clearbluecup

We've been hanging out here with Grandma and Grandpa for the past two weeks. It's been fun, but I had kind of forgotten what -20 C plus wind chill is like. I nearly froze my face off with that little mistake!

I've been slowly going through all the old boxes of books and papers and random miscellaneous crap that I left with my parents when I left to go to University, and then left to go to Ireland. Now I'm trying to decide if I really want to leave all this stuff behind for good, or pack it around with me for the rest of my life. Sigh. It's a strange sort of emotional archaeology, and an interesting process for me. I'm tending towards ruthless (after all, if I haven't missed it in the past five years, do I REALLY need this stuff?) but I have a soft spot for old letters, journals and high school yearbooks.

I struggled long and hard over all my old textbooks, which I faithfully kept through the years instead of selling second hand to recoup some of my cash. Eventually I decided that it was a similar sentiment to keeping all my old notebooks full of hieroglyphic math equations and highlighted psych definitions - a way of proving to myself that once upon a time I was an intellectual and actually understood and remembered all this stuff. Sigh. Into the garage sale bin they went, although I am not really sure who else is going to want out of date textbooks.

I came across Rabi's blog post about the dawning of a new geological age, and one of the comments really struck me:

It increasingly feels like this generation is bearing witness. I don't exactly know to what, but we are. Anyone else feel the same way?

We are absolutely bearing witness to the greatest change humanity has ever faced, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either ignorant or lying, or both. When I heard that phrase, "bearing witness", I realized that is what I want to do with my writing. I want to be a witness, to capture and share my experience, my dreams and fears and foibles, so that someone else can learn from them, or at least feel a little less alone in this world. I don't really want to entertain or enlighten as much as I want to confess and bear witness.

They say it's harder to change yourself
than to change your surroundings

all that spiritual warrior stuff
and meditation
and breathing through alternating nostrils
just fancy ways to try and catalyze
psychic transformation

I've watched it happen
countless times before
suddenly my inner yardstick is re-calibrated
I see myself
in the eyes of others
I see the contradictions between
my thoughts
and actions

I've watched this transformation
take action
like a wheel sunk into the mud up to the axle
it takes a great heave to put the first foot forward
a smaller heave for the second
momentum is critical

time and again
drifting back into the mud
only to go through all the strain and effort
of heaving out again

the challenge:
understanding how to renew
refresh and unstick
without turning the rest of the world
upside down

to move and change
in stillness and
peace