What is love?

Love is a four letter word spelt like ‘home’.
          That sounds like ‘echo’, a part of myself both familiar and forign.
                       That feels like ‘safe’ to let my guard down and relax into like a warm bath.
          That tastes like ‘fire’ a fierce force of nature that can’t easily be quenched.

Love sticks to my ribcage like a good meal, and nourishes the essential parts of me in a way that ‘liking’ just never will. I can like someone very much, because indeed they’ve given me no reason not to, perhaps have given many pains that I should form a favourable opinion of them, but that’s all like is to me, an absence of dislike.

Love can withstand the seasons of like or dislike. Indeed I dislike many things about many people I love deeply. Love is a homing device that attracts ‘your people’. I know it is love because of how part of me fits with part of them to feel more whole, there is a sense of belonging beyond pleasure or pain, love enhances the experience of connection, and reflects back parts of my soul I could not see without them.

I am not guarded with my love. I fall deeply and soundly in love with many things and people everyday: the smell of lilacs, taste of fresh bread, a moving piece of music, a new true friend. One is not less than the other for they each make my life more vibrantly abundant.

**********

I found this in a draft on my phone from May. A friend asked how you knew whether you were in love & this was my response.

Sunday’s we make lists

• 2 hours Dear Devotion
• 1 hour practicing bass
• Lots of writing – personal & poetic.
• One rock concert (all dudes)
• Reading rupi kaur’s milk & honey 💖 also lots of blogs 
• Spc fundraising meeting with Charlie
• Audition
• Laundry & house cleaning 
• Lots of lady time this week supporting each other & enjoying end of summer 

Challenges:

• Very volatile mood swings this week. Tuesday evening into Wednesday morbidly depressed, Thursday elated to the point of difficulty concentrating, Friday morbidly depressed again with suicidal ideation. Sunday another high day, hopefully not as manic.
• Also started period this week possible connection to mood, definitely noticeable on sleep patterns & sex drive.
• Generalized anxiety about money & future continues. As tides with moods flux.

Next week:

• 2 board meetings – one for SPC, one for SaskMusic
• Therapist appointment
• Rent due, other finances to take care of
• Start sober September 
• Call for submissions for alt alt
• Start regular meditation practice again

5x nurture inner nature

Turns out I am thinking about lots of things with lots of links to share. 

Enjoy

1. The Beginners Guide to Unschooling via Zen Habits – this is the best online description of unschooling I have been able to find it also has a great further reading list at the end for those looking to learn more.
2. Mood Disorders & Creativity – Johns Hopkins Lecture Series with Dr. Jamieson
3. How Nature Can Make You Kinder, Happier, More Creative 
4. The Art of Observation and Why Genius Lies in the Selection of What is Worth Observing via Brain Pickings
5. I’m a huge fan of the album Flash & Yearn by tooth ache. You can learn more about her on She Does here

How to love me – in 10 easy steps

“How would you like me to take care of you my darling?” I asked myself languidly tracing robin egg blue fingernails over the creases where sleep dust collects beneath my eyelashes. I pulled my legs up to my belly under the blood stained sheets & replied coyly:

How to love me in ten easy steps:

1. Start by washing my dishes with soft ambient music playing. Scent the warm water with lemons. Burn sandalwood incense & sweep the floors.
2. Give me books thick with poetry, rich with reflection, deep in mystery, full of adventure. Read aloud softly by candlelight.
3. Teach me to play your instrument. Practice listening & trusting myself to play tangible music out of intangible thought. Learn how my patience wanders & remind me that it’s as much about the journey to get there as the destination.
4. Stock my pantry with wholesome ingredients to feed a weary soul – earl grey tea with double bergamot. Cinnamon & cloves to make rich chai with a generous dolap of condensed milk. Blood red beets, golden yams, rich green broccoli, rice & beans. Watch me eat slowly & fully of the fruits of your labour.
5. Meditate with me. Set aside an hour just to sit & listen. Give me the gift of your attention in a busy day. Succumb to the ritual of presence.
6. Dance with me. Throw yourself into the music, become intoxicated with the way my body moves feverent with abandon.
7. Be affectionate in your actions. Trace your fingers up and down my wrists while speaking gentle loving things in my ear. Touch my cheek & look me in the eye when you tell me you love me. Put your hand on my shoulders & remind me to relax. Softly place your hand on the small of my back, trace my hip bones, and slip between my thighs.
8. Take me camping, search out the wild, walk with me under the sky, be present in the presence of the world being.
9. Run me a bath full of Epsom salts and lavender. Ease my weary bones for a while. Rub coconut oil into my hair & skin. Dab the scent of lilies behind my ear lobes & between my breasts. Paint my nails, and wrap my shoulders in soft linens.
10. Build a fire in the alter of my soul. Sacrifice your petty idols, moonlight romances, and timid temptations. Let the smoke cleanse all that is not brilliant & bold. Let the flames engulf you until passion becomes all reason.

Dear Devotion: my perplexing problem

I’m working on a solo piece that I, and I alone, am creating. Like a sculptor alone in the studio facing a great slab of shapeless rock holding a chisel in one hand and a vision of possibility in the other. I am both sculptor & rock. Discoverer & discovered. I am navigating my body & mind in a way that is almost completely foreign to me. Total autonomy. It’s daunting.

My body is my instrument.

From which all work emerges. All ideas are expressed. Storytelling is in my veins, sinews, synapses. I, the artist, must learn to work every angle, control every aperture, understand the mechanics to take it apart & rebuild it. As a director of self my only option is to observe passively with gentle exacting focus as the performance comes through me. Let refinement arise in the commitment to discovery within. Trust my impulses.

My mind is a double edged sword.

It has baracaded itself inside behind enemy lines over analyzing all the ways I intersect with the world. Impulses that used to feel natural suddenly appear forgin under endless scrutiny. Without specific tasks & complex problems to latch onto my mind occupies itself in the most awful ways. When the anxiety rises I can barely quell the shakes. It surges through me like lightening and lingers for days. 

My heart has not healed.

There are memories stored in the muscles of my body that flinch when eyes linger there too long. Memories that tighten in my throat when certain songs play. Memories so heavy my bones ache with the weight of them on rainy days. My breath tries to balance the precipice between the world & I, but I’m still caught holding on to things I wish I could forget. 

My presence is the piece.

I am terrified of loosing myself in the work. I struggle to be present in my body & mind while even still I try to clutch onto some shade of normalcy. I am not creating in spite of these challenges but because of them. I am not a blank slate waiting to be filled with inspiration, I am the spark itself. The combined force of chisel point, skilled labour, and unrealized potential hidden in plain sight. The scariest part is the idea of being seen as broken, unredeemable, vulnerable. Of being seen & being hurt again. Rather than running away though I practice radical vulnerability in the studio, but how can I leave this raw open energy in the studio when this piece is also my life’s work?

My perplexing problem.