Tania: "I'm not very good at blogsitting."
Lisa: "That's OK. You're good at other things."
Lisa: Ok, after you have read the above witty exchange, be sure to read Pema's blog entry below (Earth's Prayers), because it's one of my favorites that Pema has ever written--I could feel my soul soaring to the music of her writing.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Earth's Prayers
Leave your blog to your friends for half a minute and they go telling high school secrets. Oy. We have to turn our focus somewhere in high school. Always did like a theme and a purpose.
In other news...I found WiFi in Yellowstone. Right there next to the buffalems and mule deer.
Did you know that Yellowstone is one of the world's five largest volcanos? And it blew 640,000 years ago? And it is currently ten years behind schedule to blow again? And when it DOES blow, it will be a big enough blast, and ash enough, and power enough to black out the sun to create the next ice age? There's a way to defeat global warming.
I learned all of this only after yesterday's walks through steaming, roiling, spewing water, its source the volcanic activity below. It's not just Old Faithful that lives out here. It's fields and fields of deep blue baths and smaller geysers, belching and spitting hot water and endless pillars of steam.
Usually when I'm out in nature, I get a little holy. I can't help but feel close to the earth and God and native spirituality. Whispers of history, ancient history, sneak up and make me feel small and wide-eyed in a big wide world. So I get quiet and listen for what the big, timeless things may have to share with me.
So here I am walking through the tourist-corrals reminding myself to pay attention to the beauty of natural Wyoming/Montana rather than the two-leggeds in shorts and short haircuts that trail each other like ducklings and keep placing little silver boxes between their faces and the other ducklings who gather and show their teeth when the little boxes comes out.
I keep pulling my attention to the mineral colors and the warm water pools and the steam and then I hit on something.
I learned a practice a long time ago that is an energy clearing practice. You put your hands on the ground or the floor, and you breathe into the left hand and out of the right hand. You breathe in a cleansing breath, drawing it up from the earth, you let it course through you and you release all negativity through the right hand, breathe it out into the earth so the earth can take it away. The earth can handle it, deep and churning as it is below. I usually feel better whenever I do this. But never without wondering what the earth does with it all. I'm certainly not the only one practicing it.
In Sweat Lodges, which are ceremonial for many Native American tribes, they implore the people who sit in the steaming lodge to send their prayers up with the steam. Send your prayers to Great Spirit on the steam as it rises and purify yourself of your longing. Looking at the steam rising off the geysers and cauldrons and hot springs yesterday, it occurred to me that these are the earth's prayers, rising into the sky. This is how the earth sends what I give it, away to Great Spirit.
Then I learned about the volcanic activity and history and realized when it blows, that's gonna be one big prayer.
In other news...I found WiFi in Yellowstone. Right there next to the buffalems and mule deer.
Did you know that Yellowstone is one of the world's five largest volcanos? And it blew 640,000 years ago? And it is currently ten years behind schedule to blow again? And when it DOES blow, it will be a big enough blast, and ash enough, and power enough to black out the sun to create the next ice age? There's a way to defeat global warming.
I learned all of this only after yesterday's walks through steaming, roiling, spewing water, its source the volcanic activity below. It's not just Old Faithful that lives out here. It's fields and fields of deep blue baths and smaller geysers, belching and spitting hot water and endless pillars of steam.
Usually when I'm out in nature, I get a little holy. I can't help but feel close to the earth and God and native spirituality. Whispers of history, ancient history, sneak up and make me feel small and wide-eyed in a big wide world. So I get quiet and listen for what the big, timeless things may have to share with me.
So here I am walking through the tourist-corrals reminding myself to pay attention to the beauty of natural Wyoming/Montana rather than the two-leggeds in shorts and short haircuts that trail each other like ducklings and keep placing little silver boxes between their faces and the other ducklings who gather and show their teeth when the little boxes comes out.
I keep pulling my attention to the mineral colors and the warm water pools and the steam and then I hit on something.
