"The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge." - Stephen Nachmanovitch

Monday, February 28, 2011

Spirited

So I read this book by fellow Menverite Rebecca Rosen and loved it. I haven't really been into speaking to spirits or spirit guides, but this book made me take notice. Sometimes in life we feel lonely or things seem hopeless, we want answers from somewhere outside of us and not necessarily the people around us.;) This book reminded me to connect with something greater than myself to question my notions of other beings in an astral plane and request they help me. It even offers meditations and other useful "connection" tools. Who knows...I might even experience a "Ghost" scene for myself.

Today I'm grateful for books, birthdays, and brunch.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Mancations in Man Francisco

For those who doubt my "manifying" of cities and words...even writers for CNN do it. Fun article from my mom about SF being "healthy and harmless"...he obviously didn't visit the Tenderloin.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/02/16/newnam.san.francisco/index.html?hpt=C1

Today I'm grateful for reservations, leftovers, and unpacking.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Hopeful Romantic

In our society we hear love and think of romantic love, or eros. Even the so many books and movies and songs (oh the songs, are there any not about romantic love?) over the years support a dramatic idea of “love.”  Day dedicated to love…romantic love. Illusion of what it is, kinda feels like real love in disguise. Disillusioned with romantic love since 7th grade when I fell for someone and then turned out they had a new girlfriend the next week (isn’t that the way of middle school). I wrote an amazing array of teen angst love poems believing love was a phony.

And in someways it kind of is. We fall for people we may not normally even been able to stand sometimes but because they kiss us a certain way or the sex is so great it suddenly comes "love." We put up with things from lovers we wouldn’t put up with from the closest of our friends. For why? It’s that rush of excitement, it's fun. I suppose I've always enjoyed the other "types" of love more....they feel more safe. And in the end, they probably are.


I'm ready to move from "in love" to loving and skip the temporary emotional high (made up of serotonin, dopamine, and other feel good neurochemicals) which isn’t actually true love. Fueled by pheromones and hor“moans” (wordplay that is obvious and also not so obvious) we seek out a mate and superimposing them as a lover as well. I sometimes wish I could skip the first stages of a romantic relationship to experience what “love” would really be like with someone. After our hormones stop doing the work. Will they still be there where love because a consistent choice? I don’t believe true love can begin until “in-love” has run its full course.

The Greeks believe there are five different types of love. I believe in one and only one. Though all the others as pathways/gateways to love.When we experience a love that grows out of choice, that’s emotional without being obsessional we experience a co-creation with the entire universe. It has nothing to do with the physical world and yet this is where we find the way to express it. It’s what we’re born with and the essential fact of life. I think Marianne Williamson says it best in her book Return to Love, “There are no different categories of love….the love that is real lies at the heart of all relationships…doesn’t change with form or circumstance.”
At 28 (almost 29 she shockingly adds) I’m making my peace with love (the sort I now call romantic love). The kind that can be found behind all the other kinds in the sea of things we call love. As there are many paths to God, so also the same for love (as they seem to be the same thing anyway).;)

I’m a romantic, not because I believe in soulmates or “the one”, instead because I believe in love and romantic love as a gateway into it.

Today I'm grateful for Valentine's Day, Craigslist, and bubble baths.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

I forgot...

I had a blog. This is the longest I have gone without writing and I feel kinda guilty. Even though I don't have a lot of followers (thanks Mom and sometimes Hayley), it feels strange not to be expressing myself via Interweb. I moved out of my tiny studio in Hayes Valley on the edge of Civic Center into a beautiful, sunny place in the Panhandle near Golden Gate Park. I have been nesting like mad and hardly wanting to leave my new place. So I'm here simply to say with two jobs, full-time grad student status, and having a life my blog is suffering...and I know this.

Today I'm grateful for coffee shops, Goodwill, and cell phones.