Journaling

Have you ever tried journaling on a regular basis? It is one of the most amazing experiments I have ever done, and I still practice it when I can.

I first learned about daily journaling from the book The Artist's Way. Author Julia Cameron suggests writing three pages of stream-of-consciousness text every morning. A few years ago I tried her program, including the journaling, and the results were really amazing. I felt inspired to act on the ideas I wrote about, and I was able to work through some personal issues just by writing about them again and again. I felt less blocked, freer, and happier. Most surprisingly, I noticed a startling jump in synchronicity in my life. Things that I would write about again and again started to resolve themselves in ways that felt totally magical. That was the first real experience of synchronicity in my life, and an important milestone in my personal development and work.

Recently I've encountered the concept again. I'm taking an online course with Christopher Penczak, author of the Temple of Witchcraft books, and writing daily pages is one of the first magical exercises he suggests. Learning that he advocates this practice (which he says was also inspired by The Artist's Way, as well as the tradition of occultjournaling) really helped to convince me that I'm on the right path with this.

Personally, I haven't journaled regularly in years, although I do go back to it sometimes when I feel things I'm not fully facing up to start bumping around in the back of my head. Someone in my class suggested the website 750 words, and it's impressive enough that I just mightget started again. On this website, you can get a running word count and daily progress statistics as you write, but your words themselves are completely private and practically ephemeral. Since I type fast, it's also a little quicker than long-hand.

Interested in trying journaling yourself? I agree with most of Julia Cameron's recommendations: at least three pages or twenty minutes (or 750 words) per day, every day, for at least three months to see how profound the effects can really be.

It can be tempting to skip or skimp, but it's doing the practice regularly that helps get to anything you might be trying to avoid. Which sounds kind of terrible, when you put it that way...but I really recommend trying it for yourself.

Memetic Hexerei (aka Chain Letters)

I've been thinking about American magical traditions a lot recently. In witchcraft it's pretty hard to avoid a strong association with the British Isles (everything from Arthur and Avalon to traditional Wicca), and Germanic and Norse folk practices may well be the second most common source. 

European witchcraft traditions have been evolving in America for centuries, though...for example, the Pennsylvania Dutch magical system called hexerei or pow-wow. My background is British, German, and in particular Pennsylvannia Dutch (which, by the way, actually means German in this case. Also, here I am still in Pittsburgh), so this is all pretty relevant for me personally.

Anyway, I remembered learning something about hex signs as a kid, so I was looking into that a little more deeply when I came across this completely random thing: the picture above is called a "himmelsbrief", literally "heaven's letter". Apparently this is a centuries-old German and German-American tradition in which letters supposedly written by God are carried around as protective talismans. 

The really funny thing is the memetic structures these letters contain. Most of the text concerns the specific blessings bestowed upon the bearer of the letter, and encourages the reader to make their own copy. It's a chain letter from God! According to the chain letter evolution archive, modern chain letters descend circuitously from this practice.

Memetically, it's brilliant. Letters are easy to replicate, so when you give people the motivation to do so, you can end up with an exponential explosion of information (or postcards, or even money, as later innovators realized). Offer a superstitious carrot and stick, for example, and you're in business. When you think about throwing the super-speed copying and memetic sharing medium of the internet into the mix, the possibilities are staggering.

(Himmelsbriefe also remind me of this amazing piece of junk mail. God sure sends some weird letters.)

OMG Poetry

I was thinking about my old poetry today, and I was a little shocked to realize that it wasn't collected anywhere really, just incredibly scattered through my old livejournal. Blah. So I collected it. I haven't written anything new in about three years. I've tried to force the issue occasionally, but never ended up with anything good, which is too bad because I really, really like to write poetry when I actually feel like writing it, but... anyway, here it is. I think the last one is my favorite, usually. And "conversations with James" is really funny, in retrospect.


firebug

the last time you came home you dragged all these
old bits of my life out onto the lawn
to have a bonfire you said hey baby
pull up a chair, come here and get warm
it was the last time I saw you laugh,
the last time I heard you smile
and pieces of my heart were going up all the while

and we picked through the memories
and pulled apart the minutes and years
and tossed them all in the kindling pile
and laughed at everyone's stupid fears
you laughed because maybe it was better for you that way
and I laughed because I didn't have anything else to say
my tongue got in the way

in a way it was forever you know, no one ever
wants to leave. when you're burning everything
you've got cold and hot can last an eternity
and you know too how everyone always thought
for some reason we had a lot- I guess that shows
what everyone knows. when you left I sat and watched
until it all burned down to the coals


