Yesterday\u2019s post, from 2005, gives me a sense of how far I\u2019ve come, how much I\u2019ve healed.\u00a0 Events have taken place at Neskaya that were a fulfillment of my vision that was so far beyond any expectation that I had been able to imagine.\u00a0 Times when I would look around at this amazing group of people, co-creating community right before my eyes, and I\u2019d suddenly realize \u2014 if I hadn\u2019t built Neskaya, these people would never have met each other.<\/p>\n
At this point, I\u2019ve healed so much from trauma, I\u2019m basically self-regulating which means when my nervous system gets activated it doesn\u2019t stay in that state but calms down after a while.\u00a0 I\u2019ve learned to be with uncomfortable emotional states without getting bent out of shape about them. In the last few months I\u2019ve had periods of depression, and I\u2019ve been able to say \u201cHere you are, old buddy. It\u2019s fine with me if you hang around for a while.\u201d\u00a0 Then, sometimes in a few hours, sometimes in a couple of days, I\u2019d realize that the depression had faded while I\u2019d just gone on with my life.\u00a0 What a gift!\u00a0 I\u2019ve been able to actually enjoy the ordinary things I do every day: feed the dog, take her for walks, wash dishes, go to the dump which is actually a recycling center and the guys are friendly and helpful, and so on. My creativity has also been blossoming, and the most exciting thing is I\u2019ve been able to sustain working on a project for a long period of time.\u00a0 In the past, all too often, I\u2019d get discouraged and quit.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d been wanting a writers\u2019 group for at least a year, so when I saw a poster for a \u201cMemoir Class\u201d to be taught at our friendly local bookstore<\/a>, I signed up.\u00a0 And I had a lot of fun! We were given assignments that we could complete, or work on something else, and in class we would also do \u201cfree writing\u201d which is basically timed writing, the only rule is \u201ckeep the hand moving.\u201d\u00a0 When I first started doing these, back in the 70\u2019s, I would often be writing nonsense, but there would sometimes appear something I liked a lot after I got going.\u00a0 I used to call the nonsense part the \u201cpeanut butter\u201d stage where you might be writing \u201cI can\u2019t think of anything to say. I can\u2019t think of anything to say. I can\u2019t think…\u201d that you just had to write through.\u00a0 Most of what I wrote for class was pretty ordinary, but at the last meeting she gave us the prompt \u201cIt was all or nothing,\u201d which called out of me a piece of \u201cleft-hand\u201d writing I liked a lot.\u00a0 Here it is: Becky Cummings<\/a> was our teacher.<\/p>\n For the image of things that get smaller and more complex the deeper in you go, see the Mandelbrot Set<\/a>.\u00a0 Click anywhere on the image and you will go in closer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday\u2019s post, from 2005, gives me a sense of how far I\u2019ve come, how much I\u2019ve healed.\u00a0 Events have taken place at Neskaya that were a fulfillment of my vision that was so far beyond any expectation that I had … Continue reading
\n\u201cIt was all or nothing\u201d\u00a0 \u2014\u2014 sounds like a co-dependent or Child of Alcoholic statement.\u00a0 Back or White, Good or Bad.\u00a0 Nothing falls neatly into two categories.\u00a0 It just doesn\u2019t work that way.\u00a0 There are all kinds of shades of grey.\u00a0 If you take Good & Bad, Black & White, then you can have Good Black, and Bad Black, and Good White, and Bad White.\u00a0 What happens if you add red?\u00a0 there\u2019s good maroon and bad maroon, good pink and bad pink, good red, bad red, green, blue and how about putting some oranges in the mix?\u00a0 then we could go for a walk across the bridge, across the Ammonusuc, and go down by the river and watch it flow.\u00a0 I really love to watch water flowing.\u00a0 And I love that weird thing that happens when you\u2019ve been watching for a while and then you look at the shore and it\u2019s flowing the other way.\u00a0 I like to watch a leaf pass by, up & down, sometimes caught in a counter-swirl or ending up stuck behind a rock.\u00a0 I like to watch the wave form that shapes itself between two rocks and it splashes up & then runs smooth & then splashes up & runs smooth again but it never makes the same shape twice.\u00a0 And if you could move in closer and closer, with your camera and then your microscope and see how on each wave there are tiny little waves along the surface and on those tiny little waves are more curly shapes and the closer in you go the more complex and beautiful until you find somewhere deep inside, 10,000 magnifications down, you start seeing similar shapes again.\u00a0\u00a0 Similar but not exactly the same.\u00a0 If a butterfly flaps its wings the weather will change.\u00a0 It\u2019s truly Great White Elephants<\/a> all the way down.<\/p>\n