On Reclaiming Lapsed Practices

It's been a technological nightmare today.  After 4 attempts at making a website to host my writings for the #21 5 800 challenge, finally got this to stay put:
http://www.graciousenterprises.com/Blue_Circle_Press/index.html
This morning when I had my tea I did not have a twitter account.  It was something on my to do list.  But my partner discovered this challenge and offered it to me for motivation;  whether for the irony or because I can seriously use a rhythm change to get my writing groove on, it's been my day's work.
So the page is a mess and the settings, a travesty - but there are 800 words here, and that's what matters!


That my mind should find it’s deepest stillness (only, not in a good way) when called upon to describe myself while establishing my twitter profile, could be a telling enough signal that it needs no elaboration.  And yet, with a blank page and a vow that I’ll get 800 words on it by nightfall, why not plumb the depths of this one?

So- why the abyss?  The blank canvas of the “describe yourself” field is a beguiling and seductive phenomenon.  Who among us can pinpoint the complexity, the dichotomies, the contradictions-running-parallel that make up the “who” of who we are, in a tidy sum of a certain number of allowable characters?  And who can resist casting themselves in only the most appealing of roles; carefully choosing the most compelling of descriptions, trotting out our highest virtues as if they were up for auction (and if said virtues are musty and gritty from seasons of disuse, who’ll be the wiser?)?

Tempting though it was to describe myself as author, teacher, student, philosopher, sanskritist, urban farmer, sustainable lifestyles enthusiast and coach, natural health consultant focused on pure plant extracts (because the people likely to see the posts might find these aspects of my true identity to be appealing enough to allow me access to the “cool kid” club), and although at certain times each of these monikers rings true, there is also the dearly beloved dark side:

I haven’t written more than 300 words at a sitting in 2 weeks, and that was for a book review.  If I get paid for the time I spent writing it for the co-op where I work, then technically I will be an author.  Prior to that my greatest writing stint was a hurculean 400+ page compilation of musings which tied together  a single verse in a beloved sanskrit text with modern bodywork and psychoneuroimmunology through the human cerebrospinal fluid system - this was nearly eight years ago. In 2010, I started the new year with fanatical journaling, which began to take the form of nightly rants against the people and circumstances responsible for the post-traumatic stress which is the primary legacy of my childhood. The point here is that, while I conceive of myself as a writer and author, it is frequently hard to discern this from  my actual behaviour. 

The same rings true for all the things I’d love to identify with in a description of myself to strangers.  I’m self-employed in the natural health field, and have truly impressive implements at my disposal.  I claim to teach and support the people who come to learn from me, but lately the lack of structure that is both the bane and the blessing of the self-employed has left me in a state of near apathy about getting anything done - and then I get wrapped up in the glamorous, gooey guilt of it all and pledge to make a turn around. 

And what, oh what, about spiritual practices?  I’ve been so distant from my path and my master for so long that it didn’t even register to include “meditator” or “yogini” in my description of myself - though there was a time that all other identifications literally slid away.  It was 1997 or 1998, and I was in traffic in Seattle behind a car with a rainbow bumper sticker on it.  Having come out in red-neck Idaho during highschool in the 1980s and having spent a number of years as a queer rights activist, it was nearly instinct to honk and wave at such a sight (It was a lot newer then- hey, we didn’t even have the flag yet when I kissed my first girl) - but there was a part of me that suddenly switched off, and I was not identified by that anymore.  I suddenly did not identify as a lesbian, a massage therapist, a democrat, a Seattleite.  I was not a survivor, nor a person in recovery.  My sole and single identification was that of one who is one with that state in deepest meditation, that sense of belonging irrevocably to the source of grace; that state steeped in humility, gratitude, and reverence. 
And these days?  I sometimes feel bereft, like one mourning for the state that once came so naturally and simply, because I was steeped in regular practices.
And so today, this challenge has begun - and I am at 739 words this very moment and feel I’ve barely begun... talk about full circle, talk about irony...
I’m doing this challenge because my partner thought it would be a good idea.  I’m not even ready to think about why that is so very full circle, or why it is so ironic.  Maybe at some point, but not just yet. Nighty-night!