9/11

ten thousand miles away from
the crashing and burning
and the bodies
in a Japanese hotel
I unwrapped a cake of soap
thick with coconut flakes
and a razor
a toothbrush
a heavy plastic cup
no radio
I noticed
hot water flowing
into the bath tub


scotch and water

everything I see is broken
like the pieces of a bottle
full of whiskey by the river
there was summer in the water

it was August, I remember
she was dancing in the fountain
her hair melting in the darkness
and her skin reflecting moonlight

scotch and water flowing through us
down the river and around
and the fragments of her story
like a poem on the ground

she was singing like a mermaid
who is terrified of drowning
and holding on to everything
even though it was falling


for my family, wherever this moment finds

ice is the sign for waiting
a virtue in the north
stone cold opposite of fickleness
which stops the wheels of wagons
and sends frost crawling
razor sharp over windowpanes
and slick on snow

time stretches

space stretches

the double mirror plane of the sky bent back
reflects here and there the echoes of
dead stars and so, we walk around outside -
who knows? we are all overwhelmed
by the strangeness of convexity

how to speak, then, solid as this bouncing lens
transparent with the distance of the
things that blood and water hold in memory?

too much is made of action
while galaxies tilt and slip and go on existing
and legend upon legend slides into oblivion
across the surface of the same constellation


untitled (rock and roll)

and rock and roll
is in my blood
she said
out of my mouth
sideways
she said
boots and leather
seven times
she said
an incantation
we're dead
heaven on earth
getting out of our skulls


poem I wanted to write when I was seventeen

bloodsuckers damply fluttering
battering, hovering at the edges
of the light like a
seeping bloodstain

wings of tissue and crinoline
wings of moss and darkness
wings of lace and laudanum
and rain

looking in all the wrong places
flickering synapse ghosts
blood is not warmly forgotten
they are here again


pulse

a house has a heartbeat, deep and slow
thick with small pulses and sleepy breathings
i never said i wanted you to go, loves, and yet...
fingers in my ears or no
through air and walls
my heart can hear you leaving


love settles

love settles in lightly
butterflies in the stomach
indigo, scarlet
metamorphosing

love settles in lightly
mud between the teeth
packed, sun-baked
white adobe


ohm namah shivayah
(you change everything)

the moment in which
I wrap my arms around you
curve of my chest to the curve of your back
one palm against the back of your neck
and breathe with you

forever– not a word for you and me, love,
except, forever: how far away your kiss takes me
and, forever: how long I'll never ever forget

the moment in which
i wrap my arms around you
curve of my chest to the curve of your back
one palm against the back of your neck
and think of the moment in which
you wrap your arms around her
curve of your chest to the curve of her back
one palm against the back of her neck
and breathe with her


conversations with James

when James came to my house he told me this story:
a man asked him if his shoes where gay. he asked what the man meant. the man said people would think he was gay. he asked if the man thought he was gay. the man said no.
I looked at his shoes. they were kind of gay.
I said "that's the kind of question you have to hope people will ask you, though"
"I guess so" said James "at least I didn't get beat up"
"that's a possibility I should probably consider more often" I said
"it's better if you don't" he said

James said "I guess there are some things we'll never really have to discuss"
"like what?" I said
"like cars" said James
"I guess you're right" I said "we'll probably never really have to talk about cars"

James said "about Sara, I agreed to some things because she wanted them,
but I never really thought we would be together forever"
it was the first thing he had said of which I was particularly skeptical

James said "are you good at stealing things?"
I had to consider that. I said "no I don't think so"

James said "I bet you'll really like Lizzie. I bet you'll really like Degra too."
I don't know if I will. I guess I'll find out soon enough

we were talking about an artist's work "it's fine though" James said
I said "what's the alternative? it's just not okay?" I was laughing
"something will have to be done" James said

James said "I've seen your husband throw away too many relationships by being dishonest"
my husband has said the same thing about James, but the difference is I haven't seen it

I said "do you want to see where we used to get the refrigerators?"
James said "yes" and then he said "do you want to climb this hill?"
I said "yes" of course

Kristy said "I talked to Sara, about what happened with your husband.
she said she did some things she shouldn't have"
"we all do things we shouldn't have, sometimes" I said. I was feeling generous
"maybe you should talk to her" she said "I'm inviting her to dinner on Thursday"

