where i am versus where i have been….

yes, this is another pantheacon entry, but it felt important to put it here too. because this is an important part of my evolution.

i wrote this this morning for another online blog i keep. then posted it in another.

it’s been weird for me to write here lately. i am full of ambivilant and traitorous thoughts of the diarymaster and the continued existence of this place. these thoughts have no bearing in reality, but i caught myself feeling them, so i thought i would record them. like, a little mad that the diarymaster can ask for money and everyone gives and gives, but when i needed a little help, he was not compassionate to me and made me "free" anyway. like we are supposed to be loyal to him, but he doesn’t have to be loyal.

i have a very good friend here, though…that i think i have known almost a decade now. she lives in australia and we’ve never met, but that doesn’t lessen the genuineness, true affection, or authenticity of our friendship. at one point, we decided we had a torrid, lesbian love affair in a prior life and have been placed in each others lives this time just to keep an eye on each other. she gifted me a six month subscription, when i was down and out. thank you, phoenixsoul, for being a loyal and true friend, even when i sometimes feel like a crappy one who doesn’t read or note enough. you are always in my heart. i brought her here and now i think she is as addicted as i used to be. now, it seems my writing is spread out across the internet and i keep some things here and other things elsewhere. like i am segmented online or something. different pieces in different spots. maybe there is part of me that is stil hiding.

so, here’s the entry from elsewhere:

so, every year for the past three or four years, in february, i have gone to this nifty and oh-so-cool pagan convention in san jose on president’s day weekend called pantheacon. the first time i went, i participated in this really cool workshop called "dancing in the dark" which was an excellent experiment in collective movement that the facilitator was using to complete her master’s degree in dance, i believe. it was very cool, you started out as a singular unit, moving your body parts and then joining with another and continuing to move, but now together, until at the end, everyone is sort of one big miasma of movement. very cool, but participating in that made me realize how out of shape i was. i thought it was going to kill me. it was 90 minutes of solid movement and i think i was sort for about three days!!

the next year, i had started doing yoga, but only once or twice a week, with gaps in between. when i was in class, it was never half-assed and i made some flexibility gains i was proud of. also began trying to eat differently since diabetes runs in my family. just being aware of glycemic indexes and such. i began to feel better….

fast forward to the next year, which was last year. this year, i decided to take a yoga class. it was a great class, and the teacher became a friend of mine that i kept in contact with all year. she had just found out she was pregnant and would be having a baby. the class used poses i was somewhat familiar with, but with a goddess focus i hadn’t experienced before which was awesome. the bad news, though, was that it just about incapacitated me for one full day of the con. i was so sore, i could barely move! i spent some time in the hottub, missed some workshops i had really wanted to do, and it shook my confidence with myself.

so, later in the year, at the start of summer, i began bellydancing. a was cajoled into it by a couple of friends, who took one class and called me saying "you HAVE to do this with us…it’s SO MUCH FUN!!" i think i am now more fanatical than any of them! i now dance in different classes two days a week and have just begun practicing to some videos to see if i can get to dance every day. my body has changed, core strength increased, and clothes fitting way different than they did before…

well, two weeks ago was president’s day weekend and we headed BACK to pantheacon. i was overjoyed to learn that my friend would be teaching yoga again, and i was anxious to see her, go to her class, and thought "she better bring pictures of the baby!!" she did better than that, she brought the baby!! her class was awesome again, but this time, it was ME who was awesome. in just a year, the class didn’t wind me at all, i wasn’t sore, i was able to particpate in two other workshops the SAME DAY that also involved activity, do two more yoga classes, and felt full of energy the entire weekend! even the women i came with were going "dude, are you on crack? you CAN’T still have energy…you are running us ragged just watching you!"

high on life, baby.

feeling good. i FEEL like my body is my friend again! this was such a transformative year for me, both at the con and personally. i feel like i really made some significant strides on my personal growth surrounding issues such as self-love, body acceptance, how important movement is to me, sisterhood, spirituality, forgiveness of self, and dance.

today, since i came home and as much as i can strive for, i feel triumphant.

life is good.

