\nIt was good to talk to Erica.\u00a0 <\/span>I told her that being sick has shown me my lack of resources.\u00a0 <\/span>I really had imagined that when I got here, I would be able to teach astronomy, etc.\u00a0 <\/span>Now I\u2019m understanding that I don\u2019t have enough energy to teach astronomy.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t even have enough energy to find a way to share the new ideas that are coming out that show how wrong are the fundamental myths of Western Culture \u2014 competition, \u201csurvival of the fittest,\u201d etc.\u00a0 <\/span>I wish there was something I could do to help counter the idiocy of these times.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
February 17 February 18 I see that there is a shift from trying to fix myself, unlearn dysfunctional behaviors, heal the wound, to finding something meaningful to do.\u00a0 <\/span>I realize, as I write it, that I\u2019m still seeing myself in isolation.\u00a0 <\/span>I want to do something in community, to be part of a community, to not be the leader.<\/p>\n February 19 Etty Hillesum<\/a> was a Dutch Jew who died in Auschwitz.<\/i><\/p>\n What can I still do with what is left to me?\u00a0 <\/span>First, I don\u2019t know what I\u2019ve got left until I have recovered from this cold.\u00a0 <\/span>That could take weeks.\u00a0 <\/span>During that time I have to take care of myself as best I can, which is actually hard work because I have to push against the conditioning that I\u2019m not worth taking care of.\u00a0 <\/span>That conditioning gets stronger when I\u2019m sick and exhausted because I also regress.\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s less of an adult to help discern when to push myself \u2014 e.g. to take a walk \u2014 and when it\u2019s more important to rest.<\/p>\n February 22 When I repeat something and underline it, it\u2019s because I\u2019ve just seen the importance of the idea.<\/i><\/p>\n From Daniel Wahl\u2019s talk on regenerative culture<\/a>:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Evolution is a process of differentiating and then integrating on a higher level.\u00a0 I see that integrating is n<\/span><\/i>ot<\/i> forcing conformity.\u00a0 <\/span>Forcing conformity leads to fascism, not movement to a higher level.<\/i><\/p>\n February 23 Parker Palmer<\/a>: <\/i>\u2018Truth is an eternal conversation about things that matter, conducted with passion and discipline.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n March 2 The other thing that I have been learning from Erica, and just now coming to how huge it is, is the number of talents\/skills and knowings that I seem to have been born with.\u00a0 <\/span>One was the scientist\u2019s curiosity that kept me from getting trapped by various boxes, kept me from retreating into intellect.\u00a0 <\/span>I could always tell when a particular therapy had got me as far as it could, things started to plateau, and I had to find something more. \u00a0Alas, I too often made it that I wasn’t working hard enough.\u00a0 <\/span>I know there are more skills, and I don\u2019t see them because I take them for granted.\u00a0 <\/span>I remember the time when I saw the pattern of a circle dance I was learning, and when I asked for clarification from the teacher, she didn\u2019t know what I was talking about.\u00a0 <\/span>That was when I first got it that I had been gifted with all the skills for teaching folk dance.\u00a0 <\/span>I had assumed everyone had those skills, but I was wrong.<\/p>\n March 13 March 14 \u201cPleiades<\/a>\u201d is a silk screen by Ben Shahn.\u00a0 <\/span>I bought it in 1964.\u00a0 <\/span>I loved the quote, and used to imagine declaiming it.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>As I understood it, God was saying to Job, \u201cwho do you think you are?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>But actually, that\u2019s not what God is saying at all.\u00a0 <\/span>She is saying \u201cYou ask why these things happened to you.\u00a0 <\/span>Can you make good luck happen, or break the law of gravity?\u00a0 <\/span>My complexity is far beyond what you can understand.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Looking back, I can see that the whole sequence cold \u2014> cough \u2014> back pain has given me time, space and motivation to see some good things about myself and my life. From my Journal for Saturday, February 16 It … Continue reading
\nI asked my guides what I should be doing now.\u00a0 <\/span>I was going to write, but they answered right away.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cTake care of yourself.\u00a0 <\/span>What you are meant to do will appear when you are ready to do it.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I asked about the cough.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThe cough itself is not dangerous.\u00a0 <\/span>What is dangerous is pushing yourself before you are ready.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cAll things do<\/span> work together for good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nFeeling the very quiet clarity again.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m wondering, if all were relatively well in the world, would I be as concerned about what to do with my life?\u00a0 <\/span>There wouldn\u2019t be the same urgency, but I would still need to do something meaningful, to be of service in some way.<\/p>\n
\nEtty, after reading Kropotkin on how to live in a prison cell.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThat account can still teach us how to cope with the measures by which our own freedom of movement is increasingly being restricted.\u00a0 <\/span>To take what little space we are left with, to fathom its possibilities and to use them to the full.\u201d \u00a0 <\/span>p400\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\nLast meeting of the writers group.\u00a0 <\/span>The first prompt was \u201cPicking up the pieces.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>There were words and images and colors available.\u00a0 <\/span>There was a way in which I felt that the pieces were all out there.\u00a0 <\/span>The pieces were all out there<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s<\/span> what I\u2019ve been feeling.\u00a0 <\/span>The odd sense of being at the end of one path and not sure what comes next.\u00a0 <\/span>But the pieces are all out there.\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s nothing hidden.\u00a0 <\/span>One of the things I came to in group was the sense that instead of putting the pieces together like a puzzle, I needed to stitch them together, create connective tissue. What hits me right now is that what is needed culturally, socially, politically, is connective tissue.\u00a0 <\/span>The diversification process has gone as far as it can, we are entering into the chaos realm and will destroy ourselves and our planet if we don\u2019t succeed at integrating.<\/p>\n
\nLearning to not push.\u00a0 <\/span>Learning to let things happen.\u00a0 <\/span>Learning to let my body tell me what is the next right thing for me to do.\u00a0 <\/span>Truth is an ongoing conversation about things that matter.<\/p>\n
\nThe session with Erica was really pretty amazing.\u00a0 <\/span>She said something about a \u201crich life\u201d and I recoiled.\u00a0 <\/span>It certainly hasn\u2019t felt<\/span> like a rich life.\u00a0 <\/span>But my felt sense of helplessness and frustration, the drag and bleak coloring of depression, were like a dark grey fog that concealed mountains of riches, so all that I could see were a few little islands in a sea of fog (the \u201cblack cloud\u201d that followed me around.)\u00a0 <\/span>The work with Erica is dissolving the fog, so I can see more of what\u2019s there.\u00a0 <\/span>Of course other people just see what\u2019s there, they don\u2019t see the fog at all.<\/p>\n
\nOMG.\u00a0 <\/span>After checking email I was just going through my most recent blog post, and I suddenly saw that God\u2019s answer to Job \u2014 \u201cCanst thou bind the sweet influence of Pleiades…\u201d is the Universe\u2019s answer to me.\u00a0 <\/span>It does want what\u2019s best for me, but its knowing of what\u2019s really best for me, is not necessarily what I would think is best for me.\u00a0 <\/span>I feel brilliantly guided toward this knowing.\u00a0 <\/span>Thank You!<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0255-300x225.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nI can\u2019t believe that \u201cCanst thou bind the sweet influence of Pleiades…\u201d has been on my wall, traveling with me, since 1964.<\/p>\n