James said "it occurs to me that maybe we're cheating"
I thought he meant because of my husband
"because we have such similar contexts" he said
"maybe we should have to work harder"

"I slept with James" I said
"why?" said Kristy eventually
"I'm not sure" I said
I went home and wrote a list- eleven possible reasons why I might have done it

James showed up at the bus stop.
he was wearing my sweatshirt.
he said "I'll bring this back later"
"don't worry about it too much" I said


anarchy on a Friday morning

rain is spreading on the pavement and I am thinking
of life taking root in a million tiny crevices
jack-knifed into trees, spray painted on balustrades
I am thinking too of counting other people's money
eight hours a day "for the revolution" because we have none

(inside out t-shirt
knee-cut suit coat
boots i couldn't run in
pliers for my nose ring)

I've seen the best minds of my generation
go off to Vermont and come back crazy
still hearts expanding like balloons
pockets full of moonlight
sweetness a preview of

Boddhichitta
(breathe in-
darkness,
heaviness,
pain,
breathe out-
it's nothing)

I am thinking of you at home folding and
stapling our dreams for a new tomorrow and
lust is catching in my throat where
I would wish your fingers might be if

[here could be a whole verse
in a different sort of poem
about anarchy and love, full
of roses and Molotov cocktails;
since it is what it is
this will have to suffice-
I want to shoot your adrenaline
I want to see behind your eyes]

I am thinking, too, of last minute packing
gas masks, bandannas and casserole and
a worn out letter from my father about
Allen Ginsberg, ohm and Joan Baez
out of which I had conveniently
forgotten the qualifiers,
just when I was beginning to wonder why
we were eighty kids in black on a bus
and where all the old anarchists had
faded away to leaving us

(I gave them my phone number and
I wrote down my next of kin but
I didn't tell them my daydream
which I guess is a contingency plan
for dying at the barricades today
do you know what i would do?

1. i would hope to be on television and
2. i would ask for you)


Waiting for River

the forest pulses
dark and endlessly
waiting through an
uneasy month
between the violets
and the fireflies

month? months-- a line of hungry days
crawls by after the scent of sugar.

i used to think
(round and sweaty)
there were only
(stuck here)
two ways to go
(between breaths)
in life

(...)

nowhere, and
straight on towards death

but

when you scream, the universe is possible
splits, and
opens
up


Centrifugue

and we were lying there together on the
earth's dented surface you and I spun
and i said to you green grass green green
grass brown grass under brown grass blue sky
black stars under you and I and then said
you said water flowing under water
flowing to the lowest ground always
after standing under water moving
faster than the spinning dirt
we're made of I was and

One Week Later: On Ambition

When I've thought about blogging this week, I've mostly wanted to expand on my claim that I'm going to become an illustrator. It's still true, but I wanted to give a bit of back-story. The problem is, I'm not sure where to start.

I'm not a very ambitious person by nature. Or, to put that another way, I'm pretty much a lazy slacker. I have my good qualities, but for most of my life they have not been in the hard work department. This is somewhat deliberate, in that for the most part the things that are really valuable to me - family, friends, interesting experiences - don't necessarily cost money, and in fact the more time and energy one puts towards professional goals, the less time one has for enjoying these other things. This is actually a very important belief of mine.

HOWEVER

It has come to my attention over the past few years that:

A) you probably need some money, and the harder and smarter you work the faster you can usually get it,

and,

B) doing interesting, useful stuff and making money from it isn't necessarily impossible. Or, at least, some work is more interesting, useful, and probably less of a waste of life than, say, working in a convenience store.

I started having stunning revelations on this subject when I was pregnant with River, and I realized that I really really didn't want a full-time career, a really incredibly shitty low-paying part-time job, or an expectation that James would support me while I stayed home with the baby. The remaining option was to get paid for doing something reasonable and flexible, and for the first time in my life I really put effort towards this goal. Specifically, instead of just sitting around reading magazines and secretly believing that I could be writing for them, which I had plenty of experience with already, I spent quite a lot of time writing sample articles and searching for places to submit them online.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I've basically pulled my weight financially by writing and editing web content, while only spending a day or so per week on this work. This was a second revelation. I'd felt a bit like a fraud when I started applying for writing work, and even more so when I started describing myself as a writer. But the fact is, I can apparently do it, and the only thing that had to change to make it happen was my perception of the possibility.

EXCELLENT!

