Wheel of Fortune

My husband and I have a New Year's Day tradition to lay out 12 cards in a circle for each month of the year to come. To get a feel for things in advance so to speak. Wheel of Fortune is my card for this month and I want to talk about it in a post as the events that have transpired have truly represented the meaning of this card. Traditionally, Wheel of Fortune means the ups and downs of life. You could also use Forest Gump's favorite saying with this card, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get." There are deeper implications to this card such as what once was could come back; the circular nature of life. In my life, both the traditional meaning and the coming back of things have proved to be the case.

For starters, work has resumed its rhythm of the years past with long-term subbing. Teachers, for whom I've subbed throughout the years, have been reaching out for coverage. That would explain why I've been too busy to blog or why I started eating wheat again. Maybe. As many of you can probably attest, excluding all wheat and sugar is unsustainable. Eating in moderation and including healthier choices into the diet is more my speed. I find that asking good questions before reaching for food far supersede any diet and they are: Why am I eating this? Am I hungry? Am I tired? Is something else going on? How am I feeling?

Secondly, fiction writing that has been on a hiatus for more than two years now suddenly reappeared this month full force. I've been receiving emails, both purposeful and accidental, from my long-lost buddies from a writer's group I was a part of for over four years. I also finally heard back from a publication about a novel excerpt I've submitted a while back. Lastly and most profoundly, I felt a strong, lively urge to start writing again. Seeing one of my writer group member's emails reminded me of NaNoWriMo, a nonprofit, online organization that supports writers to get that scary first draft out of them by holding an yearly National Novel Writing Month in November where millions of writers aspire to write 50,000 words in one month. With no warning whatsoever, my heart shouted, "THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO DO!"
        I answered, "Okay, okay. But what should I write?"
       A young adult novel that has been buried deep in my files sprung up as if to say, "Pick me. Pick me!"
        I sat down to write a fresh summary of it to see what it had to tell me, if anything changed from last time. Because as far as I remembered, it fell flat on its face and never got up again. However, once those fresh flood gates have been opened, the new summary downloaded through me as if it's been waiting to take a long awaited breath. It's official. I'm going to tackle getting that first sh**ty draft out in one month. That might probably mean no posts for the month of November. But it'll be a small price to pay in exchange for a completed draft of a forgotten book, not to mention the revival of writing itself.

Thirdly, my musical partner and husband, have been receiving plentiful invitations to perform, do interviews, and even be a part of a communal album with the local musicians of Los Angeles. These events have ignited us to prepare to record our long awaited second Non Duo album.

But not all the chocolates this month have been sweet and exciting. I also ate some bitter ones like receiving a notice to appear in court because my employer, Los Angeles Unified School District, wants to appeal the unemployment benefits I received this past summer for being sick 1 day. On that note, I've also been dealing with some unexpected health issues.

Through the ups and downs, I'm remembering my Tarot teacher, Dennis Rudolph, saying, "As the wheel spins, join in the fun when the wheel is up, but go to the center when its on the downward movement. This way, you can never lose."

Anyone up to take a ride on the wheel?

CREATING MARINA

Wheatless Witness

 

Now that I’m on this “no-wheat and skip meals if I can’t find anything appropriate to eat” diet, I have enormous amount of energy. I can see things more clearly. I want to write all this stuff. I even started writing a new novel. I’ve been watching less Netflix. I began to revamp my website. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m going there fast. Did I mention it’s only been two days? What will a week do? A month? A year?

            I know. I know. Let’s not get carried away. Everyone who has ever dieted will tell you that things can shift back pretty quickly. The true test will take place with my next PMS, which is due to come up this week.

            But you know what got me, as never before— clarity. I can see clearer where the energy actually wants to go. I can see where I’m fooling myself. I can see my conditioning and I can watch it burn up. I can see how the body does not die if it does not get fed, if meals get skipped. (Warning: Skipping meals is not correct for everyone. You may take part at your own risk or consider getting your advanced Human Design chart done and it’ll tell you if it’s good for you to skip meals. Typically, the people who should not skip meals, do so all the time, and the people who should, are afraid an asteroid will wipe them off the planet (like I used to believe) if they so much as skip a snack. But please, consult with your doctor.) And oh yes, I’ve also been sleeping a lot less. 