not perfect, there are still small stressors and stupid shit to be upset about. who cares about money or the lack of it? this year, i feel like i have gained something infinitely more important and it feels awesome.

peace. 

pantheacon……

i had a fabulous weekend. it took some serious focus to be cheery and bright for meeting one of the ladies from a message board i am on friday. we left thursday night for pantheacon, and before we were really out of town, it started snowing. luckily, it was just beginning to come down, so we made it through the snow before it actually began to stick or get slippery. that was a huge relief. we tried to find the place we stayed last year on thursday night, but in california, things change so rapidly, we never had a chance of finding it….so we ended up at motel crack instead, complete with police car and shady parking lot activity. good thing none of us tried to walk alone =) our traveling companions even found condoms behind the bed!! at least it was still in it’s protective sheathing and not used. ew. ’nuff said about that…heh.

we stayed, reasonably unscathed, and headed our early the next morning, before the crack ho’s and dealers could wake up and greet the day. we made it to san jose by noon, and waiting in line, patiently to check in. ***WARNING*** soap box time….heh…you have been warned =) so, we made our reservations for this conference back in AUGUST. at the time, we asked if we could have adjoining rooms, and they said there was no problem. we checked back TWO MORE TIMES before the con, the most recent time being LAST WEEK and were assured there would be no problem. we finally get to the checkin line, and the little ray of sunshine working there tells us there’s no way we can have adjoining rooms. we try to explain to her that we had called several times and confirmed that this was possible. she then told us that the only way we could have had adjoining rooms would have been if we had prepaid for the rooms. she told us that was the hotel policy, but they aren’t allowed to tell customers that. ummm, no. no one told us we had to prepay for the rooms. we would gladly have done that if it had been necessary, but no one said anything like that. after being insistant for awhile, they finally agreed to give us adjoining rooms, but told us there was another convention leaving that day, so our room wasn’t going to be ready until after dinner. then, they put us on the 7th floor at the very end of the hall and one of the ladies with us is handicapped and walks with a cane. assholes. the whole incident left us feeling tired, grumpy, and feeling unsettled. we couldn’t bring in any of our things, we had food and clothes and all our stuff in the cars, and the con was starting.

interestingly enough, the first workshop i attended dealt with advanced meditation techniques, so i was able to focus towards clearing my mind of all negativity and focus on starting fresh. it was a great workshop. the entire con was absolutely amazing for me this year.

around 7pm, my friends were headed off to workshops of their own and i was headed down to the lobby of the hotel to wait for my friend. i was nervous. although we had spoken on the phone and been talking online for a few months, it’s still nerve-wracking when you finally meet someone for the first time. add to this the fact that i wasn’t feeling my best because i hadn’t had time to shower or change, and i was feeling a little on edge. it was great to meet her, though, and we had a great time at the gordon biersch. the four martini republican man was amusing enough, i suppose. kind of like the bug on his back that keeps struggling to turn over and you kind of laugh at it until you don’t feel like being mean anymore. hehehehe. poor conservative =) the friend was lovely company, though, and the meal flew by too quickly, then we were on our way in the drizzly san jose night to find the car! it was an adventure, then we had to weave our way through downtown san jose back to the highway and to her town to get her hubby. they were both very nice and wonderful to me and i will always be grateful for how nice everyone was to me. i felt like a celebrity at the bar because the band all came over to say hello and get introduced. i ordered a drink, what i thought was a pretty tame bourbon and diet coke and was actually served a bourbon on the rocks with a dash of coke for color. i don’t drink a lot, so when i looked all misty, it wasn’t the music, which was awesome, it was the cocktail =) she dances well, and we had a good time.

the next morning, there was a 9am workshop i wanted to attend by the author of the book i am studying right now. i had met him before on our previous couple of trips to pantheacon, but now, having read and studied some of his material, i had new appreciation for him. it was awesome and he’s as talented and engaging in person as he is in his books. he was nice enough to sign our books for us, and the talk was awesome. he did a guided meditation that dealt with finding our magickal place that was very meaningful for me. it was a great class.

