support" looks like for every soul. Everybody is different...but I think EVERYONE needs more than just their own internal dialogue when these kinds of feelings arise. An external system of support is needed to help redirect the flow of conversation going on inside. When you're depressed there is nothing presently inside of you that can make it better, because all the stuff unfolding inside you is what's chaining you to your depression; sitting alone with your thoughts without reaching out to or having access to SOME external anchor to help ground you can just make it worse.)

I think for me, the period of my life that was really hard for me...where shit inside just hurt so much, and I was dealing with this uncontrollable depression and inward rage and feeling as if my insides were just going to bust apart from all the shit it was holding onto were my first two years of college.

When I was 18. 19.

I remember wanting to die on a regular basis. I thought about what it would be like to take my life.

But I never became suicidal to the point where I actually made conscious, direct attempts to take my own life. I never quite crossed over into that land. Luckily it got better before it got worse though...it just scares me that that's not the case for so many young people.

::Moment of silence::

I wrote so much, trying to get the shit all out. I began to see a counselor (not a therapist, since oddly Hampton didn't have a licensed psychologist on staff to see students, but Ms. Cortez was still just what I needed at the time). But besides Ms. Cortez and my writings, I think another thing that anchored me while the storm was passing...was that I had 1/32nd of a glimmer of a vague belief, an ::audacious hope:: almost (the irony of paraphrasing Obama is not lost to me), that things might possibly be better in the future, if I could just make it through...

Growing old enough to have things happen to me that counterbalanced all the stupid shit has been such a blessing...growing old enough to really see that this shit called life is cyclical, that when storms come through, they're never there to stay forever...they only stay until they're done molding and changing you into the person you need to be to handle the next phase of your life, and some of what you will experience in that next phase will be untold joy and gratitude to the Creator that you decided to stay alive to see what was around the long bend, because it was better than anything that a premature death could've possibly given you.

As one of my friends says, life is such an adventure, even the sucky parts. Because you can be sure that there is something else coming around the corner. And it doesn't end...your soul is always on this journey to learn and evolve and pick up new shit
...and it is so beautiful despite its imperfections.

(p.s. if you're reading this and you are contemplating suicide, get help NOW. Contact one of these national, toll-free suicide hotlines:

1-800-SUICIDE
(1-800-784-2433)

1-800-273-TALK
(1-800-273-8255)

TTY: 1-800-799-4TTY (4889)

<3


((Later on))



Yo...I have been listening to my old Res CD. I realizing again how much I fucking love whoever her songwriter is. Like, seriously. Thank you Res songwriters, write some moooreeee!!! And her voice is amazing. Like...I wish Res wasn't a one-CD wonder. It makes me sad :(

Like the dork that I kinda am, I wrote down some of my fav lyrics from her songs:

I could've sworn our future was set in stone/but I guess some things it's just as well for God to know/so now I concentrate on turning wrong to right/I'm gonna let go things I've held inside so tight/I'm gonna live and let forgive things said in spite/so clear out the smoke and usher in the light
-In Tsunami


And when the sun runs out/no doubts left standing/we'll see if Jah wills/that we're alone again/let love slip through our fingers I say
-In Let Love


Still come around when luck's down/you're all alone I'm sure (maybe you're scared to go...maybe you're scared to go)/Well I ain't gon be there for ya/And I ain't gon be your love no more

Tell you let's/push all excuses aside/don't worry about my feelings/what you've got something to hide? (so why you telling me those same old lies?)

If there ain't nothing/we can do/now then it's cool/but I'd rather be alone/than play like someone's fool
-In If There Ain't Nothing


Look as far as I can see/your head is blocking my TV (move out the way kid!)/what you want for me to say/I said whatever/go away

To get inside this head of mine/would take a monkey wrench/and a lot of wine
-In How I Do


Just another wasted one/like a fallen star in Babylon/you said I was your princess baby/I told you certain things you can't possess/so let me go, let me go/cuz I, I've given until I break/the ground beneath us quakes/how can we grow when we've only begun/forsaken beneath the sun