I learned a practice a long time ago that is an energy clearing practice. You put your hands on the ground or the floor, and you breathe into the left hand and out of the right hand. You breathe in a cleansing breath, drawing it up from the earth, you let it course through you and you release all negativity through the right hand, breathe it out into the earth so the earth can take it away. The earth can handle it, deep and churning as it is below. I usually feel better whenever I do this. But never without wondering what the earth does with it all. I'm certainly not the only one practicing it. In Sweat Lodges, which are ceremonial for many Native American tribes, they implore the people who sit in the steaming lodge to send their prayers up with the steam. Send your prayers to Great Spirit on the steam as it rises and purify yourself of your longing. Looking at the steam rising off the geysers and cauldrons and hot springs yesterday, it occurred to me that these are the earth's prayers, rising into the sky. This is how the earth sends what I give it, away to Great Spirit.
Then I learned about the volcanic activity and history and realized when it blows, that's gonna be one big prayer.
Big Gray Spot on the Blog
Welcome to the strange void. This is the place where your imagination can run free. Or run for the hills. Or get sucked into another time and space. This is the white noise or gray fog or chink in the smooth surface or flaw in the weave for the spirit to live. I think that last one is a Navajo weavers belief, that they weave an intentional flaw into the bowl or vessel in and call it a place where the spirit lives. I think an African belief is that the flaw is where the devil gets out. Whatever your persuasion, here is the flaw in the blog...I have no idea how this big gray spot got here or how to get it off. I shall title it, "Contemplation of a Flaw."
Moving on.
Should "Contemplation of a Flaw" not properly reside within this blog exact blog post, note that the post it once partially covered is titled, "Earth's Prayer's," and that the first paragraph doesn't relate to the story at all. So you could start reading it at the second paragraph and not miss anything. The first paragraph is only an embarrassed disclaimer from me after Lisa told the Internet audience about my high school System of Annual Prom Attendance, with boys named Miller. Read the post. I can't repeat it.
Warning: These paragraphs are repeated as many times as were necessary to get the Big Gray Spot to reside on this blog post. Read it anew each time if you like. Or skip ahead.
Welcome to the strange void. This is the place where your imagination can run free. Or run for the hills. Or get sucked into another time and space. This is the white noise or gray fog or chink in the smooth surface or flaw in the weave for the spirit to live. I think that last one is a Navajo weavers belief, that they weave an intentional flaw into the bowl or vessel in and call it a place where the spirit lives. I think an African belief is that the flaw is where the devil gets out. Whatever your persuasion, here is the flaw in the blog...I have no idea how this big gray spot got here or how to get it off. I shall title it, "Contemplation of a Flaw."
Moving on.
Should "Contemplation of a Flaw" not properly reside within this blog exact blog post, note that the post it once covered is titled, "Earth's Prayer's," and that the first paragraph doesn't relate to the story at all. So you could start reading it at the second paragraph and not miss anything. The first paragraph is only an embarrassed disclaimer from me after Lisa told the Internet audience about my high school System of Annual Prom Attendance, with boys named Miller. Read the post. I can't repeat it.
still in the void....
wheee!!!
whew it's murky in here!
i see the light! we're close! let us out!
.
Moving on.
Should "Contemplation of a Flaw" not properly reside within this blog exact blog post, note that the post it once partially covered is titled, "Earth's Prayer's," and that the first paragraph doesn't relate to the story at all. So you could start reading it at the second paragraph and not miss anything. The first paragraph is only an embarrassed disclaimer from me after Lisa told the Internet audience about my high school System of Annual Prom Attendance, with boys named Miller. Read the post. I can't repeat it.
Warning: These paragraphs are repeated as many times as were necessary to get the Big Gray Spot to reside on this blog post. Read it anew each time if you like. Or skip ahead.
