Some decades are better than others...

Some days are better than others.  Some months are better than others.  Some years…some decades…  Yeah, you get the picture. 

It’s easy to get lost in the past, isn’t it?  You start by looking at old pictures and, hey, weren’t you so young and pretty?  And, oh, didn’t you have a life back then – a job, a vision, a purpose; friends, family, home.  Weren’t you so in love – with someone, with life, with yourself?  And wasn’t the future so bright? 

And what happened, in those years that followed?  What turned the rainbow monochrome?  What killed the magic stone-dead?  Was it the first grey hair or the first deal that went west?  The dimming of eyes or the dilution of love?  Was there a definite point where it turned sour?  Can you look back and see exactly that fork in the road where you made the big mistake, where you chose this way over that, or did it just float over you imperceptibly, like mist, until one day you woke up and the fog was so thick that you couldn’t even bite the hand in front of your face?

Isn’t it so damned unfair the way it never quite worked out the way you planned? 

Ah, it’s so easy to get snaggled up in regret, in self-blame, in else-one blame, in disappointment and despair, isn’t it?  You had your chance, you blew it and life will never be so rosy again.  You’re washed up, old, tired, so bloody tired, and doesn’t the mirror delight in showing you how just plain nasty time can be? 

Where did those days, weeks, months, years, decades go?  It only seems a blink ago that you were standing, fresh–faced and hopeful at the prow of adulthood, peering into a future in which you could be anyone, do anything, go anywhere.  And now?  Now the walls crowd in around you. Time chews your face, biting it into furrows, spitting out lines.

Many of us have a golden time, a period, however fleeting, in which life felt good, the fates seemed kind.  Or do we?  Isn’t it all just hindsight?  When I look through my photo albums at the pictures taken in my twenties, it looks like heaven.  And, yes, it was a magical time.  Looking back, I was one lucky bitch – I had the looks, the job, the flat, the friends, the fun.  I knew what I wanted (work-wise), I went after it and I got it.  I ticked off my goals one by one – first published feature, first feature in a broadsheet; first feature in a glossy woman’s mag; first feature in a tabloid; first column; first book; first TV appearance; first …oh, you get the idea.  My love life was a shambles but hey, I had great work and fabulous friends and, as the song says, two out of three ain’t bad. 

But you can’t turn back time, no matter how hard you wish you might.  The past is sliding by, slippery like water – and, really, there is no past, it’s just memory.  There is only now and what we choose to do with that now.  And one can easily sit and drown oneself in the past, in that lovely lilac wine of Lethe that, if you drink enough, pulls you into a soft soporific befuddlement.  

Or, alternatively, you can look back with love and a shrug, and then tug yourself into the here and now, gird your loins and all that malarkey and make of it something new. 

Because if you don’t…if you can’t let go of the past, it will strangle you and squeeze out every last fragment of possible happiness.  Cos time’s just a right bastard like that.  J

When winter won't let go

So. The cold continues to bite. Two of my fingers keep turning numb and white. As if I’m turning to ice. Why? I ask them. But I know the answer – the cold is not just physical; it echoes through my emotional bones.  And it’s not just me.  It seems that, right now, so many of us are enduring the bone-cold, a spiritual ice winter.  

You can say it’s the lack of light, the absence of sun, the harsh economic climate – you can claim a gazillion reasons.  And we hustle around looking for solutions, for sticking plasters, for ways to push away the cold, to make it back off for a little.  We can dose ourselves with alcohol or food, we can cry Prozac, we can distract ourselves in a hundred different ways. Me? I fight the urge to swathe myself in blankets and dogs and huddle the fire – I make myself go out and exercise like a loon.

But then, I wonder. What do we lose when we seek to avoid?  Life is a process; a circle; a spiral. Yes, we can blitz ourselves with positive affirmations; we can go Zen and remind ourselves that it’s not really real, hence it doesn’t really matter but…  Is that missing something?  Is this process just a case of existing, of passing time in as pleasant a manner as possible?  Sometimes I think so.  But then thinking…can be overrated.  So what do I feel?

I go back to Alchemy. Calcination. Dissolution. Separation. Conjunction. Fermentation. Sublimation. Radiation. Seven steps. Circling. You reach the end and start all over again, just on a different coil of the serpent. And it’s not just you, or I – it’s us. “The human heart is the crucible of the cosmos.” I can’t remember who said that but it chimes – our inner lives are not our own; they belong to the cosmos.  If we want to change the world, we start with ourselves. 