Two Days Later…

 

So, after writing and writing for 5,000 words, all I kept feeling and hearing was: I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. Why am I writing this stupid story? It’s sort of based on personal experience but set to the backdrop of an idea that won’t make me or the character look very flattering. It won’t stand the test of time. And I don’t mean everyone’s else’s time, just my own.

            Then I begin reading Jed’s interpretation of Apocalypse Now, the filmmaker’s journey, not the character’s and I realize that’s what I’m going through here. My own interior Apocalypse and all these stories I’m attempting to write on the outside are merely fun house mirrors of what’s happening on the inside. 

The Next Day…

“If you see through yourself, you will see through everyone.” – Jed McKenna (Jed Talks #2)

A dog barks. A slight panic-like feeling rises and it says: You need to work on the novel. A neighbor speaks loudly to another neighbor in Chinese. I remember to drop my shoulders. I take a sip from a second cup of coffee. I look for something, so I look around the room. I find nothing and then wonder why I looked in the first place. I’m documenting everything bit-by-painful bit because I want to catch myself red-handed when I attach to what appears.

            Why do I really want to explore the novel I'm working on?

            Vicarious living. I know I have enough material to write it. Gives me something to do.

            But it’s not what you want to do, I hear from beyond.

            Right. (I got distracted with what I will do if my long lost friend invites me to her wedding. She’s not even getting married yet.) What I really want to do is focus. Jed gives all this wonderful advice on how to get what you want through a co-creative process with the universe, which is really just one creator doing everything and it’s me. So what happens is that I get distracted by some other things I want: a house, better investment strategies, better way to make a living, writing stories, making time for family and friends. But the moment I approach these other things and get into them, I remember what I actually want and that’s to wake up from what Jed calls the Dreamstate, to cross Event Horizon, to realize Singularity, already understanding I’m already that. But the inquiry is not over. Mooji says, “Don’t stop there.” Even the relief of this realization can be observed. It’s not over. So more focus is required until the realization I AM wipes everything clean. So I keep poking at it and poking at it, creating some tiny and not so tiny holes in this balloon and any of these holes could pop the whole thing. So my job is just to keep poking whenever I’m not distracted, whenever I have focus.

            So I’m trying to focus.

            I remember my breath. I begin to hear the windchimes.

            “Is ‘I need to do something’ a fake?”

            Can it be observed?

            “Yes. But it’s sitting on top of something else. Another belief: Didn’t you say you wanted to be a self-published author and become independently wealthy?"

            Can that be observed?

            “Yes.”

            Stay with Pure I AM. (Website change: Add Ramana’s Who am I? and Mooji’s Stay as Pure I AM)

            (As I’m getting ready to meet with my parents, this is occurring: So most of the time there are no real decisions to be made, just imaginary hoop jumping. And in those moments when a decision is required, the obviousness of what to do takes over).  

            As far as my question above . . . 

                                                                         several hours later . . . 

The mind has me on a leash, but it only has the power to lead me if I’m unaware. With a little more help from realization, the focus becomes sharper, as well as the desire to focus. And it feels like an exciting kind of exercise, if I can call it that. Just stay as I AM. Once the mugginess of what that means is cleared, then it’s just a matter of settling there more and more.

            ‘ I need to do something’ can be mixed up with a true understanding that doing something is correct; however the something that I need to do is misdirected if it’s not angled toward the one thing that I want more than anything, in this case, full realization. So, it’s not that I can’t, it’s about aligning with the one thing that’s truly wanted.

