Converting

I'm switching over to wordpress.  Look for me at pastthelaststreetlamp.wordpress.com

Scope

I may have mentioned that I've been reading a lot of blogs lately. One thing I'm noticing is that the blogging world is somewhat divided on what makes a good blog. There are a number of really good blogs out there that focus on a particular topic. I'm sure many people believe that in order to be a "successful" blogger, you must choose a topic and stick with it. The blogs I really love, though, are broader in scope. They are well-written works by people with whom I share a similar world view and interests, and I never really know what to expect when I read them. Since they are not completely bound by a specific topic, they do wander, but they don't do it blindly or without thought.

I am not overly concerned with becoming a successful blogger, I just love writing. I do have some goals, though. I hope to always write with the idea of an audience in mind, and avoid just reporting the events of the day. I want to use this space to explore my own, and share some adventures and ideas. I also want to write with more focus about traveling. I'll be doing that over at buildasnowman, though, because I will probably only be writing about my trips in small bursts, and I want to keep related posts together.

That's it. Even though I've had other blogs for years now, I feel like I'm on a journey that's just beginning. If you're out there reading this, leave me a comment. I'd love to know who's tuned in.

Socktober

I decided today that I'm going to participate in Socktober this year! I've been working on a pair of socks for a while now, but they were boring me. Socktober has motivated me to finally finish them up. I'm working on finishing the toe of sock no. 2. I should finish it tomorrow.

I ordered some yarn to use for the Through the Loops Mystery Sock knitalong, and I dug some sock yarn out of the big bag of yarn that Stan's mom gave me (there must have been $100 worth of yarn that she inherited in there!) and decided to start working on some Froot Loop socks. I got sucked in. It's midnight now, and I'm kind of amazed because I hadn't stayed up knitting in such a long time! I'm hoping that Froot Loop will be enough of a challenge to keep me interested. And I'm really excited to see how the mystery sock will knit up in the yarn I ordered (Knit Picks Gloss in Cocoa).

Day one of the haiku project was a success-- I have three new poems!

Haiku Project

Campside dark circles,
Half moon shines, frogs and crickets,
Shooting stars collide.

I'm undertaking a writing project. For the month of October, I am going to write one haiku a day. If it goes well, I may choose a different form for November. I haven't always liked form, but I know it stretches me and makes me write things I probably wouldn't otherwise. I wrote this one on our camping trip this weekend, and was pretty pleased with the way it came out.

Good Intentions

The plan this week was to get up early and do some writing. It started out well, but as the week has gone on I'm back to hitting the snooze button until the last possible minute. I've been out of the house every night this week, though, and have ended up staying up later than I think is healthy if I'm going to be getting up an hour earlier. I need at least six hours of sleep! So, for next week I think my goal will be not to allow myself to sleep past 6:20. I'll shoot for earlier, but if I can push my latest possible sleep-in time back ten minutes I think I'll be one step closer.

Since I slept in til 6:30, I don't have much time to write. I'm thrilled, though, because I managed to recover the earlier posts I made to this blog that I deleted in July. You can view them here.

Mornings

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately, and have been getting so inspired. Not to go out and do something huge, but to keep making small change in the way I live on a day to day basis. I've been trying to live simply and conscientiously since high school, and more recent years I've decided that I want to live deliberately and joyfully. I want to make conscientious choices that leave me in control of my own life, and contribute to my overall sense of well-being and joy. Yoga and meditation, of course, fit in here because they demand that you live in the moment, mindfully and deliberately.

Last week I started reading Zen Habits and mnmlst. Leo's ideas match up so well with the mindset I've been (slowly) developing for the last fifteen years or so. I read his blog about waking up early, and I've decided to give it a try. I've been doing it for nearly a week now, with the intention of using my extra time to get some reading and writing done. I'm really liking it! I think now that I've carved out a time of day specifically for writing, I might be ready to take on my great aunt's story. I'll probably write more about this here in the future, but Aunt Belle was an incredible woman whom I've longed to write about for several years. I never met her, though, so most of what I know about her has been transmitted through story. I have her journals and letters, though, so maybe if I just start writing and start digging, something will come to light.

A benefit that I hadn't really anticipated was the shift in mood and mindset that rising early can bring about. Leo definitely talked about this, but I've been struck by how easy it is to wake up early when you're waking up early for yourself, not because you have to go to work or be somewhere. It has reduced work from a dominating force in my life to a simple (albeit time consuming) commitment. Fantastic!

If you've never read it, you should check out Mary Oliver's poem "Why I Wake Early". It was my aunt's favorite poem.