Although I've seen your wickedness/I still love your effervescence/and i know that loving you don't make no sense/I guess that's why I like it/Just another priceless pawn/all our dreams are now foregone
-In Ice King


Why don't you tell me what you're scared of/You make me breathe so easy/and I'm a mess with reminders of you

Impulse traveler/why can't you stay with me tonight/what your soul taste like baby/and all them tell me I should take it slow/Don't wanna find myself too deep in/So I keep stumbling
-In 700 Mile Situation


Industry's down think I've died and I've flown away/so so long to them thieves who came and took all the things to say
-In They Say Vision


Don't you get tired of the show/the kissing ass of all the people that you wanna know/when I was young I thought you had it won/I saw you on TV/you made life look fun/But years go by and people grow/I realized it's all a freak show
-In Golden Boys


Not soft but supple/come with all you've got/my wings won't ruffle/victory is sweet but I ain't scared to lose

In my house/the moon still shines in the day/but there's a lot of old bills I gotta pay

I'll be on my own/it don't matter-I'm grown/I won't be singing no sad songs in the lay/And I rub you wrong/Baby I come on strong/I got no mind to cushion what I say
-In The Hustler


One of these days, days/the gig is up/shouldn't we take the time now to show our love

Bye, bye roses/I've got me a hand that's bittersweet/but I don't care/I've known the garden

She was always my best friend/never late/coffee ice cream made her smile/and now she's left and gone away/and I'm here by myself another day
-In I've Known the Garden

Poly? Me?

I took the Poly Acceptance Test at OK Cupid, from a link I found over at One Tenacious Baby Mama's. Results?

Polymore

You're 83% tolerant, 78% polyamorist, 62% polyfidelitist, and 69% swinger.



You love the polyamorous way of life. You see it as one of the greatest hopes of humanity. You may not hold that EVERYONE ought to be polyamorous, but you definitely feel a LOT of people out there SHOULD be polyamorous, and don't realize it. They are polyamorous at heart. The rising incidents of divorce and affairs testify to that.



Hmm am I? Would I? I dunno. I think I would like my relationships to have the possibility of expanding in a polyamorous direction if included parties so desire, but am I emotionally stable enough to truly take part in such a love formation? Guess it remains to be seen, no?

What if

I've been kind of weepy this morning. I realize that what really scares me is the idea that things might go downhill from Hampton...and these four years have not exactly been a joyride for me to begin with. I'm plagued with all these questions that some part of me accepts are irrational--but I have them anyway. Like:

What if my overall success at Hampton is indicative of how successful I'll be in life? What if the pattern I've fallen into here...having stellar grades/extracurricular activities/hobbies and interests but sucky intimate interpersonal relationships...is the pattern I'm just stuck in? In terms of trying to form intimate relationships while I've been here, I've felt so misunderstood, so unattractive, so out of place...and my only consolation has been the idea that when I leave this place, I'll finally find somewhere/someone(s) that gets me, where I can bloom to my fullest potential without being viewed as alien or odd. Here, I get the distinct sense that I'm unrecognized, unwanted, uncared for...that people generally see me as a nice, smart but undatable weird girl...and I'm just so tired of feeling this way. Sometimes it makes me angry, sometimes it makes me weepy, most times I try to be numb to it and meditate and focus on the idea that something better is coming, if I could just make it to May 11th...

But what if I'll always be out of place wherever I am...what if people in general always view me as an oddity...what if shit doesn't change? In fact, what if I encountered my best chances of "finding something" while I was here? What if it just gets harder, as hard as it's been here?

That's so depressing. I try not to believe it. I try to believe that I can construct a meaningful life for myself by focusing my intention and taking appropriate action, and that things will work themselves out, and that everything has a reason and purpose, yadda yadda. But it's hard. And today, as I begin the first of the last couple of days before graduation, as I'm closer to the "promised land"...it feels especially hard to believe.

(Sidebar: I feel like I know how enslaved people felt when 1865 rolled around. Half-joking. Only half. And not in a disrespectful, trivializing way. Hampton does feel like a friggin plantation.)