the second workshop i attended was called "sex and the black heart" and i am not sure what i was expecting, but it isn’t what i got. the facilitator talked a lot about how western society makes sex and our being sexual beings seem a shameful and unnatural thing and so she wanted to start some healing in this direction. she did some meditative techniques and showed us how to open chakras and breathe through our sex. it was really amazing…for the first time in a long time, i felt whole and unmistakably ALIVE. we all walked around and greeted each other with new eyes, and then we sang a chant that in the context of the workshop was profoundly helpful for me. the chants first line was "i am innocent" followed by "i walk without shame" then half the group sings "i am free" and finally everyone choruses together with "i am beloved". the energy in this experience is beyond description. i can’t even put it in to words, but i know that should i encounter anyone who was around me in that workshop, i would welcome them as a family member because we shared something, some healing, some connection during that space in time that will always be special to me. words truly fail me and make me feel very inadequate in being able to express how meaningful this was for me. as a survivor of child abuse, i didn’t realize i was still hanging on to some shame…there was shame around that and also around the lack of sexuality lately with my husband, that i had somehow been blaming on myself, thinking his lack of response was somehow a failing with me. i realized that i don’t have to be ashamed of being a sexual being and that i am responsible for my own health….mental, physical, and sexual.

after the amazing experience at that particular workshop, i went to another one that was very special to me. last year at pantheacon, i took a yoga class from a really awesome lady who ended up becoming my friend. i went to her yoga class last year, and she invited me to watch her bellydance elsewhere at the con, and i told her i would try to make it. i did make it, and she is who ignited my interest in bellydancing, although it would take me another six months to actually sign up for a class. honestly, at the time, i thought that i would never bellydance because i thought i was too large. when i emailed this friend, she told me to dance if i wanted to dance, life is too short not to do things we enjoy. i realized the wisdom of that when i started to dance. this has been a big year for her…she had a baby!! they sent me email when the baby came, so i had seen pictures of her, but i actually got to see her twice this time! it was great, i got to hug my friend, see the gorgeous baby, meet her husband, and reconnect with someone who believed in me when i did not. not to mention that her class was awesome, as always, i got to realize how far i have come with physical strength and endurance since that yoga class a year ago, and it made me feel good, damn good.

after that workshop, the time had come to enact a ritual we have participated in the last couple of years at the con. we drove to this chinese restaurant called 4-5-6 that has these absolutely AWESOME dish where they make dumplings and cover them with a peanut sauce that has chili oil in it. not exactly on the diet, but still very, very awesome. we ate waaaaayyy too much, and returned to the hotel spent and bloated, but strangely satisfied =)

when we got back to the hotel, it was time to go to a dianic ritual. the northern california group that branched off of here had one of the ladies from there participating in the ritual. she was absolutely amazing, as was the ritual. i had never been in a strictly dianic ritual. that means it’s an exclusively female group and they tend to be more radically feminist. the beautiful, wonderful energy that existed in this space was awesome! there was such a tremendous amount of love shared with the women in that room. they had drummers, and the entire feel was animalistic, and tribal, and primitive and fabulous. i am really glad i participated in it.

sunday morning was another really awesome ritual. this one focused on kali ma, who is a hindu goddess often called "the dark mother". i believe she is misinterpreted in the western world. her love is fierce, but it’s protective, the way a mother will fight for the lives of her children, not vindictive or mean. the ritual was respectful, very well organized, and red, one of kali’s colors.

following that was another talk by the author of the books i am studying and he was amazing again. i took a workshop by this young man three years ago, and there were maybe 20 people there. for this workshop, there were well over 100 and it was great to see so much support of him. this time he talked about finding and making piece with the shadow self. interesting stuff and made me interested in buying yet another one of his books.

after lunch, i went to another workshop about warrior goddesses of israel that was given by this fascinating woman who i have listened to before. she is so smart and speaks so interestingly and intelligently, i am always impressed with her. i had actually started out in a different workshop, but it didn’t speak to me, so i got up and left before it began. after that, there was another amazing workshop that’s pretty personal, so i am not going to go into it much. that was about it.