Is the world served by squashing down bad feelings; by denying them; by refusing to countenance anything except light and bright as ‘good’?  I don’t feel so. If we push away the ‘bad’ it festers – not just in us but in the world around us.  It’s like foisting our dirty laundry on the world, leaving our smelly socks in the hallway.  Bad housekeeping.

The dark nights of the spirit and soul (yes, I feel they are two different things) are not mistakes, not aberrations, or so I feel – they’re not signs that we’re not good enough, not spiritual enough, or whatever.  They’re a vital part of the process.  Sometimes we have to be cut off from everything that gives us joy, everything that makes life seem worthwhile – every height has a corresponding depth. No?

So what do we do?  Nothing much. Abet the feelings, amplify them even – we so rarely listen to the messages written in the body.  Our bodies, our subconscious (the two in cohoots, or maybe the same?) are trying, I feel, to communicate with our conscious minds all the time. Yet we refuse to pay attention.  Sleep. Breathe. Daydream. Wonder where the body and mind wander. Try a secondary process (if you're primarily visual, turn your images into sounds; if you're a musician, maybe you need to move, to work with the somatic?).  But mainly...wait. 

Well, that’s what I do. Hmm.

Watching the waves...

So, what am I doing, here in Greece?

Well... Y'know...

Mainly I am just sitting here watching the waves...

They come in, they go out; they come in, they go out; they come in, they go out.
In, out; in, out; in, out; in, out; in, out.... (you get the idea?)

The current ran from the left for a few hours.  Then it changed its mind and ran in from the right.
Presumably because of the wind.
Every so often a boat will go by and the water will come a little closer to my toes.
And then withdraw again.

But, really... In, out; in, out; in, out; in, out...

Like breathing.

And, really, that's what I am doing.  :-)

My friends

Ah Christmas.  It’s a strange old time of year for me.  I go inwards at Christmas, more and more each year that passes.  Anyhow. It’s crept up again, as I was looking elsewhen.  Usually I splurt out a Christmas Gift Guide on the blog, in memory of the days when I used to trawl the shops for newspaper or magazine guides.  And, actually, I started popping images into a file a while back. Yet, funny thing, as I look in the file this morning, I find they are all of the same thing – friendship bracelets.  Those little strings that started out as childhood or teen tokens of bonding.  And I smiled…

Friends.

What is a friend? How many friends have you got? How many friends do you feel you need?  Does it upset you when a friend leaves you, abandons you, walks away?  I’m not talking about lovers here but friends, just friends. 

In the last week two very different people said pretty much the same thing to me: ‘If you stick with me, you’ll lose your friends.’

And my response?  So be it. Because I know full well that I would never lose the people who really count. As for the rest? Let them walk. Because, see, I truly believe that if you can’t be who you are with people, if they can’t accept your true self, then that friendship is over. I am fiercely loyal to my true friends and I expect no less in return.

I think people come into our lives for reasons; I truly do.  Yeah, even the crappy people (as discussed before).  Friendships however come in many forms and I think that often we mistake the nature of some of them.  Sometimes people come into our lives very briefly, just to give a message. Others stay around for longer; sometimes burning very bright and then vanishing – almost in a puff of smoke.  And others are for life. 

www.reddirect.co.uk 

Recently I thought I’d lost a life friend. And that hurt. I tried to rationalize it. Let’s be honest, I haven’t been an easy-to-be-with friend this last year.  Living half in other worlds, reneging on social niceties, absconding from the usual pleasantries.  And yes, I’ve lost a fair few friends but, to be honest, that was just fine.  It meant I didn’t have to keep justifying myself – why should I? Is that harsh? No, I don't think so. So often we keep up with friendships from habit; from expectation; from social mores, even when they have long passed their sell-by date. We grow out of clothes, we change our hair style, we move houses, we shift jobs - so why on earth should we keep friendships static, in aspic? 

But this friend?  Oh yeah, this one hurt. I could remember the first time we met, so so clearly. I needed a flat-mate and someone at work suggested her. For reasons too complicated to go into, I was expecting to open the door to a seriously trendy black DJ or musician. Instead there stood a small, very conservatively dressed, very small, very white lawyer. We shared a house for years. I screwed up her love life with a spell that backfired quite spectacularly – but she never blamed me. We laughed, we cried together; we mopped one another up after the usual life disasters. We used to joke that, when we were old, we’d share a house again and be mad bad witches again.

www.reddirect.co.uk

But then…silence. Long, long silence. And I figured, hey. Why would she still want to be friends with me?  She was hugely successful; her career trajectory had soared in reverse proportion to my crash.  But so be it.  Anyway, what could I do?  You can’t force people to be your mates, can you?  Sometimes you have to let go...