Welcome to the strange void. This is the place where your imagination can run free. Or run for the hills. Or get sucked into another time and space. This is the white noise or gray fog or chink in the smooth surface or flaw in the weave for the spirit to live. I think that last one is a Navajo weavers belief, that they weave an intentional flaw into the bowl or vessel in and call it a place where the spirit lives. I think an African belief is that the flaw is where the devil gets out. Whatever your persuasion, here is the flaw in the blog...I have no idea how this big gray spot got here or how to get it off. I shall title it, "Contemplation of a Flaw."
Moving on.
Should "Contemplation of a Flaw" not properly reside within this blog exact blog post, note that the post it once covered is titled, "Earth's Prayer's," and that the first paragraph doesn't relate to the story at all. So you could start reading it at the second paragraph and not miss anything. The first paragraph is only an embarrassed disclaimer from me after Lisa told the Internet audience about my high school System of Annual Prom Attendance, with boys named Miller. Read the post. I can't repeat it.
still in the void....
wheee!!!
whew it's murky in here!
i see the light! we're close! let us out!
.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Fascinating Facts about Pema
I've known Pema for years. However, I didn't know until Tuesday night this fascinating Pema fact: she went to the prom 4 times throughout highschool...ALL with a Miller man. Only one was a repeat. Apparently some of this was intentional on Pema's part, sort of an inner-theme: "I know, I'll only go to the prom with guys who have the last name Miller! I can make this happen..."
The sheer power of manifestation of this woman, I tell ya!
lisa
The sheer power of manifestation of this woman, I tell ya!
lisa
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Blogsitting
I am going to Yellowstone with my brothers and their families tomorrow! So I asked Lisa and Tania if they would blogsit while I'm away. (I don't know if Boo Boo and Yogi have wireless in the Montana mountains.)
Whenever Tania and Lisa go out of town, I am the kitty sitter. You perhaps have seen other posts of me whining for lack of sleep because the kittens (better known now as cattens), briefly put, are maniacs. Best thing about blogsitting versus kitty sitting? The blog won't wake you up at 4:30 in the morning licking your face. Hear that? No licking while I'm away, people!
Whenever Tania and Lisa go out of town, I am the kitty sitter. You perhaps have seen other posts of me whining for lack of sleep because the kittens (better known now as cattens), briefly put, are maniacs. Best thing about blogsitting versus kitty sitting? The blog won't wake you up at 4:30 in the morning licking your face. Hear that? No licking while I'm away, people!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Fertile Crescent
Write about the "Dark Continent" and you're sure to get a reaction. Actually, I had to quell and then ignore all my own reactions before I hit "publish" on yesterday's Bench.
Women who have been tending to their health as prescribed by their gyn doc or nurse practitioner understand the absurdity of what we put ourselves through every year. We have to go sit in the stirrups--and I don't mean at the horse ranch--annually if we don't want to chance being a statistic: Cervical cancer used to be the number one cause of cancer deaths in women. Key phrase: used to be. Deaths and incidence of cervical cancer have declined as the number of women getting annual exams has increased.
Great. Fabulous. So why do I need to write publicly about the details of that very private practice? Well...ultimately, how private is a practice that half of the population submits itself to every single year? How solo is the experience when, as reported again and again, it ranges somewhere between mortification, degredation and personal empowerment, depending on what kind of woman you're feeling like that day?
I bounced the Bench post back and forth in my head before publishing it, alternating between loud laughs and not-so-subtle cringes. One voice in there said: Ah, what the hell. It's "Sex and the City." Every woman experiences it. Another voice said: Oh my God, you're going to describe yourself in that position? We know what doctors do in that room. Another voice said: Men reading this post will faint on the spot. To which another voice answered: Men have as many words for their members as Eskimos have for snow, and their turn-your-head-and-cough moments are hardly hidden from popular talk.