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Quality & Non-Duality

I’m sitting under the stairs of a coffee shop like Harry Potter under the stairs of his aunt’s house before he became aware he was a wizard. I think I may just stick with nonfiction for now. Because it seems to be that’s what I keep writing about: my process, observations, where I go, what I do, what I see, what I think, feel, want to share with others… My one-inch picture frame is the corner of this coffee shop looking out at the rails of the trains crossing. A Hispanic woman crosses the street carrying two large bags. Where is she going? What are her days like? She looks like an errand type of woman who does too many things for her family who don’t appreciate her. But she doesn’t care, because she loves to be needed. That’s her reward: for her family to keep needing her.

            After texting with a fellow writer friend about starting our own writing magazine and publishing house, two gals sat down at the only other table by the window on the first floor of this coffee house to chat. That’s why I came here—the ambiance of chatter and coffee making. Words seem to flow better in public places. That happens to be what my advanced Human Design chart says—best luck and opportunities in public places, working with people one-on-one or in small groups.

            My writer friend sent me a two second video of him opening the bill inside a cool box. I liked it so much I asked him if I could include it in my blog. He consented, but then sent me what he considers better versions of the video. However all the subsequent clips are not of the same quality as that first one and here’s why:

            A word about quality—it is something you’re not trying to do. It’s just something that happens in the universe when you think no one is looking, reading, judging, waiting, etc…

            “I don’t love working here. It’s like, well . . . I’d rather be doing other stuff. I’d like already done other stuff like this . . . like working at restaurants. . . There’s other stuff I wanna do.” – Coffee shop girl.

            A middle-aged man came in to look at the artwork on the walls. He hasn’t quite decided if he wants to stay or not. Not. 

            Although I’m not yet sure that I will submit the first few chapters of my novel to a writing contest whose deadline is today, I prepared the chapters along with the cover letter. 

So the personality must be happening without me, despite me, within me, as a temporary focus point, but the focus doesn’t have to be there all the time.

            I keep jumping out because I’m not finding anything when I look within. And I’m not supposed to find anything within. But it gets quickly boring . . . stayed with it . . . got uncomfortable . . . stayed with it . . . got sleepy . . . stayed with it . . . had a thought: I came here to write . . . stayed with it . . . how long should I keep staying with it . . . stayed with it . . .

“Anyone with a simple theoretical grasp of nonduality—the certainty of one and certain impossibility of zero and two—has all they need to burn their ego structure to the ground. The concept of not-two is very powerful, so if you possess this bomb and you’re not either awake or in the throes of internal upheaval, then it never got into the right hands.” – Jed McKenna

So if I feel like I want more to do, then I didn’t get the message. So there’s no two, that means there’s only one here and it’s doing everything, including this personality and all the other personalities. And it seems like I’m seeing many. But it’s all me. Why does it still feel like so what? I still want my privacy. I still want a million dollars so that I wouldn’t have to work. Who’s wanting all these things? And if all these me’s can’t give these things to me, then does it mean that I don’t really want them?

            The ego self likes this and doesn’t like that. As much as I hate to admit it, it’s still the case. I’m aware of the one who’s aware of it, including the one who wants these things. And sometimes is willing to stoop pretty low to get them. There’s this contradictory self who also wants to lose weight, but at the same time still wants to eat pizza and whatever else its little heart desires. It fantasizes about having sushi with her husband later today. It’s doing it right now. It can’t wait to be done with all this writing business and be saved by her husband walking through the door and taking her away from her self and into a sushi restaurant. At the same time she likes writing about this stuff because it gives her something to do and perhaps a light bulb will go off and she’ll have answers to her questions or at least an answer to all questions.

            I don’t know why that bomb is not blowing everything up.

            Detach from the ego self. Watch it. Observe its functioning. Be as much interested in how it works as in what its current obsession is. You don’t need to stop it from doing what it does, just lay back and watch it like a movie.

I submitted my first chapters to the contest.

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Fake Sounds, Real Emotions

I’m creating an ambiance of a coffee shop by putting on sounds of HQ Coffee Shop off YouTube for an hour. The library won’t be open until 10 am and the coffee shop across the street doesn’t have a customer restroom. I want to take a break from Jameson. Besides, the energy got Kaldi on its mind. I made myself a breakfast veggie sandwich at home on the right kind of bread—Ezekiel.