And then, just a few days ago, when I was at a very low ebb indeed, an email. Oh. And I replied saying, softly, 'I thought I’d lost you.'  And she replied:

“Baby I will always be here. Friendships like ours run so deep that nothing changes that. Nothing.”

And I smiled. And cried. And the world felt a little warmer.

www.chambersandbeau.com

You don’t need tons of friends. I suppose, if one is being brutal, you don't need any. But life is far nicer if you have a few people in the world who *get* you.  Or – and this is the clever bit – you have people who don’t remotely *get* you; who haven’t a clue what you’re about…who shake their heads and mutter “bloody woman is  barking nuts” but love you nonetheless.  And I have a fair few of both varieties, so I am truly blessed.

Will they stay forever? Who knows? If they do, it is meant. If they don’t, it is meant.  But for now, I’m saying ‘thank you’ to those who have stood by me and loved me even when I’ve been a very hard person to love.  You know who you are…no need to name names.  And so here’s my Christmas Gift Guide…a whole line of friendship bracelets. J

Better things to do with a windpipe than strangling it...

There are some days I just want to strangle. I feel like grabbing them by the windpipe and just squeezing harder and harder until they hold up their pathetic little flailing hands in surrender. I don’t get many like that now but every so often I feel this leviathan scream welling in my throat.  

This morning I have been trying to sort out accounts.  I hate this crap. I really do. I hate the way you have to beg and scrape and scrounge and whine and shout to get the cash you have worked for. I hate that I have to do this crappy work in order to pay the ever-increasing sodding bills.  And sometimes I just want to…well... be elsewhen. 

Anyhow, this morning I had possibly THE most asinine series of emails I have ever had from ANYONE from an accounts department of a large magazine group which steadily made my blood boil until I could barely trust myself to respond without cursing the stupid unhelpful uncaring bland thick as pigshit shit to seven shades of Hell. And no, I'm not saying ALL people in accounts departments are like that - just this particular arsebiscuit.  And Asbo was barking non-stop and and and and…. 

And then I thought. What would my quasi-guru say? 

Oh yeah... 

Breathe.

So…hang on a bit.  I’ll be back...

obsidiantears83.deviantart.com

Aaaah.  That’s better.  And really, that was what kickstarted this whole journey. Well, it was a big part of it.  Cos Marek is big on breathing.  And I have always been small and crap at it. 

My lungs and I have never had an easygoing relationship.  Off ill from school all the time with bronchitis.  Hospitalised with pneumonia.  Any happy-go-lucky virus around would lick its lips and go ‘Hey guys, weak spot alert!’ and lunge for my lungs.  You could argue it had a good deal to do with living in damp houses with parents who smoked. Or then again you could say it had to do with a deep ambivalence about being here in the first place.  Cos I had had that, all my life.  Never quite felt ‘here’, not earthed, not grounded.  Not in a despair way, not in a suicidal way, just in a ‘don’t really feel I belong’ way.  And really, if you're not breathing fully and deeply, isn't that a bit of a body metaphor for not gulping in life? 

The first piece I ever wrote for a national paper was on rebirthing, for The Guardian. Way back. I can still remember punching the air when I got the commission, in my funny little North London house. I can’t, however, remember how I got interested in rebirthing in the first place but I had a trial session and ended up having a course of ten; followed the whole thing for quite a long while before I became disillusioned. When? Maybe after I took Adrian to a Sondra Ray LRT training and (while he loved the breathing, strangely enough) he stormed out halfway through, saying the whole immortality thing and the loving everyone thing was total crap. I guess it was a bit of a deal-breaker between us and so...

Anyhow. Let's backtrack. It was when I was watching my parents having sex during rebirthing (okay, let me just add that I wasn’t physically in the room; you go into a trance state and return to the time before your conception – Milla, you have full permission to wander off until tea-time; and no, they weren't having sex while rebirthing - I was doing the rebirthing bit) I realised that, no, I really really REALLY didn’t want to get born at all.  No sirree.  And sometimes I still feel that way. Not so often nowadays, not so much since this last year of wonderful weirdness, but still...sometimes.  I just become so...detached.  

 

But breathing helps. J

Okay, so I’ve lost a whole swathe of you now, haven’t I?  *sigh*.  No!  Don’t sigh. Breathe…  You don't have to believe in rebirthing, or immortality, or the business of seeing your conception. No, really, truly you don't have to watch your parents having sex!  Not right now anyhow...  For now...just breathe. 

