Wordscapes

This is so, um, I don't know, brash? I am awakening this morning from thoughts about Georgia O'Keeffe and pregnant rivers. I want to do with words what Georgia did with paint. She invited us into the smallest of spaces and opened them to us as vast landscapes. She exploited the tension between what is and where it is. The non-existent boundary between an object and it's surroundings. A seductive touch of surface, object and the caress of our eyes. We are invited to stretch ourselves along the visual curve of a body, to see it at once as a flower, bone, hill. We are challenged to own the joy with Rumi-like passion that borders on sexual. To immerse ourselves in the world around us, to dive into it like warm water, and to experience that as a divine joy rather than a perversion. It is the ultimate invitation to be present in our body.

http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/index.html

The Meditation Tapes and Reading Pay Off!

This morning I woke up thinking about work. I am going through a slightly stressful time at work right now and yesterday was especially stressful. The day started with a volunteer, that I have grown to think of as family, telling me that her cancer is back. She had been diagnosed with cancer and had surgery shortly before my mom's cancer. Her surgery went extremely well and they were so optimistic that they did not give her chemo. Now it's back and she is scheduled for chemo right away. I care about her and don't want to see her go through this. It also brought up my biggest fear for my mom and that was hard to swallow yesterday. Then there are other personnel issues going on that took a turn for the worse yesterday that just sent the day down the toilet. It ended with finding out that a family lost one of their triplets.

As I was reflecting on these things, laying there in bed, I start spinning off into "what if" scenarios, worst case scenarios and "why" questions. What I didn't notice was that it wasn't just my mind that was wandering down this path. At one point I realized my entire body was tensed. Every muscle was poised for action or braced for impact.

A light bulb went off just as soon as I noticed this and with each breath I allowed my body to relax. I envisioned my muscles unfurling and the thoughts about work vanished. I was able to bring my mind back into the present warmth of the bed and the comfort of Jovi's body next to me. I instantly felt better. It made me wonder how many times I have sunk into this whirlpool of negative/worrying thoughts without noticing what it was doing to my body. This made me grateful that I noticed it this time.

Attachments

Have I told you yet that I am attachment disordered? Yeah, yoga is perfect for me. Eastern philosophies are good for me. Not in the avoid attachment sense but rather the learn to be in the present with our attachments. I mean, everyone has some sort of disorder or such right? As a cultural anthropologist I also feel like it is less that we are dysfunctional as individuals as it is our culture has not figured out how to deal with our individual gifts.