Meanwhile, my experience of that annual excursion to the ranch--let's just let go and call it the ranch, shall we?--my observation of that time-of-the-year is that it's absurd. The whole picture. After all, that physical place each woman and all society holds precious and dear, that bodily Bethlehem that women carry as their source of being, power, identity, passage, rites of their own and of the children they bear, THAT one vortex of humanity gets exposed in the most demeaning and embarrassing and silly of ways, every year--usually under a dusty, unattractive ceiling, and always within these degrading acute triangles of steel that force demureness off today's set list right quick. If we can't look at it and laugh, we get buried in a lot of undue shame. And additional shame is one less thing we could stand to carry around in our body's Bethlehem, can-I-getta-witness.
Women who have been tending to their health as prescribed by their gyn doc or nurse practitioner understand the absurdity of what we put ourselves through every year. We have to go sit in the stirrups--and I don't mean at the horse ranch--annually if we don't want to chance being a statistic: Cervical cancer used to be the number one cause of cancer deaths in women. Key phrase: used to be. Deaths and incidence of cervical cancer have declined as the number of women getting annual exams has increased.
Great. Fabulous. So why do I need to write publicly about the details of that very private practice? Well...ultimately, how private is a practice that half of the population submits itself to every single year? How solo is the experience when, as reported again and again, it ranges somewhere between mortification, degredation and personal empowerment, depending on what kind of woman you're feeling like that day?
I bounced the Bench post back and forth in my head before publishing it, alternating between loud laughs and not-so-subtle cringes. One voice in there said: Ah, what the hell. It's "Sex and the City." Every woman experiences it. Another voice said: Oh my God, you're going to describe yourself in that position? We know what doctors do in that room. Another voice said: Men reading this post will faint on the spot. To which another voice answered: Men have as many words for their members as Eskimos have for snow, and their turn-your-head-and-cough moments are hardly hidden from popular talk.
Meanwhile, my experience of that annual excursion to the ranch--let's just let go and call it the ranch, shall we?--my observation of that time-of-the-year is that it's absurd. The whole picture. After all, that physical place each woman and all society holds precious and dear, that bodily Bethlehem that women carry as their source of being, power, identity, passage, rites of their own and of the children they bear, THAT one vortex of humanity gets exposed in the most demeaning and embarrassing and silly of ways, every year--usually under a dusty, unattractive ceiling, and always within these degrading acute triangles of steel that force demureness off today's set list right quick. If we can't look at it and laugh, we get buried in a lot of undue shame. And additional shame is one less thing we could stand to carry around in our body's Bethlehem, can-I-getta-witness.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Vagina Slinger
In fact, yes, I did just write that title. Why? Because the gynecologist I went to yesterday was a cowboy. Big stature, big hands, I was down and he was done in 50 seconds flat, having, with the decorum you'd expect of a cowboy, groped around my garden like he was searching for a spigot in the dark. I guess he found it because he slapped my knee and hollered, "All done!"
“A horse is a horse, it ain't make a difference what color it is.”
-John Wayne
.
“A horse is a horse, it ain't make a difference what color it is.”
-John Wayne
.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Company
Tony Award winning, Sondheimian stage goodness, and I can't palate it. Tania rented COMPANY, a Sondheim musical, and I couldn't get through 40 minutes. All about a single guy at 35 who can't commit, and his 5 sets of married friends--the male of whom complain about being smothered and discontent, the female of whom dote and nag in heavy doses. It pushed all of my buttons. It's exactly why I called it off with Bombo. I don't want to be with someone who plays the yes-man to his woman then complains to his buddies that "she-made-me." Call me crazy. ...Then I read the Wiki. It came out in 1970. Guess I'm a daughter of the feminist revolution.
Better write my own play about men and marriage. Oh, I am.
Better write my own play about men and marriage. Oh, I am.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Little Big Things
"Little tiny dreams, Pema, require little tiny thoughts and little tiny steps.
Great big dreams require great big thoughts and little tiny steps.
Do I paint a clear picture?