I started meditating and making an effort to incorporate yoga into my life a few months ago. It's led me to realize how much time I spend plotting out future paths, many of which I either have little control over at this moment, or I have no idea if I will actually want to pursue them when the time comes. I'm trying to shift my focus to the present moment. This means when I start thinking about the future I first try to refocus myself on the present. If that doesn't quite work, I try to shift my focus from what I am going to do in the future to what I can do in the present to ensure that I have options for the future. I believe that the biggest thing I can do right now is to begin to simplify my life on all levels. I am working to reduce the clutter in my life (physical and mental), and to simplify my finances. I'm focusing on paying off my debt. Focusing on breathing and yoga and meditation. It's a process, of course, but I am beginning to see progress.

My inspiration to write this evening actually came from this blog post from Zen Habits about how to transform anxiety into inspiration. It was actually written by Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen. This post was particularly refreshing to me because it reminded me of exactly why I began meditating and embracing yoga: to learn how to live in the present and control the irritation and knee-jerk reactions my own anxiety causes. I'm not quite there yet, but I see improvements all the time.

A promise to myself

I write tonight in the form of a small promise. I promise that tomorrow I will take time to meditate as soon as I get home from work and see if it has an impact on my energy level. I promise that, after that and before yoga, I will work on cleaning my apartment.

The Need for Closure

I may have mentioned before that I believe I have grown since I started my meditation and yoga practice. I can't say for sure if it's a result of the practice, or if it is a product of the same awareness that led me to experiment with yoga and meditation, but I really think I can see progress. One area in which I've become aware of this progress within the past week is in my desire for closure of difficult situations.

I've always felt a really strong need to have closure. Even in high school, when things went awry with boys I just couldn't let go without having some sort of firm closure. I wanted to talk about it. I wanted him to tell me that he was done. I couldn't just accept that he wasn't returning my phone calls and move on; I would let my own anxiety build up around it and keep pushing him until I got what I needed. But why did I need closure if I already sort of knew? I think it's because it's an uncomfortable situation. Instead of just accepting the discomfort of not really knowing what happened, I felt like I had to do something to help relieve those feelings of unease.

It wasn't just high school, though. I know I've continued to seek closure in similar situations throughout my adult life. If a problem arises I want to deal with it right then. I am uncomfortable with sitting with the pain for a while before exploring it. This past week Stan and I entered into an uncomfortable conversation, and, for the first time that I can remember, when he asked that we put it on hold until a later time, I was able to do it. It's been a few days and we still haven't finished that conversation and I'm doing fine. Again, it's hard to say for sure, but I think that if this had happened a few months ago I would have felt a very strong need to talk through everything and end the discomfort as quickly as possible. I am amazed by this, by the fact that I can see changes in myself even though it hasn't even been two months that I've been working with my consciousness.

Last night I dreamed about soccer games and tomboy stuff. I wonder if it was because we had a lot of discussions about gender neutrality at the women's potluck I attended last night. Either way, I know there were some nightmares mixed in too, but this is the first time in a while that I've remembered the good dreams and not the bad. I've been waking up so frequently with dreamscapes of betrayal and loss still lingering, it makes me feel like something is shifting.

After hearing all of the parents talking last night, I think if I ever get pregnant I will resist knowing the sex of the baby ahead of time. That way any gifts will have to be thought out and gender-neutral. At least the kid would have a clean start before being flooded with princesses and ponies or footballs and action heroes. I might be too anxious about it, or maybe my partner would be, but I really like the idea.

First Day of School

I can feel sleep creeping up on me, but I'm writing anyway because I haven't been writing enough lately. I've been doing yoga, exploring the city and taking the time to just be with my friends, but I haven't been writing. Reading a little, but no writing.

I don't have the energy to tackle any more of South America right now, but that doesn't mean I have to avoid this space. That's something I struggle with remembering.

You may or may not remember that I am the archivist for a small private school in Houston. Then again, I may not have actually mentioned it before (and who reads this anyway?). This school year feels promising. I'm taking on yoga and meditation and, hopefully, reinvesting myself in climbing. I hope to keep up with my crafts; I want to make a hammock to hang in my room (they're expensive to buy!) and I think I might knit some of my Christmas presents. My main goal for this year, though, is to live mindfully and, fingers crossed, frugally. The mindful part is for my own personal growth, the frugal part is so that I can feed as much money as possible back into my loans so that I can take a financial fall in the future if I have to.