Maybe it's so hard to believe because on some level, it's comforting to latch onto what you know best, even if what you know best is destructive to your soul. As much as I've gone back and forth between hating and strongly disliking this place (Hampton) over the years...it has grudgingly become my home, my comfort zone...so even if there's something better waiting for me down the road, right now something in me is so scared of change that I'm holding onto the toxic idea that this is all there is. I'm scared to let go of Hampton and Hampton ways, as bourgeois and unbased in reality as they are. Even though I know it's not all there is...I know, know know that things come in their own time, and that the only thing I can be sure of is a long succession of change and new experiences.

I'm tryna fade Hampton out into the background, and let what needs to die, die, to paraphrase Clarissa Pinkola Estes again. I'm tryna illuminate/give birth to what's coming ahead, tryna focus on and prepare for the next phase of existence. Trying, trying, trying. Hoping, hoping, hoping.

I'm focusing on the Hindu goddess Kali, the dark mother:

The name Kali derives from the Sanskrit root word Kal meaning time. Nothing escapes from time. Her Tibetan Buddhism counterpart is named Kala, a male figure. Of the Hindu goddesses, Goddess Kali Ma is the most misunderstood. The Encyclopedia Britannica is very mistaken in this quote, "Major Hindu goddess whose iconography, cult, and mythology commonly associate her with death, sexuality, violence, and, paradoxically in some of her later historical appearances, motherly love."

It is partially accurate to say the Goddess Kali Ma is a goddess of death. However, She brings the death of the ego as the delusional self-centered view of reality. Nowhere in the sriptures is She seen killing anything but demons nor is She associated exclusively with the process of human dying like Yama the Hindu god of death. Both Goddess Kali Ma and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds and devotees often go to these places to meditate. The purpose is not to glorify death but to overcome the I-am-the-body idea. The cremation grounds reinforce the idea that the body is a temporary. Kali and Shiva are said to dwell in these places because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego. Kali and Shiva give liberation by dissolving the illusion of the ego. Thus we are the ever-existing I AM and not the impermanent body. This is emphasized by the scene in the cremation grounds.

Out of all the Devi forms, Kali is the most compassionate because She provides moksha or liberation to Her children. She is the counterpart of Shiva. They are the destroyers of unreality. When the ego sees Mother Kali it trembles with fear because the ego sees in Her its own eventual demise. An individual who is attached to his/her ego will not be able to receive the vision of Mother Kali and She will appear in a fear invoking or "wrathful" form. A mature soul who engages in spiritual practice to remove the illusion of the ego sees Mother Kali as very sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with incomprehensible love for Her children. More.

Stream of Conscious (part i. cuz i'm sure there will be many.)

So here I am applying to study Arabic in Egypt this summer. My life is kinda funny. I'm taking four classes this semester: Intermediate Arabic, part 2, psychology of advertising, concepts in color, and a Creative Writing workshop. The lightest schedule of my life. Let's hope that I use my free time with wisdom.

I'm going to a Sex Toy party on Saturday. LOL. Should be interesting...and I'm sure, fun. See, Hampton wimmen can totally be sex positive and free and shit. Shit. Sheeeit.