-The Universe"
(from www.tut.com)
*
Great big dreams require great big thoughts and little tiny steps.
Do I paint a clear picture?
-The Universe"
(from www.tut.com)
*
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Censorial Parlor
LISA: The only thing I would take off your blog is me scratching Tania's ass.
TANIA: Don't you dare.
PEMA: So, you probably don't want me to put this on my blog.
LISA: We could stop referring to it. You could put THAT on the blog if you want to.
TANIA: Don't you dare.
PEMA: So, you probably don't want me to put this on my blog.
LISA: We could stop referring to it. You could put THAT on the blog if you want to.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Theatre of the Absurd
The IT guy at work looked over my shoulder at lunch today and saw that I'm working on a play called TALKING DOGS.
KEN: Talking Dogs?
PEMA: Yep.
KEN: I was biking by the Scientology Center this weekend and there was a person dressed in a big pink bunny outfit and there was a little chihuaua going nuts just wanting to have a go at that rabbit.
I couldn't respond. But I've been laughing since the middle of his sentence.
KEN: Talking Dogs?
PEMA: Yep.
KEN: I was biking by the Scientology Center this weekend and there was a person dressed in a big pink bunny outfit and there was a little chihuaua going nuts just wanting to have a go at that rabbit.
I couldn't respond. But I've been laughing since the middle of his sentence.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Transmogrify
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Integrity
last night we had a little party. lisa grilled sausages and sloppy veggies to put on them, and served yummy condiments. the infrastructure of my gooey delight was deteriorating faster than i could eat it.
ME: My hot dog has lost its integrity.
LISA: That dog was always a slut.
ME: My hot dog has lost its integrity.
LISA: That dog was always a slut.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Art review
Here's a little bit of what I've put to paper lately.
http://www.independent.com/news/2008/jun/12/beauty-simplicity/
For me as an editor, it's ironic when I play the role of the writer, with my work subject to being edited. I should understand the notion of cutting and shaping for the purpose of clarity, and I do. But when I see the final version in print, the effect of the changes is less like having my nails clipped and more like watching my various body parts fall to the ground. Beyond their usefulness, there's an artistry in the way those body parts were situated.
Good lessons, I hope, lie in my arm waving to me from the floor, my lips blowing me a kiss as they drift down on a breeze with the jacaranda blossoms.
http://www.independent.com/news/2008/jun/12/beauty-simplicity/
For me as an editor, it's ironic when I play the role of the writer, with my work subject to being edited. I should understand the notion of cutting and shaping for the purpose of clarity, and I do. But when I see the final version in print, the effect of the changes is less like having my nails clipped and more like watching my various body parts fall to the ground. Beyond their usefulness, there's an artistry in the way those body parts were situated.
Good lessons, I hope, lie in my arm waving to me from the floor, my lips blowing me a kiss as they drift down on a breeze with the jacaranda blossoms.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Visionary Legendary
"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes...the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or villify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things...they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do."
--Quote attributable to Steve Jobs
Practicing my leaps. Looking past the horizon. Trying to be crazy with my head on straight.
--Quote attributable to Steve Jobs
Practicing my leaps. Looking past the horizon. Trying to be crazy with my head on straight.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Tchewna
Question: How do you write about your life in a public forum when nearly EVERYTHING in your life is currently A) ridiculously titillating and B) not yet cleared for public consumption, and C) you are so mired in your obsession over the changes and shifts and such that you (ahem) D) FORGET to even blog??
Whenever I get lax on the public share part of my life, presented in this incarnation in this here blog, I get my friend, Matt's, texty man-voice in my head--since it's usually email--more than a little perturbed after a few blank blog days and a lame-ass excuse exempting myself from the responsibility:
"What you're saying is unimportant. It's how you say it. Just tell us what you had for lunch! 'I had a tuna sandwich for lunch. Tchewwna!!'"