monday morning was another yoga class that was very enjoyable. this lady was interesting too. she had been in the peace corps for the last two years and had been in samoa and helped formulate a yoga class for large samoan women. for them, being of large girth is a status symbol, so they couldn’t make it too strenuous. there were some really cool move modifications, however, that had been developed with larger women in mind. also very, very cool.

the ride home was kind of somber, just because i had done so much during the weekend. i felt the need to decompress and think about all that happened to me. it was an amazing weekend. since i have been home, it’s been freezing here!! to hear my family tell things, it snowed a lot on the valley floor all weekend and there is still snow on the ground. san jose was somewhat cold, but nothing like reno with snow. my teeth have been chattering all day!!

so, that was my eventful weekend. i am still exhausted, and tomorrow my daughter goes to court, so i think i might just take the chance to sleep in. that’s all for now, i am all written out.

peace. 

why i love my fave’s….

on the best of days, occassionally, i find it hard to stay motivated. however, when i am scant hours from embarking on another grand adventure, it’s even MORE impossible than normal to stay motivated at work. couple that with the fact that my boss is out of town currently at a conference in sunny florida while i am here slaving away, and that i still have the last vestiges of my packing to complete, this does not a happy camper make….or, rather, an anxious and anticipatory camper i definately am =)

enter my daily od crawl through my favorites and i stumble across this entry:

http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=C101170&entry=20161

by the lovely katie. it reads, excerpted:

Farm-raised, wingless quail-tards (er, that’d be what privileged white Republicans hunt when they should be dealing with the tragic morass that is our country at the moment) is a helluva lot funnier than a cheesy Aerosmith spinoff. 

The man was DRUNK, people.  He SHOT A GUY IN THE FACE.  If he were just your average backwoods, white-trash, Texas-lovin’, cousin-marryin’, truck-drivin’, trailer-dwellin’ Yeehaw …instead of SECOND IN COMMAND to a backwoods, white-trash, Texas-lovin’, cousin-marryin’, truck-drivin’, trailer-dwellin’ Yeehaw Named Bush… well, then things would’ve been handled a wee bit differently, I’m guessing.

Hopefully he’s learned his lesson though, and will now stay FAR FAR away from power-drunk Republicans with itchy trigger-fingers and poor impulse control.  Maybe Cheney mistook his hunting buddy for those elusive WMDs. 

Friends don’t let friends go hunting with the Vice President.

And, just because I can, I’d like to close with ANOTHER quote from "The Daily Show":  
"In a post-9-11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that is weak."

So take THAT, you damn quail-tards.  We know you’re hiding Bin Laden!!    Just hand him over, and we won’t have to shoot any more 79-year-old grandfathers in the face.  This Administration will not bow to terrorists!!"

just when i thought amusement was not to be mine until leaving this goddessforsaken place today to embark upon previously mentioned grand adventure, katie pipes up and makes me giggle.

i adore you, katie.

thanks for the smile.

i have another thing to be thankful for today, but i will save that for it’s own entry.

peace. 

more amusement for the day….

i am tickled beyond words:

Little Johnny is sitting in biology class, when his teacher states the fact that only humans
stutter, and no other animal in the world does.

Johnny raises his hand and says. "You’re wrong, Miss Finch!"

 "Really, would you mind telling us why that is Johnny?"replies the teacher.

 "Well, Miss Finch, the other day I was playing with my cat on the porch. The neighbors’ Rottweiler came around the corner, and my cat went ‘fffff! fffff! fffff!’, and before he could say ‘Fuck!’, the dog ate him!"

heh.

discuss amongst yourselves….

and with that, i am off to pantheacon.

peace. 

help me, i’m at the catholic hospital….