And yet, I've recently started to realize that I've hit another sort of dead-end. The assignments that I get regularly pay very little for professional writing, and besides I depend far too much on two major contracts. Together James and I make enough to live reasonably, but just barely. I have a lot of hang-ups about financial success, probably enough for at least one more whole post, but in short the fact is that it really would be nice if we could make some more money. There are a lot of nice and useful things that we could do if we had a little more slip in our budget, and James has certainly been doing his part to work on this situation.

For me, I've been really starting to feel that I needed to make another leap professionally - probably either working up lots of high-quality samples and putting more effort into getting better writing jobs, or else learning more about internet business, design and marketing (I've been working on it) and starting my own for-profit sites where I could collect all the profit from my articles instead of just a tiny percentage. And then, the more I thought about it, the more I thought, "hey, if I can become a professional writer, there are probably other interesting things I could do for money. And if I'm going to have to put a lot more time and effort into this career thing, anyway, isn't there anything I'd rather be doing than web/magazine writing?" And of course, the answer that immediately came to me is I'd rather be illustrating. So.

I'm going to become an illustrator. I've been working on samples and submitting them online, just like I did when I started writing. And, I'm still thinking about making some monetized websites of my own in the meantime, since the writing thing seems to be working out for now. I just have to figure out exactly how that's all going to work, but that's a whole other post for another day.

Passions, Obvious and Secret

I'm not a huge follower of The Huffington Post, but it's definitely a popular enough site that blogging tips from its founder, Ariana Huffington, are tough to ignore. According to her, anybody unemployed should have plenty of time to blog, so I'm two thirds of the way there already, I guess. She also gave two more specific tips recently on the Daily Show:

"The first trick, the most important, is to write about your passions. Blog your passions. Blog your obvious passions. Blog your secret passions…" The second tip is to not overthink things.

So, my obvious passions. The top ten that come to mind quickly, in no particular order, are:

my family
the arts
lefty politics (environmentalism, feminism, anti-racism, GLBT issues, peace and justice, etc.)
freelance writing and other interesting work opportunities
healthy living stuff like whole food cooking and yoga
nature
world travel
amazing spectacles, like burning man or anything that explodes
goofy fun stuff like hula hooping
crafts and other DIY projects

That's a pretty good list, I think. If I could even blog consistently about those things, I'd have an interesting blog, and also one that would be fairly inoffensive to at least half the people on the internet.

Then there are my "secret" passions. These aren't really secrets that no one knows about, by a long stretch. But they are things that, for one reason or another, I tend to reserve in real life for conversations with people with similar interests. The top ten in this category would probably include:

really horrible junk food like pop tarts
wonky new-age spirituality, comparative religion and occult stuff
anarcha-feminist hellraising
sexuality
radical DIY and alternative health care
radical (unconditional or consensual) parenting and unschooling
altered states of consciousness, trance, and so on
fashion, the odder the better
survivalism, primitivism, and apocalyptic speculation
obsessive, martha-stewart style domesticity (hey, I didn't say I actually do these things!)

I would say that makes for a more interesting list, especially if you use the two together. It's also a list that leads to speculation about whether anyone else in the world is interested in even half these things (with the likely exception of my wonderful mate), and concerns about alienating the few readers I seem to have.

But I've thought and blogged these issues to death, and that brings us back to Ariana's second suggestion. She's famous, so she must know what she's talking about. Perhaps for a while I'll try to stop overthinking things, and make at least one post related to my "secret" passions for every obvious passion post. Or something like that.

Many Happy Returns of the Day, part 2

This is my sister-in-law, Danya. Today we got a short fiction anthology in the mail, including a story that she wrote. Why is this? She was recently a finalist in the Wordstock 2008 contest (which, by the way, was judged by my favorite writer of all time, Ursula K. Leguin, of which I am eternally jealous). So, now she is a published author. Congratulations, Danya, that is a pretty kick-ass sixteenth birthday present!

The story, called "Looks Like Newsprint," was short, sweet, and evocative. You can see the book here.

Two Exciting Introductions

First of all, The Green Connoisseur has launched. This is a green luxury project that I've been writing for for a while, so it's great to see it deployed. So far I have written about pet-friendly hotels, Nudo olive oil, and Hanna Andersson clothing. I will also be blogging for the site soon.