I did it. I posted another blog. I fulfilled my purpose. The background noise has 14 minutes left. Isn’t it wonderful to be able to control your reality this way. Of course, the energy of others is a safe distance away. Because I don’t really have to deal with the outside world, there’s an element missing. Sometimes that missing element is good to miss. The comfort of home is here. I can go to the bathroom whenever I want. I can get up and walk around and no one will look at me funny or tell me to sit down. I can eat and drink whatever I want and no one will tell me I can’t bring outside food in or have social decorum force me to order something, even if I don’t want anything. Other times, lack of a real ambiance is an obvious hole. The constrictions of the outside world add to the ambiance. The seeming other who observes you also creates a distinct difference. This “being observed” changes how I behave, think, feel, and what I do. I also feel less alone, more involved somehow even if I’m not interacting with anyone.

            A minute to go on ambiance noise. Then I can go join the real world. Whatever that means. Just like that, background noise fades out like it never was.

I am now at Kaldi with my hot tea next to me to soothe the throat on this hot day. This extreme weather is effecting my system. And I’m on the outside world where it’s socially appropriate to order something, preferably right away. Let’s say if I didn’t order something like that one time when I was with an ex-boyfriend and he insisted we just sit there and don’t order anything.

I felt uncomfortable. The person behind the register was giving me a dirty look. I lowered my eyes, yet not fully understanding why I was feeling so guilty. I’d been coming there for years, always ordering; many times ordering a lot. Sh

ouldn’t that have secured me a time or two of not having to order anything? Which was what I told my boyfriend at the time. I ended with, “we should still order something.”

He went up to the girl behind the register, and instead of ordering, told her that she was making me feel uncomfortable. I turned crimson. The coffee shop girl said, “This is my place of business and you’re just sitting there and not ordering.” She was losing her cool. I thought she was going to call the cops or at the minimum throw us out. My ex said, “We might order something later. We just wanted to sit first. This is not how to treat your customers and I’m going to yelp about this.”

Granted, I never went back to that coffee shop again.

            But that’s how we get placed in our “correct places.” Try and not follow the rules of this world and doors will go slamming. But that’s not the case for everyone and it’s definitely not the case when people think they can get away with something behind closed doors and encrypted Internet spaces. It still comes back to emotion. If one feels bad about certain behaviors, then that one will avoid doing them. Guilt functioning as emotional paste combined with social agreements and we’ve got a fully functioning “dreamstate” as Jed calls it. You won’t let yourself off the hook and the world won’t either. The two keep perpetuating each other. So, I say, there’s gotta be a better way.  

            If, for instance, the inner emotional paste was no longer in service, would the world rules still exist for that person?

            “Emotion is the energy source of the dreamstate. Emotion is derived from fear, but fear is not compulsory because it’s not the only possible core emotion. There’s also agape, most resembling a natural state of wistful gratitude…” Jed McKenna, Jed Talks #1

            So, the answer would be, Yes. The rules would exist but how would our relationship to the world change if we were walking around in “wistful gratitude” versus guilt, which is another form of fear. Wouldn’t it feel more like lucid dreaming? I’m not me, I’m not the guilty one or the lacking one or the angry one, but I’m still wearing the body of someone who was. So this one goes out into the world, who knows the rules of this world, but doesn’t take them too seriously, but who wants to play the game where she gets to come back to this place over and over again. With wistful gratitude for being able to walk around in this dream all the while knowing that it’s a game she stepped into, plays her part the best way she knows how.

            “You didn’t create yourself, you are not the author of your character, so what is it about yourself that you take so personally?” – Jed

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Now What?

Typically, a college town, a different demographic of folk has gathered at Jameson this morning—business professionals, male dominated. It’s one of these places that can be confused for a Seattle based coffee shop. Munching on a feta and dill flat bread and watching a girl trying to find a seat in a place where every seat is taken except for one at the community table. She takes it. She puts her headphones on and so is not aware that one is about to open up.