Granted, Matt's facility for expression is somewhere between godlike and monkeylike, resulting in a startling, ass-on-the-asphalt-at-the-side-of-the-road daze. All the more reason to take it and run.
SO my friends, it's salad for lunch today, saaalllaaaddd!!! (Hm, it's not quite Tchewna is it.)
Whenever I get lax on the public share part of my life, presented in this incarnation in this here blog, I get my friend, Matt's, texty man-voice in my head--since it's usually email--more than a little perturbed after a few blank blog days and a lame-ass excuse exempting myself from the responsibility:
"What you're saying is unimportant. It's how you say it. Just tell us what you had for lunch! 'I had a tuna sandwich for lunch. Tchewwna!!'"
Granted, Matt's facility for expression is somewhere between godlike and monkeylike, resulting in a startling, ass-on-the-asphalt-at-the-side-of-the-road daze. All the more reason to take it and run.
SO my friends, it's salad for lunch today, saaalllaaaddd!!! (Hm, it's not quite Tchewna is it.)
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Sound tricks
Sometimes I think the only thing missing from writing is the ability to capture sound. If only I could manipulate the letters to replay the sounds I hear. Like tonight, out the window across the way is a party. It's a warm night and the windows are open. Outside them it's black. Nothing to see but the images the muted voices make in my head. I see inkspots on heavy paper, black on white, landing in small spatters, and then big blots when voices get booming, punctuating themselves, then a streamer of ink as a young woman's voice calls in a surprised higher pitch.
I hear voices bubbling like a big pot of boiling water. Popcorn, pinging under the lid of a pot.
Imagine what the sound would look like if the party were in the dark. Soft swashes of watered-down ink, and sword-like slashes from a few fearful voices honking to penetrate the night, honking to hear they exist, even under cover of darkness.
I hear voices bubbling like a big pot of boiling water. Popcorn, pinging under the lid of a pot.
Imagine what the sound would look like if the party were in the dark. Soft swashes of watered-down ink, and sword-like slashes from a few fearful voices honking to penetrate the night, honking to hear they exist, even under cover of darkness.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Quakes
When the Earth is shifting, it's all one can do to hold on till it settles back into itself, newly aligned.
My Earth is shifting. Something about history and the present colliding. 30 years of geothermic pressure finally blew. Spewed out long awaited relief on this front. Damage as yet untold. No deaths. Age the only casualty.
As my good friend, Dan, likes to point out to what degree I'm clothed when I'm making "naked" posts, :-) , I will acquiesce the point that this one is kind of like wearing a snowsuit on a summer day. Barely a neckline exposed. But give me some time to settle in before I strip entirely. The quake ain't done quaking yet.
My Earth is shifting. Something about history and the present colliding. 30 years of geothermic pressure finally blew. Spewed out long awaited relief on this front. Damage as yet untold. No deaths. Age the only casualty.
As my good friend, Dan, likes to point out to what degree I'm clothed when I'm making "naked" posts, :-) , I will acquiesce the point that this one is kind of like wearing a snowsuit on a summer day. Barely a neckline exposed. But give me some time to settle in before I strip entirely. The quake ain't done quaking yet.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Wordphiles and Rice Piles
This habit have you picking grain out of your brain yet? (There must be a word for that.)
www.freerice.com
www.freerice.com
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Put to Work
Tania's been home from her trip 7 minutes. Three of us shared with one fork the jambalaya she brought home, and conversation commenced.
TANIA: They have mosquitos in New Orleans. I think I got a mosquito bite on my ass.
LISA: I can scratch that for you, baby.
TANIA: They have mosquitos in New Orleans. I think I got a mosquito bite on my ass.
LISA: I can scratch that for you, baby.
ThriftyMoron
Spent the weekend in the No-Wireless Zone at Grandma's again. Came home to this hilarious email from Regina:
This is what you call "ironic". Hello Alanis.
This is what you call "ironic". Hello Alanis.
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