We Are All Cosmic Travelers Wearing Human Suits

It's so weird being a channeler. Not for the obvious reasons - like talking to Jesus and unicorn visitations at three in the morning (though that's plenty weird, thanks) - but because, when I'm in the zone, I know all this stuff I say on the internet to be true. I feel calm, at peace, loved, and all is right with the world. 

But after I'm done with the channeling and back to the human stuff of making breakfast and paying bills and driving through rush hour with every other lunatic on the road (yes, I'm one of the lunatics), my brain cranks up the volume and is all THAT COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE RIGHT, LOVE AND LIGHT MY ASS, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING, HERE HAVE A CHOCOLATE CROISSANT. 

Sometimes I can take a big enough step away from the chatter to remember that my brain doesn't have all the answers. It says a lot of things, it makes a lot of noise, but just because my brain says it doesn't mean it's true. 

Last week, I decided to release a meditation album on the spur of the moment. That's the fun part about this job - being blasted with inspiration while you're hanging upside down and all the blood is rushing to your head, and being able to just do it and see what happens. 

Because there's so much forking construction in my neighborhood (and it makes me want to throttle the world), I had to record the meditations after six at night or before eight in the morning. A few days ago, I woke up at six, turned on the microphone while wearing my flannel moose pajamas, and started receiving a whole bunch of meditations about tuning into your intuition, following your soul's path, balancing your energy (I put one of the meditations up for free - if your energy feels wonky, check it out!) and it all felt awesome. 

But after I stopped and made myself an egg sandwich, all the doubts and anxieties and oh GODs started flooding back in. 

My challenge at the moment is hooking back in with that calm, loving, here's-the-handy-guidance space more often. Hour by hour, minute by minute. Keep honoring the feels and the crazy humanness while reminding myself of the truth and course-correcting my brain. 

Living this way is like eating salad or being in AA. You can't do it once and then be done for the rest of your life. You have to work the program. Over and over and over and over again. Every day.

It does seem to get easier. Eventually new pathways are created and it becomes easier to dwell in the land of ahhhh... rather than the land of FUCKING HELL EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS PLANET IS THE WORST I WOULD RATHER DIE.

Smug statue says "I'm cool, no problems here."

Being a cosmic being of infinite light in a human body - as we all are - is a daily flow. I wanted to say challenge, but I think it's just a practice. Like, practicing the piano can be a challenge but whatever you just show up again tomorrow and the next day and eventually you get so much better you can't even remember the time you got stymied by the dumb flamingo song. (Pianos just don't sound like flamingos and there's nothing anyone can do about that.) (Yes, I had to learn a dumb flamingo song in elementary school and apparently it angers me to this day.) 

Honoring the feels without getting bowled over by them, feeling the pain without drowning in it, observing the worries without getting stuck in them, noticing the negative thoughts and remembering the truth and putting the train of thought on a new track. Being human. Being cosmic. Same thing really. 

This feels like a good place to leave my favorite quote of pretty much all time: 

You are a ghost driving a meat coated skeleton made from stardust riding a rock floating through space. Fear nothing. 

Here We Are, Riding This World Together

We are in powerhouse times, my friends. 

If you've been feeling like you're on a teeter-totter - irritated one minute, crying because someone did something kind the next, angry an hour later, then spilling over with enough inspiration and energy to move Mount Kilimanjaro before passing out on the couch twenty minutes later  - you aren't alone.

Sensitive peeps are doing a lot of heavy lifting these days. There is a LOT happening - energetically, astrologically, on the world stage. Our shadows are coming up to play. To be seen, acknowledged, breathed with and released or integrated as a worthy part of the whole. And those shadows are little bastards. Sticky and representative of the parts of us that we mark "here be monsters" and attempt to ignore for the rest of ever.

But we can't seem to ignore them any more. (Goddamnit.) 

So we do what we have to do to stay with it. Sometimes it means running as far into the woods as you can and still make it back to your car by nightfall. Sometimes it means watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on your laptop three times in a row because the rest of the season hasn't been released yet (and that's just mean). Sometimes it means eating ice cream. Sometimes it means drinking green juice.

Sometimes it means doing it right, sometimes it means doing it wrong. While we're learning that there is no right or wrong. There's just you in all your human glory. There's just us, riding this spinning world together. 

The day after Trump was elected a thought jumped into my mind "This is what we've been training for." If Trump isn't the most farcical manifestation of America's shadow, I don't know what is. But this is why we've been learning how to take care of ourselves in new ways, work in new ways, see ourselves as whole rather than fractured pieces of an imperfect creature. 

You are perfect and I am perfect. Even while we're dancing with our shadows and trying to stuff pieces we don't like under the rug. Especially then. 