False alarm. Someone just jumped on it from a table across from the bathrooms. And here’s a salesperson who really loves his job as he enthusiastically sells the woman in front of him. I hear words like “passion” and “drive.” “It’s an investment.”

            Before yoga class this morning, the following came: When you find the thing you wanna do or just that thing, you feel like anything is possible. It suddenly doesn’t matter how much money you have or what it’d pay or how hard life might look because with this thing in your life, how can anything be too hard or too serious? Perhaps that’s the difference between the thing that you love and the thing that you settle for. When you settle you say things like, “I can make this work; At least it pays well; At least I’m contributing to society, family, etc…; At least I don’t have it as hard as some other people.” But with this thing you can stop time and live many lives and discover beyond the reaches of your imagination. You can cover more ground, infinitely more ground. You look forward to getting up and doing this thing. It’ll even get you to get up early and go to the gym. That’s how powerful it is to do the right thing, to follow that unexplainable joy you receive from folding your clothes or baking that cake or gardening or writing about absolutely nothing. It feels like you’re connecting to the elemental, to the most basic joyous part of you that doesn’t need this thing to mean anything but to simply be enjoyed like a refreshing watermelon on a hot day. Elizabeth Gilbert, Ekhart Tolle, they were all right about this whole “enthusiasm” part. It moves the experience from ordinary to extraordinary.

            Two more men came in to do work on their laptop right next to me, discussing how to do something. Sounds like they’re talking about web design. A man in his late fifties just checked out a shapely girl in her twenties. The world keeps turning.

            Or is it?

            Three more older business persons in business suits came in. It must be a business kind of day. This explains lack of parking on the long street full of five-hour parking spots. A group of four college kids came in and just then a four-person table opened up. How accommodating the universe is.

            What is this slightly rumbling panic?

            Is it observable?

            Yes.

            Ten hours later I find myself at a Starbucks, primarily to stay cool. Five minutes in and I’m in need of some white noise: "train sound." So, emotion is the paste that holds the ego-self together says Jed McKenna (Jed Talks #1). Yes, I would say so. I would add that believing in the reality of emotion is what holds the “me” together. S**t will still come up and getting mired in it is what really holds it together. On my post-it notes I used to write: Don’t Get Involved. Right now my post-it says: Emotion is the Paste. To sum up: Don’t get involved in the drama of your mind and the stickiness of emotion.

Not only do we get suckered in on the inside, but everything on the outside is designed to trigger emotion like this remake of a Bee Gees’ song, “How Deep is Your Love,” for instance that I’m trying to drown out with the continuously moving train. Music is just one big part of the outside world, then there are people—the push/pull dynamic of “I like you” and “Stay away from me.” But they all supposed to be me. So it’s back to emotion. Whatever triggers me about them is really whatever triggers me. And really, it’s just the trigger itself that should be noticed and seen as emotion and then immediately dropped.

            But who’s going to drop it? (Suzanne Segal enters my subconscious)

            With no self here doing anything, it’s just a bunch of sounds and sensations and perceptions flickering about and then change with the scenery. (Peter Brown chimes in)

            The dramatic one goes, “What am I gonna do now? There’s nothing to do. No one to be. Nothing to see. Oh, hey, it could be a song. What’s going to entertain the monkey-mind? It’s too hot to go outside. I have another hour here before my husband comes back from yoga. I could read I suppose. I could edit a blog or two. I could keep doing this thing I’m doing now. I could check inside again and see there is no one there. Maybe this time I will feel something other than this. Maybe I will be taken over by some magic euphoria and won’t care what I do or how long I have to sit here.

            What’s observing all this?

            Something. A quiet one.  A patient one. The non-needy one.

            Perhaps I’m not even doing the dramatic one. Perhaps it goes on by itself doing its own thing while I silently, indiscriminately watch.