and they won’t let me go. hahaaha

seriously, my mother had her other angioplasty today….or attempted, anyway. they weren’t able to do it because they said it had been blocked for too long, so her next best option is surgery. this makes me marginally sad for her and she is frustrated with going through this whole business for nothing, but at least she’s okay. she is laying here right next to me and we just finished watching "kate and leopold" on the tv. i think it’s almost time for her soap operas. please goddess, let us get cut loose before i have to watch those…

in other news, dance class last night was festive. i feel completely retarded. i bought that absolutely beautiful silk veil from ebay awhile ago and i can’t find where i put it. i think it’s in my room somewhere, my other choice is for it to be at the restaurant where we generally eat our dinner. i hope that if it’s there, someone saved it and didn’t think it was trash or stole it. i mean, the veil doesn’t really have any use except for someone who dances, but who knows? so, we worked with veil last night….i am just going to have to tear my bedroom apart looking for the veil and go by the restaurant and ask sean if he has it in his lost and found. veil is so cool….it’s so much more flowy and awesome. the other thing most teachers do is teach zills. i don’t like zills, they make a lot of noise and i am not that coordinated yet. i can EITHER dance, or i can zill, but asking me to do both at once is inviting disaster =) i am excited for tomorrow’s dance classes and i have ordered a couple of dvd’s to work on my technique and stuff when i don’t have class. this one dvd i got has ten minute quickie workouts. i am anxious to see how that it.

i need to write some more about spiritual stuff, but i think i am going to go and read and journal in my other journal right now to see what i can see. i watched "what the bleep do we know" with my ‘mates  this last weekend and they liked it as much as i thought they were going to…i pretty much knew that they would. there is so much more to know about this stuff and there is a sequel to that movie that comes out soon. we are going to make a fieldtrip to go and see it and delay our study a little longer. it’s really interesting stuff about quantum physics and how we perceive time and reality and how you can manipulate that if you think you can. i do and i have. it’s pretty cool, let me tell you.

today, life is good and i am again grateful for all the blessings i have in my life.

peace. 

gratitude….

i got this really new-agey email about how gratitude can change my life. i am sure this is true. sometimes things like that smack of truth and meaning and sometimes they just seem cheesy. bring on the cheese. i have always loved cheese =)

anyway, the end of last week and most of the weekend was pretty busy, but a good kind of busy…

last wednesday was dance class and as always, it was great. i briefly toyed with the thought of going to this big dance competition with the girls i dance with on wednesdays, but in the end, if i have any hope of going to new york in march, which i already have plans for, then i need to not worry about this competition. i also hardly think that my first public dance performance should be at a major competition. i’d rather do something really fun and more free for the first time. i told nahlah straight up i couldn’t go though and she seemed to understand. perhaps another time…i think it’s definately something i want to experience at some point.

then, thursday night ended up being a really cool trip down memory lane, but also brought a piece of the playa home to me. i had gotten a message early in the week to provide perimeter support for a fire performance being done at the museum of art here for our local group called "controlled burn". i got there and paid $10 to get in, got a free beer coupon i didn’t use, and stood around for about an hour, then went outside, talked to some playa friends, and then we began to start enforcement. it wasn’t nearly so grandiose as a permeter at the event, but it was a pretty good little crowd by the time the thing happened. the show was amazing and i got to share it with my daughter and her new boyfriend, they were both duly impressed, which made me happy =) i got to wear the playa wear that saved my life on the playa this year…a long dress-type thing that is made from some wool material that was gifted to me this year by a friend before going out to the playa. it was ALMOST like being home, but not enough dust =) after we were done there, i could have gone to party with my friends at a bar, but instead, i decided to take the kids for pizza…mom and d met me there and a good time was had by all.

friday was a day that i was looking forward to and dreading all at the same time. i had decided at some point that i was going to sign up for both dance classes that are held on friday nights. i had talked to my friend v about doing the advanced class and she had said she was up for it, but now that she works in the very building that the class is in, she decided she wanted to do the beginning class again. i didn’t want to miss class with her and my other friend, but i definately think i am ready for the intermediate/advanced class. well, i made it through and i was really proud of myself because i managed to keep up the entire time!! that was almost three solid hours of dance, and i managed to not be very winded. i was tired at the end, but it was muscle fatigue, not like, "i’m going to die" ,  chest-tightening stuff. just feeling good and weary. and the intermediate class is going to be a ton of fun. i am seriously considering dropping the wednesday class for awhile so i can be in a show that this teacher is helping to choreograph. if i can manage the rehearsals, i am going to seriously consider it.