I'm 21 years old and it's crazy cuz I know I'm young feeling how much I've grown in the past few years makes me feel...well, old. Even though I'm not. I used to have a friend-a best friend-who I grew apart from kinda without warning who I totally thought was gonna be in my life in a substantial way for the long haul. I met her my freshman year. She was cool beyond all measures of cool. But somehow our talking grew dismal at the beginning of my junior year, and then became a hi-bye status situation by the end of that year. Friendships...relationships in general...they often don't play out the way you expect them too. But they always teach you a lesson about yourself, or the other person, or the world. And I always try to say a prayer, send a thank you to the spirit world for every lesson it sends my way in the form of a person that I love or like or can't staaaand. Because every person, every encounter you have with another soul imprints you in some way. Affects your destiny, your path in some way. And I'm trying to be head ova heals orgasmically in LOVE with my path, even when it's bumpy, or senseless, or depressing, or changes course at an unexpected point. So yea, I dun quite know at what point our paths diverged, but I know that I'll always be psychically imprinted by the marks created when they met. When our friendship made sense, it totally sustained me, and I totally thank her for being such an important part of my life at that point on my path. I wish her joy and peace in her life on all levels possible. I also thank the people who have currently met me on my path, merging and separating from me, teaching me things I might not know if it weren't for our unions. There are folks who I hope will be with me for a long time, whose paths I hope to be in sync with for a great stretch. But only spirit can tell the nature and purpose and direction and duration of any union. And there are of course folks who I consistently butt heads with, who I wish would just get offff my damn path but refuse to leave! Cuz I have things lesson to learn from those unions, too. And then there are those who I'm just puzzled by, or who I think I have no use for. But I submit (to...myself, lol) that anytime I come in contact with someone else's orbit/energy field, my own is changed in some way. My own gets a fuller understanding of itself. Every encounter has a place and a purpose, even those I do not quite notice or understand. Every thing has reason. And it always works two ways...I work on others even as they work on me. And the direction of any organism while it lives is always growth, and so even when growth hurts so much you wish you could die, you know it is happening to you because you are alive and aren't dying anytime soon. Because there is still much to learn.

I should be doing work

But it's so cool when you meet someone that you just vibe with.
Friends, lovers, whatever.
When you meet someone and *know* that you could totally be cool with that person.
Like, you just sense that you are kindred, even if you haven't had lots of convo with that person yet.
Why does that shit happen?
It's so weird and beautiful.

Birthday Color Astrology

Why is this shit always so right on?

You have an artistic nature. You are very sensitive, and you can be deeply affected by the moods of others or by world events. You do not always have the highest opinion of yourself, even though others see you as fascinating. You can be very picky. You like to fall in love, but you sometimes over-analyze romantic situations. Try to think more with your heart, rather than your head, because your intution is very strong.

-from myjellybean.com

Anyway. So I have this friend, right? Or at least, we used to be best friends growing up. She was so cool! Probably still is. She's found me on facebook! She requested that I add her as a friend. And I'd like to...except, I'm not exactly the model Muslim. (We attended the same Masjid growing up.) I'm not sure that she'll like what she sees when I confirm her friend request. :( I think she might really be upset, maybe even offended, at my facebook profile (I'm openly interested in men and women on the profile. My favorite quotes might be considered blasphemous to some. I'm just generally crazy by Islamic/religious standards.) I dunno what to do. I mean, I'm sure I'll eventually confirm, but I'll have to take lots of deep breaths and cross my fingers that she'll be ok with how I turned out.

Maybe when I'm 30

I'll have a baby. With a real family. With a partner in some real eco-friendly house, and we'll live very unconventionally. Maybe we'll be unschoolers, or people who combine unschooling with traditional schooling. Right now, I view myself as solitary person, because that's what I am. So presently, it's kind of weird that I've begun imagining my future self as part of a unit of my own creation. But the older I get, the more I envision. The less weird it becomes. It's kind of scary. But I really do see myself with children nowadays, even if I do still go blank on the process of birthing those children into existence. The whole releasing a person from my uterus thing- still pretty freaky to my young mind.

Committed relationships. Those are scary. It's so interesting how there are soooo many people in the world, but we're supposed to identify one to spend the rest (or a looong part) of our lives with, especially when there are children involved. And this is coming from someone who knows that she could have nothing but monogamy. (And the whole bisexual thing adds layers to all the scariness.)

I don't expect my real committed relationships to come until I'm about 25, however. At 25, that's when the human brain has reached its point of maximum development. That's when we are full adults. That's when I'll know that I fully understand myself, my philosophies on life, what I expect from a partner, and how I want to make an imprint on the world. I definitely won't be having any babies before this point. That'd be so unfair to those babies. I know I have way too much growing as an individual before I can fully give to another.

In the meantime, the relationships that I do create are important. They're heartfelt, and they're joyous (most times), and I always try to be with someone that I love or could grow to love, without focusing on how long they might last. Nowadays I go into them knowing that I'm not fully "set," and understanding that right now, I don't have to be. I know that I grow from every situation I encounter.