I can't say I've been blasting it out of the park. While I do feel like I've identified how I can best help in my own stuffed sea otter delivering / story sharing / unicorn wrangling way, I get paused and plagued by self doubt more often than not.

I hide behind coping mechanisms. I numb out. I isolate myself until I may as well be Gollum eating a raw fish in a cave. I may legitimately have zero friends left by the time this is all over. Thank god for the cats. 

Cat in question. How can you not feel better about the world when that's happening?

So, for today all this means signing "don't get rid of net neutrality you assholes" petitions (paraphrased) while singing along with the B52s on the radio because the 80s are everywhere and pondering the feasibility of recording 13+ meditations to support all the feelings and calm the churning brain hamsters in the next week. That's the work today. 

Tomorrow's work will be something else. I don't know what yet. Because plans are even more liable than ever to be tossed up into the air like confetti. But it's getting up, showing up, and doing what I can do. (Or staying in bed. That's sometimes the best you can honestly do.) 

Five Years

My dad died five years ago today.

Actually, this probably isn't the fifth anniversary of his death, because he died the day after Thanksgiving and the date changes.

But, to me, it will always be the day after Thanksgiving. Which is appropriate, because he loved being in charge of the turkey - basting it in butter and booze, with cornbread crumbs and bits of rosemary flying all over the kitchen.

Last night, we told stories - of how he got bitten by the rattlesnake and was a bit of a medical celebrity. How my aunt came to visit him in the hospital with a tin of rattlesnake meat. How we once ate Thanksgiving dinner at midnight because he didn't start put the turkey in until noon.

A few weeks ago, I was walking through the living room and thought I saw my boyfriend standing by the record player. When I turned my head to say something, there was no one there. Then I got the strong sense that it was Dad, poring over my boyfriend's record collection - just there to say hi.

Five years feels significant. It's a long time. I've changed a lot. We all have - because, let's face it, it's been a hell of a five years.

While no one ever wants to lose a parent, I do think of it as the event that cracked me open so I could see what was inside. When everything I'd been bottling up for most of my life came tumbling out, I got a chance to know myself better. Maybe for the first time.

I think that's what we're given in all these experiences - the opportunity to know ourselves better. When life hands us the nutcracker and gives it a firm tap, our shell shatters, showing us what's in there.

One of the last things my brother said to him was, "I'm excited for you, Dad. You're about to go on an adventure."

Hope it's been a fun adventure, Dad. We miss you.

From Seething Rage to Restoration (Hardware)

Do you ever get so mad at someone that you would deeply enjoy watching their head go up in flames? Probably not, because you're a better human than I am.  

It's rare that I get so angry that violent destruction feels like the only solution, but it's happened a few times. It's never fun. When the mad hits me that hard, I do things like kick holes through my bedroom wall. (High school. That happened.) (About the same time my brother punched a hole in the hallway. Maybe repression is genetic.) 

This morning, my rage boiled over.

Raging hellfire of my anger. Also, a rather pleasant fire from a gloomy evening last week. 

I tried meditation. I had to imagine myself encased in ice on a frozen tundra - seriously - to quell the mad long enough to let the ten minutes on my timer tick by before getting up and pacing around again. 

I tried running. My skin felt like it was chafing inside my running clothes and, because the temperature was a blasphemous 49 degrees, it felt like I was breathing ice. 

I tried throwing a fit. In the privacy of my house, of course. I highly recommend a good tantrum - screaming into pillows, swearing, crying, etc. But after about twenty minutes of that, I still wasn't feeling any better and I was starting to get dehydrated.

So I turned on Atomic Blonde, that fall-of-the-Berlin-wall spy movie with Charlize Theron. I finally understand - after decades of rampant media consumption - the attraction of violence in movies. Charlize (can that possibly be her real name?) is a damn competent action hero and, as she kicked her way through East Berlin in awesome late-80s era shoes, my need for blood was satiated without doing any actual harm. To me, another human, or a hapless wall. 

After the mindless emotional pacifier of watching Charlize Theron kick KGB ass, I decided retail therapy was next up. Somewhat ironic, given the premise of the movie. Hooray for capitalism! 

Honestly, it worked brilliantly. Strolling around in the outdoor mall in the sun, buying shiny hair clips to replace the gap-toothed brown monstrosity I've been using for months, splurging on a pink sweater (half off at Banana Republic!) and pair of cream gloves (which I actually did need) with golden thread (probably didn't need that) and an animals-in-mittens mug was super soothing.

It finished wrangling my rage into submission. Which is actually sort of miraculous for a mall around Christmas time. 