Because breathing plugs you into the here and now. Breathing is an affirmation of life.  It is, it is, it is.  But really, just spend a bit of time every day becoming conscious of your breathing, how you breathe. Some people freak out when they try it.  It's powerful stuff.  Brings up all sorts.

“Lie down on the grass, Feel the earth breathing…” said my guru.  And, for sure, the earth breathes… Listen. Feel…

“Just sit down and breathe. Slowly, regularly, with every inhale and exhale forming a perfect circle,” he said.  

And I try. I try.  One night he got me breathing consciously for about three hours non-stop and oh my, you should have seen the things I saw in my head that time…and eventually I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed nigh-on fifty years of grief out of me in one fell swoop and felt cleansed, renewed…shattered yet clearer.

studio8design.co.uk

You wanna try it?  Nah, not a three-hour marathon but a taster?  There are conscious breathing techniques in pretty well every mystical tradition and ancient culture under the sun and moon but the one that rebirthing uses is to keep the inhale and the exhale the same length, without a pause between. Conscious, slow, regular.  

You may go a little light-headed.  It may feel strange.  But, hey, why not try?  Or not…Or try a different form of breathing. Just breathe! Consciously. Or don't!  it’s entirely up to you!

As Marek says in Symphonic Bridges.  ‘…There are so many other aspects of life, which are crucial for you and absolutely worth experiencing. Especially those regarding your health and happiness. Therefore, you should not take for granted what others say about positive thinking, conscious breathing, meditation, vegetarianism, fasting, fire walking, and so on. Just go ahead and try them, for sake’s sake! Your own experience of the given thingies can be different from what you’ve heard. Everybody is an individual being, you know.’

Thingies... I love that. *smile* 

Exits stage left, breathing...

Breathing Session

Sounds
And reflections
On the walls
Of crystal palaces
Time
And vast spaces
In my room
Breathe deeply
And close your eyes

I get the answer
Prior to a question
When I open up all my mind
Flying into Light
I keep on breathing
Through pain and heavy air
Past burdens and gravity
I leave behind
Approaching weightlessness

Copyright © Marek Stefanowicz 1990

Learn. Unlearn. Relearn.

‘You don’t have to come,’ said Adrian.
‘What? Miss parents’ evening?’ Frowning. How can you have a parents’ “evening” at 3pm?
‘Well, you’re cold and you’re not well.  You don’t have to come. James won’t mind.’
‘I’d mind,’ I replied.  ‘Anyhow, I’ll be warmer in the car than here and, besides, I’m getting better.’

And I was. Mind over matter and a gut-load of weirdness was sorting me out. Sort of.

So he dropped me at the health store so I could stock up on more potions and then we trip-trapped into school, into the auditorium. Now, put me in a theatre seat and I have a nigh-on instant Pavlovian response: my eyelids droop, my head nods (legacy of my theatre reviewing days I suspect).
But then a few words and phrases broke through my dozy reverie and I started paying attention.

‘Everything’s changing,’ said the Director of Studies. ‘And so education has to change too.’ I’m paraphrasing wildly here: she was far more eloquent. But the gist was that it’s no longer enough to learn ‘facts’, to get a firm ‘grip’ on a subject alone.  It’s not about being an encyclopaedia because that is, frankly, impossible as well as useless.  There is simply too much information out there and it’s growing exponentially. Children will need to become navigators, weaving their way. They will need to learn skills of elasticity, of discrimination; they will need to sift, to select, to choose wisely, to figure out what is truth and what is misinformation.  Hmm.

‘Learn. Unlearn. Relearn,’ she said, paraphrasing Alvin Toffler.

Then she said that, at this point in their lives (we’re talking age 12-13) they were, in effect, learning how to learn and learning how to approach life. The major skills the school hoped to impart were those of confidence, independent, discrimination and enquiry.  ‘We want them to become self-reflective,’ she said. ‘Self-critical, to dialogue without judgment.’ She really did say that, I scribbled it down.

Did that mean that a lot of the actual ‘meat’ of their current studies was, frankly, irrelevant?  She shrugged, eloquently. ‘Yes.’  Paused.  ‘But don’t tell them that.’

Interesting.  Learn. Unlearn. Relearn. 

Maybe we all need to be navigators, setting aside dull certainties (which don’t exist) and head into uncharted waters.

Dump ille, illa, illud.  Embrace qui quae quod?  And quomodo?

Be Wise, not Wo(o)den.

But really. What do you think? Does education need to shift? Do we just give children a foundation, a few building blocks? A compass (moral, philosophical?) and then gently push them out to sea, to see?