saturday during the day was pretty relaxed and lazy. i got some VERY rare time by myself in my house. saturday night was a bellydancing open floor night that was a lot of fun. i got to see more people that i know, see some amazing dancing, and some new people i hadn’t seen before, which was cool. there was someone there that i do not care for, but i think i need to think on that and let it go. it’s the sister of someone who i used to be friends with that never liked me, but that’s sort of her problem and not mine. i still shook my groove thang and had a good time.

sunday during the day was my magickal study group, which was faboo. i don’t really want to get too in to that here, but suffice to say it was really good. we lost one member of our group, but i think it was ultimately a good thing for her to step back. it must be very hard to step into an established group and i think she just felt the straing too acutely.

after that was a super bowl party that was okay. i got to spend time with a friend, which was good. my husband arrived before me so he was already lit up like a christmas tree when i got there. he contined to be so and was not very nice to me, so i was rather annoyed by the time we got home. his team lost. i couldn’t have cared less either way. there is so much more to life than football, but whatever.

that’s about it. i think i am caught up now =)

it’s almost time to go home now. better end this and take one more look around and make sure i haven’t forgotten to do something important.

peace.

parts…

part of me wants to write, and part of me does not.

i have been trying to change some internal programming lately and have been having mixed success. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. the programming i am trying to change surrounds caretaking for everyone. when i do this i think it’s to everyone’s detriment because they come to rely on that rather than being self-sufficient and it adds exponentially to my stress. i felt good about really reading the words i was writing to d in his latest crisis and telling him that while i was sorry he was feeling so badly, if he had a problem with someone else who lives in our house, it was his responsibility to resolve that with that person and not expect me to take care of things for him. it felt good to write that, but it also made me anxious because he made noises about finding somewhere else to live. i didn’t freak out at all about this, not even in my head, which is really unusual.

i am very tired and feeling very un-connected to him right now, so i was about to the point that if he chose that, it would be okay with me. i would be incredibly, amazingly sad and full of grief, but maybe that’s the way things are supposed to go. with his email this afternoon, he was more up front about sharing that he really just wanted to vent. while i appreciate that, i haven’t answered his email yet because i think he could have told me that before now in the day, so maybe i want him to wait a little bit before getting a reply from me.

lately, i am obsessed with bellydancing and that seems like a safe thing to be obsessed about. i bought a costume on ebay that was custom made for me…it was supposed to ship today and i am very anxious to get it and see what it will be like.

tonight i am attending a burning man event where there will be fire spinning. part of me really wants to go, and part of me doesn’t. i guess i am feeling very gemini today, i keep contradicting myself. the part that wants to go thinks it will be fun and the part that doesn’t want to go thinks maybe it would be better if i just went home and hid. but i don’t want to do that and i promised someone that i would go, so i shall. if someone calls to ask where i am, i will answer, but otherwise, that information will not be forthcoming.

bellydancing is the thing that keeps me sane right now. tomorrow, i am anxious to take two classes in a row. i have been doing really good with eating well, and i am starting to see changes in my body again, still, i don’t kow…it’s impossible to tell. my clothes are more loose and  while doing something mundane the other day, my wedding ring flew off because it was so loose. freudian slip? hard to say at this point =) there is so much cool stuff to learn. i had cabaret class last night, and when i see myself in the mirror now, it looks like i know how to make my body move the right way. this makes me happy. i am not a bad dancer. this saturday represents the open floor night where i was supposed to dance, but it’s not going to happen for a variety of reasons. part of me wants to dance with someone else the first time, and part of me wants to dance alone the first time. i am tossing around and playing with choreography and songs. it will probably be a long time before i am able to do anything, but i am thinking about it. i want it to be something that is uniquely mine, pulling from my own personal dance experience so far. probably a fantasy, but that’s okay too.

i recorded all the songs from depeche mode’s "black celebration" on my computer at work and the song "sometimes" is playing right now. i like that song very much..it’s kind of sad and that’s how i am feeling today…i am calm about it, in a good place and feeling okay, just a little sad.

there is one more interview i must attend today and three tomorrow. this one should be the most interesting. the position that is being interviewed right now is one that works closely with me. so far, there are a couple of candidates that are okay, one that way bad, and the next one i have high hopes for.

i think that’s all i have to say right now.