A New Trick for Halloween

I haven't planned on a costume this year.  Not that I've dressed up in dog years, but I think about it from time to time.  But this year, I think for a new trick, I will peel off a layer of my mask for a treat.  I've been pulling out the bulldozers and excavators to try and figure out why I'm not what I want to be, what I feel I'm supposed to be.  Mostly books have been my tool of choice so now I'm trying to gird my loins and actually start doing some of the things the learned authors are telling me to do.  So, for this Halloween, I'm going to try and take off my mask and see how long it takes me to get scared before I have to put it back on.  We all wear them, we have our work mask, our friendly mask, our pious mask and our flirty one.  We've used them from the start of our ascent into adulthood as a way to protect our inner child, and we become dependent upon them....okay, maybe the dependence is only me.  So, who's with me?  Is the world ready for that much truth?  Happy Halloween!

An Unbroken Heart Gathers No Soul

Tinman can be quoted as saying "Now I know I've got a heart --- 'cuse it's breaking"  It hurts, getting your heart broken.  Whether it is your emotional heart, your intellectual heart or your social heart, all need to crack the crusty shell, shatter it's once held beliefs and sentiments in order to grow. Luckily for us and Tinman, our hearts are like a Timex watch: Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking.

This isn't some dumb-ass war cry to go out and break every heart you can get your hands on, it's not nice to be the breaker and even less fun to be the breakee.  I'm saying be open to the breaking, so you can grow.  So often I've walked around town, driven through blighted areas in the urban areas and hold my breath until I'm back in 'safe' surroundings.  I try not to see the disheveled people leaning in doorways to keep warm and dry.  "It's their choice", is one of my favorite emotional barricades to hide behind, which is right next to the second favorite of "It's the City's job to take care of them."  That's not to say I don't help out when I can.  I put coinage and sometimes even cashy money into poor boxes when asked, I'll buy a meal for a someone who says their hungry, you know, doing my part.  Not that I need a pat on the back from anyone for doing that, I'm quite adept at patting my own back, thank you very much.  But it's not enough any more.

One of my favorite made-up words is ectopherisis (ekto-fer ee sis), it's a combination word of ectoplasm (If you're a Ghostbusters fan you know that word) and Pheresis which is the process of separating out the different components of the blood in order to harvest white blood cells and plasma.  Together it is the process in which our spiritual selves shed our ephemeral skin, like a snake, in order for us to grow spiritually and emotionally to the next level.  Just like a snake it normally requires you to bang your head on a sharp rock, or for the sake of this blog, get your heart broken to get things started.  When our hearts are frozen from the banality of every day life we turn a blind eye to the suffering of our own and of the world around us.  If you are suffering you look at your fellow sojourner and proclaim to yourself that your suffering is far more painful to theirs.  That egoism is a trap, it's the mortar that helps seal your heart behind the excuses for not taking a step to fix the problems in the world.  To be perfectly honest, it's a very comfortable place to be most of the time.  But then it happens.  Something, someone, somehow you are exposed to something truly touching or thought provoking or personally painful and your heart is shattered.  Then what do you do?  You're in pieces....

I say revel in it.  Don't try to pull the pieces back together because you will never be the same person you will be before it broke.  And, honestly, do you really want to be that person ever again?  Some people do, some people abhor change (and seriously, I'm one of them), but you need it to grow.  If you don't turn the soil, add fresh compost and new seeds you will never reap the harvest of a well rounded soul.  We only have this life to live, shouldn't we live it mindful of ourselves and mindful of the pain around us?

The impetus that brought on this blog was watching Dianne Sawyer on 20/20 showing us the Hidden America: Children of the Plains.  I realized my simple "They choose to live like that" or "The Government should fix it, that's why we pay taxes," doesn't cover the horrific lives the Lakota Sioux Indians are living at Pine Ridge, SD.  Though I'm not faring much better financially, I'm determined to get a box of school supplies together, even if I have to raid my own personal stock-pile of office supplies and send it to them.  I hope, as my employment betters, or if my book is published, I will be in a better position to help more.  My heart broke when I saw the drawing of a little girl showing herself hanging and both of her wrists slashed with puddles of blood on the floor.  This was a doodle, it wasn't a psyche evaluation.   It was heart-wrenching.  Not just because she is too young to have those thoughts but because I know what it's like to have those thoughts.  The tribe helped her in many ways, one was to give her an Indian name, something like, She Who Stands During Storms.  It gave her strength, and seeing her improve over the course of the hour gave me strength.  And so my heart ticks anew.....