I want to hear from other people who are just delving into yoga and meditation. I'm not so interested in the folks who just do yoga for exercise, even though I'm sure they get plenty out of it. I want to talk to people who feel like yoga/meditation has impacted their lives. I still think it's early to say for sure, but I'm noticing slight shifts in my consciousness and they way I face the world. I'm not sure if this is a result of my yoga/meditation practice, or if it has more to do with the impulse that drove me to meditation and yoga in the first place. It would be nice to hear what other people are experiencing.

Cotopaxi

I took a little break from writing anything after coming home from Phoenix. Partly because I was pissed off that I deleted this whole blog, partly because I was attempting (unsuccessfully) to finish some work related things. Plus I was still adjusting to having completely open and unstructured days, a freedom which I will be losing all too soon.

So, back to Ecuador. After a few days in Quito we decided we needed to remove ourselves from the city as much as possible. So we headed to Secret Garden Cotopaxi. Cotopaxi is a volcano, the peak of which is supposedly the closest point on earth to the sun. We had the option of going up the volcano, but we opted for horseback riding instead.


The hostel was so far removed from everything, it was wonderful. There was no electricity, and they grew much of their own food. Everyone ate together around a long table, and hung out around the fireplace at night. The private rooms were more like two story cabins with wood burning stoves and bathrooms downstairs and a bedroom upstairs with a window looking out to the volcano. It was surrounded by lush rolling pastures bordered by the mountains, there were lots of animals (the dogs were great) and we saw rainbows every day.


As I said, we skipped out on going to Cotopaxi. We also chose not to do the canopy zip line or the mountain bike trip. We did do a lot of hikes on our own (including a crazy one up a creek bed to a small waterfall), and did a half day trail ride up one of the mountains, into the clouds.

One of the best things about the Secret Garden hostels was that we met so many people who would somehow factor into our trip further down the line. A lot of people who were staying at Cotopaxi had been in Quito with us, and many of them would follow the same path down through Ecuador.

Burning Sage and Fairy Dust

A couple of days ago I went with my grandmother, Nanni, to check out the space that will become the office for her foundation. The foundation has been operating out of her car port for several months now, so they are anxious to move but there have been many obstacles on the way forward.

The new space is on the second floor in a sort of ritzy shopping center in Scottsdale, but it's still under construction. We went up to look at it and do a sage ceremony to clear the energy. I've burned sage in new living spaces before, mostly because I like the way it smells. The possibility of clearing bad energy has always been sort of secondary.

Well, they asked me to participate in the ceremony to help tie in the future to the work they are doing now. I did my best to clear my mind of any doubts and participate whole heartedly and without judgment. My job was to sprinkle fairy dust as we went along, which made withdrawing judgment a little bit harder, but when I found out the fairy dust had been a gift from Analea, my aunt who passed away in 2007, what I was doing made more sense.

We began by placing a wooden angel figurine in the north window. We then moved to the east side of the building with the sage and began blessing each of the four compass points. We moved clockwise around the room. Nanni explained the significance of each direction: East represents the future, South is the stabilizer, West carries energy from the past, and North represents wisdom. As we moved around the room Nanni explained and offered blessings, her friend Rose placed crystals to absorb the energy (I assume, I don't really know how crystals are supposed to work) of each direction, and I sprinkled fairy dust. As we came back to the North and finished placing the blessings and objects of the ritual, Nanni read a few lines about what it means to live and act by faith, then she sealed the whole thing by ringing a Tibetan singing bell.

What was really interesting to me was that Nanni just knew what she was doing. If it were me I wouldn't have been able to do it without a script or some sort of guide to help me through. In spite of the skepticism I am prone to, it all seemed very natural to me. I could tell that it was seen to be a significant milestone or turning point, and because of that I was happy to be involved.

Fresh Start

A few minutes ago I decided that I had too many blogs going for me to manage and I needed to get rid of some. Well, this proved itself true because I accidentally deleted the one that actually mattered to me. But this can be a new beginning. I just got back from a trip to South America, and I've been wanting to write about that, so I'll pick up with that and maybe mix in a few musings about what's going on in my life right now too. At the moment I'm visiting my grandmother and cousins in Phoenix, which always gives me something to reflect on. Tomorrow my two Phoenix cousins and I are heading up to Flagstaff to visit even more cousins. I'm looking forward to the road trip.

The South America trip started in Quito, and I had written a whole post about our time there, but it was more unpleasant than it was good and I don't think I can polish it up enough to write a whole post on it a second time. So I'll start with Cotopaxi, our second stop, and will include pictures. I was pleased with what I wrote on it yesterday, so hopefully my second go will be as good.

Luckily it wasn't a very well established blog. I only lost a few posts. They were posts I was pleased with, but they were only a few.