            There’s still someone here who wants bliss or peace or something that doesn’t feel like it’s always seeking. The moment I start something—a new project, a new idea, a story, housework, job, helping a friend, whatever—I begin to feel this discomfort on the back of my heart and in my throat as if air is being constricted like I’m on the wrong path. Then I’ll feel good about whatever it is I’m doing for a bit and things begin to make sense again when a voice asks, “Are you sure about that?” Of course, the answer is always no. Sometimes I ignore the voice because I’m not sure where it’s coming from.

            Where is this voice coming from now?

            From the back of my chest. Is it just a mind’s voice, the one who’s never happy and always complaining?

            Some of it maybe. The one who’s observing is there too. The one that says, “You’re not doing this right” is also there. There’s also the one that adds, “Keep going even if you don’t know where it’s going.” I think that’s Jed’s voice. “You don’t have to know. Question everything.”

            I want to put part of this writing piece here in Just Passing Through and the more self-inquiry part in the Un-Creating Me Blog.

            Let that do its thing, but you stay here.

            That’s Mooji’s voice.

            “And no, now what?” he adds.

            But if no, now what, then what?

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Just Passing Through

I’m sitting at the observation deck at Jameson Brown Coffee Roasters—a seat with an overview of the whole place with no one behind me. Right now I don’t have to figure out how to be non-emotional as the current state and appearance are relatively neutral. So it is the sensation of being swept away that becomes curious whenever it presents itself. But that’s not what’s happening now. Now there is a hum of voices with occasional scratching of chairs against the cement floor like aberrations in the atmosphere. Something loud just ended, perhaps the coffee grinder stopped grinding and in an instant the humming of voices ceased. But only for a second. They resumed just as quick.

            I’m remembering sitting at my husband ex-boss’s house and writing my way into the moment while I waited for him. It occurred to me then, perhaps for the first time, that that’s the only kind of writing I wanted to do. Yesterday the same thing happened. Writing for the sake for writing as long as what was written was true to the moment. Blogging might be the most perfect medium to accomplish such a feat. Immediately publishable, shareable, and forever continuous. It accomplishes a task I love doing most frequently while at the same time sharing it with others without having to have a neatly wrapped up ending or a story line.

            I did it. I looked at my old blog sites. I believe one is about to expire and the other sounds like a yoga practice: Breathing Through It. The name sounded like a good idea at the time. I have no idea what I would call this imaginary blog. “My Imaginary Blog?"

BLOG = a website that contains online personal reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks, videos, and photographs provided by the writer; a regular feature appearing as part of an online publication that typically relates to a particular topic and consists of articles and personal commentary by one or more authors. (Compliments of Merriam-Webster.com)

Yes, I looked up the definition. Perhaps having a dictionary tell me what it is will help me see what it is I'm doing clearer. When I first heard of a blog, a decade ago, I recognized it. That’s it. That’s what I should do. It’s a perfect medium for someone like me. And I did it. I started one in 2010. All two of them. Without readership, it was no longer that interesting. Of course now with Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and whathaveyou, you can get a response from at least a person or two giving you the thumbs up or perhaps even a comment or two. Your friends are bound to validate your existence.

All right, back to breaking into the moment. A man with a curious mustache just walked by, you know the kind that curls on the sides like one of my exes has now. The man’s salt and pepper hair is cleanly brushed back. You know what’s also groovy about blogging is that I never have to have a topic or finish a story I had begun or provide any resolutions to questions. It’s an ongoing project that thrives on not ending. And it will always give me something to do—just write what you see, write what’s happening, write what you’re thinking, feeling, being, or passing through. Maybe it should be called “Just Passing Through?" I just asked my husband what he thought. And my sister. And an old writing buddy. And then I went on a rampage fixing the existing blog and renaming it, which blogspot lets you do without a hitch. It’ll kind of be my experimental blog, the one no one knows about that I can use as a template.

We’re all watching each other, feeding off each other.


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Aliveness

Aliveness is full. 

It feels like you don't need anything else. 

It's so full, there's no room for supplements.

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