Remember, Tinman always had a heart, he was just frozen for so long that it took the loss of his friend to hear it ticking again.

Themes in Dreams

I'm sure you know by now that I have extra-ordinary dreams, life like and even sometimes continuations of dreams that I've had days, weeks or even months before.  It's like I live a different life when I'm dreaming, sometimes hoping that the dream world is real and this day-to-day grind is a nightmare I keep falling into.  What I like most about dreaming is being able to jump into the air and fly.  Flying has got to be my absolute favorite dream element.  It's supposed to mean you are happy.  Needless to say, I haven't had one in a long, long while because of the stress of the waking world.  One theme that has always been with me for as long as I can remember is having to have to go home after being away and having to have to pack all my belonging back up and get them on the plane/car/train home again.  But there is just too much stuff.  I bring volumes of books, my bird, all my make-up even though I only wear it in real life for a special occasion or when I'm going to get my picture taken.  The stress of finding a way to get it all back home again is often more than I can deal with and I'm stymied to do anything at all.  Last night, I'm happy to report that I was able to get everything home, even Sammy (my parrot) I secured in a zipped compartment on my carry on. 
This is what it means according to www.dreammoods.com

To dream that you are packing, signifies big changes ahead for you. You are putting past issues to rest or past relationships behind you. Alternatively, it represents the burdens that you carry.

To dream that you are packing, unpacking and packing and unpacking again, represents chaos in your life. You are feeling overwhelmed with the various things you are juggling in your life. You are carrying around too many burdens and need to let go. Consider what unfinished business you have to tend to. Try to resolve these issues so they can finally be put to rest.

My interpretation of the interpretation is since I'm packing to go home, and constantly packing and unpacking to repack to make more room for what I need to bring home would be that I've been away from my self too long and caught up in the chaos that is my life.  Home for me is writing, which was brought home with accuracy last year when I was doing National Novel Writing Month and I completed a novel in 30 days (actually more like 26).  Home for me is creating stories and blogging and doing projects that help me think in different angels and direction I never would have before.  That is home for me.  In my dreams I'm very covetous over my books, my writing items and, of course, Sammy.  I think it's telling me that I need to shed, both physically and emotionally, the things that really aren't that important to me getting back home.  Getting home, being a full time fiction writer, is the goal, not to tote all my excess baggage around with me until I'm too exhausted to do anything I deem of worth.

Yes, that is a picture of my parrot Sammy.  She's doing her "Pretty Girl" trick.

Editing in Real Life

I've been editing my second book, a girl meets genealogy and stirs up some ghosts of her families past, it's a fun story and I enjoy re-running certain points in my head because they're entertaining, but editing.....I hate editing.  It points out that I wasn't good enough to get it right in the first draft.  Not that anyone really does, I know, but that is the goal that I strive for.  And true to form, I will find anything else to do other than editing, like, I dunno Blogging perhaps? hehe  As I was driving around town today, looking at antique shops for a cool cane for my Mom and a nice poison cabinet for when I start making poisons (whole other long story, they aren't for human use or animal use either, I've not found any Borgia in my blood-line...)  I was looking at editing from a whole-life perspective instead of just as a tiresome job to do after writing. 

How often do we find ourselves like bonsai trees, edited to an ascetically consumable standard.  We grow, push our roots out further and as soon as we start to show growth we clip ourselves back into shape, never allowed to really wiggle our roots in a loamy soil.  We bend and clamp ourselves into different positions until we can do nothing else.  Yes, we're beautiful, but are we happy?  Everyone is confined to their dishes, be it large or small, and though we see the trees in the wild and even envy them at times, but no one would trade their cozy, warm, manicured life for the opportunity to grow big and tall and then shot down by lightning or rotted out by mold. 

How much editing is needed though?  I mean seriously, how much should we keep and how much should we redact from our every day life to 'fit in' or to be loved?  I guess it comes down to what kind of bonsai you are.  If you are a palm, a ficus or maple tree and what ever other kind of bonsais there are out there.  I like the tree I picked for this piece, it shows the seasons, it changes every few months.  I'd like to believe that my personal editing makes way for new growth without out-growing my roots or pot I have to grow in this life.  Both humble and proud, showy and coy, stalwart and flaky in one big bottomed bowl. Yea, that's me!