I even went into my favorite store - Restoration Hardware Baby and Child. Seriously. I love it. It's where Marie Antoinette would go to set up her nursery if she lived in early 21st century California instead of 18th century France. They have unicorn rocking chairs and mini birch trees covered in fairy lights and hand-drawn giraffes and tasteful tea sets for tiny tea parties. And, no, I don't have kids.

I can't really explain why I love it so much. It's like when I told someone at a party that I went to see Bad Moms...and really liked it. She turned more fully toward me and said, "Why?" in enough of a disbelieving tone that I honestly felt kind of dumb because she knows I don't have kids - and I also didn't have an answer. 

I LIKE WHAT I LIKE AND I WANT TO LIVE LIKE A PRIVILEGED MARIN SIX-YEAR-OLD. Apparently. (I mean, who wouldn't? Later, I saw a kid in a pink sparkly tutu with a matching pink wig topped by a tiara. She was eating a chocolate chip cookie and I thought, "That eight-year-old is living my best life.")

All this actually makes sense. When I get so overcome with anger that I can't manage my emotions, I basically turn into a tantrum-throwing four-year-old. Then I plop myself down in front of a movie and buy myself a chocolate chip cookie. Hey, whatever works, right? 

Frankly, I'm just proud that I tried meditating before giving up and turning on violent TV. Also proud that my coping mechanism is now "chocolate chip cookie" rather than "bottle of bourbon." I take my wins where I can get them. 

Locked Out and Muddy Subtitle: Fuck Friday

After I pressed publish last night, I sat down on my bathroom floor and sobbed. Like something deep yet mysteriously prominent had rearranged itself in that quantum box where I keep everything I don't fully understand. (It's a really big box.) 

Sobbing on your bathroom floor is never fun - I've done it a fair few times in my life, and somehow, it's always on a white bath mat. Perhaps I should only use colored bath mats from now on. Because the color of my Cost Plus purchases are obviously the culprit here.

I've given up trying to explain my feelings. They've always been a mystery tsunami, like just hanging out on the beach in the sun with lemonade and your dog and then all of a sudden, "HOLY SHIT THERE'S A SEVENTY FOOT WAVE RIGHT ON TOP OF US."

(Don't worry, the imaginary dog is a champion swimmer.) 

That said, It felt like I was grieving something I had only just realized I lost, but had disappeared long before. I still can't explain why or what the good green earth was going on. 

All I can do with feelings is ask whether or not they're mine (half the time they don't, being an empath is annoying). If they do belong to me, just let myself feel them in my body without letting my brain attach a story to them. I'm usually only about 37 percent successful at this, but that's better than the last decade's .003 percent success average. 

For reference, attaching brain story to feelings often looks something like: 

Feelings of anger, sadness, loneliness, pain, grief, etc, from apparent nowhere. 

Brain, ever helpful, hops quickly in: "It's completely logical that you feel this way, because x, y, and granny smith apple happened last week. In fact, we should probably obsess about x and granny smith apple for awhile, or maybe forever, so these feelings never happen again." 

Helpful, brain. Thanks. 

Anyway, post traumatized-bathroom-sob-for-no-apparent-reason, I wake up feeling much better and ready to greet the morning with vim and, I dunno, vigor - or at least coffee. And then there's another quantum collapse. I don't have a better description than that. Kinda like the black cat in the Matrix. The one you see after they've changed something. 

I'm reeling from latest quantum shift when I realize I don't have my keys. They're just...gone. I search my path from house to car, and conclude I must have locked myself out.

IS THAT WHAT THE MATRIX CHANGED? IT TOOK MY FUCKING KEYS? Come on, Matrix. Be better, 

Peering in my back window to ascertain location of said keys - are they really in the house? did I drop them on the stairs and they're now in the ivy? shall I call a locksmith or try to engage a wily raccoon? - I slip on my rain-slick deck and fall on my ass in the mud. 

Fuck Friday, is basically what I'm saying. 

Hours later, after licking my wounds at Starbucks and driving almost two hours to means-of-unlocking-my-house-without-my-key (luckily, I had a spare set of car keys in an accessible place), I get back into my house.

My keys aren't there.

It's like they slipped into another dimension.  

Which would've been pretty sweet, except no. After retracing my steps for the seventh time, it seems that, actually, they're IN THE GARBAGE CAN. Couldn't the Matrix at least try? Try and make a slightly cooler shift in my reality? 

But this is the joy of blogging again. As I'm hopping mad on the freeway, because of course I don't have time to drive multiple hours today just to unlock my door, I think, "At least I have something to write about now."

Even if I'd rather Friday would slip casually into another dimension, maybe the one where my keys were hiding.