Second, you may have noticed the addition of capital letters to this post. It is with regret that I bid goodbye to my 100% miniscule standard, but I'm not sure that exhibiting it in such a public forum has been great for my writing career. So, onward to bigger, and hopefully better, things.

rerecursive

there is a lot of baffling writing on the internet. since i've started pursuing content writing more seriously, i've many times searched for or come across sites called things like "how to make money writing for the internet." this is all very well, and not too surprising, since one of the ground rules of said industry seems to be "teaching sells." people on the internet really like to read content about how to do things, and everyone like money, right?

the bizarre thing about these sites is that they often have little other content. i was looking recently at the site of an author who claimed that she had gone from quitting her job to supporting herself as an internet writer in under a year. that sounded promising, as it's best to learn from people who are experienced, so i looked further into her archives, wondering what she writes about. the answer, surprisingly, seems to be "how to make money writing for the internet." what?

things like this are actually very common. many of the blogging jobs that you see ads for are for topics like "business" or "productivity," which is all very well, except that these things are generally code words for, you guessed it, how to make money writing about how to make money on the internet. what it generally seems to boil down to is people publishing ebooks and blogs on this topic, and other people spamming the universe with links to these "resources." it's actually very similar to the pyramid scheme where you "make money stuffing envelopes" by getting people to send you a few dollars in exchange for a pamphlet about how they can make money stuffing envelopes.

an unfortunate side effect of this phenomenon is that it's almost impossible to use search engines to find information about real internet writing jobs. i've decided that if i ever have much success making money by writing for the internet, i should publish an ebook called "how to make money by writing for the internet about topics other than making money by writing for the internet." it's certainly an underexploited niche.

What Is "What It Is"?

i have really been enjoying this book by lynda barry. it's about how to do creative things, especially writing. i know that the answer is to stop reading self-help books and start doing creative things, but i am addicted. plus, for some reason i haven't taken a creative writing course since possibly ever, so the basic advice in this book really helped me. an excerpt:

"we notice that when people tell the story of their lives it often sounds like an obituary -- a lot of general information but almost no images. we notice also that journal writing has a rather similar quality to it, only instead of information we find a lot of writing about our feelings. the main feeling is discontent and worry, outrage, regret, despair, complaints, vague questions about life, hope of a transformation...we find a lot of writing, but almost no images!"

whoah. i mean, duh. i mean, umm...i guess this is kind of obvious but i have never really thought about it before. her main method is to just write, using very simple words as prompts. i was previously aware of writing prompts, but mostly things like "what i did on my summer vacation," which tend to produce dry results like those mentioned above. so, i have really found this book interesting, not to mention that it is full of fun cartoons and pictures and a magic cephalopod.

when i write for ehow, i spend a lot of time being amused by the bizarre titles that they request. i don't know how they come up with these titles, but they are on a real list that ehow writers can pick from, write articles about, and be paid for. here are some of my favorites from last week:

how to tame a praying mantis
how to train a hamster to come when you call
how to extract wisdom teeth
how to give yourself accupuncture
how to use nuts
how to train to be a ninja easily
how to train to be a ninja with a low budget
how to train to be a ninja using stuff you find at home
how to walk on the ceiling
how to wear legwarmers
how to tell your parents you're becoming a satanist
how to get crunk

needless to say, i did not write any of these articles.

so, i guess i can keep writing for ehow for now. it's pretty inglamorous to pick through the list of articles they want and try to decide whether i can write 400 words about "how to an introduction to yoga for menstruating women" [sic] and so on, but it actually doesn't pay too much worse than about.com would have, and with their new setup i can pick as many assignments as i want. of course there's zero job security, but what's new. i probably won't even be bitter about that anymore after a few days.

because that's so dull, here are ten of my more exciting major work goals:

1. writing and illustrating an awesome vegan cookbook. i have a niche idea, but unfortunately i had better not share it because this is the internet.

2. making and submitting an illustration portfolio. i think i could do well with this, but it would take a megaton of initial time investment. i should do it, though.

3. doing health work. we're going to advertise our massage business some more soon, which is good, solid, well-paying work (albeit with an obnoxious constant sales component, and pretty tough in pittsburgh because we don't have a good client base) but honestly that's not really what i have in mind. i think it would be an awesome job to provide wholistic health care, but unfortunately this is probably the longest shot on the whole list because of the extensive training required.

4. making a big acrylic painting on circular masonite. i can see it in my head; it has rainbow colored trees and geometric patterns.

5. making a giant, complicated version of one of my favorite drawings (the quetzalcoatl one), with goache and gold leaf.

6. writing a book about witchcraft that hopefully isn't stupid.

7. making a tarot deck. again i have a secret gimmick, although if i get started on this one soon i might go ahead and show some of it.

8. teaching art. we are thinking about going to grad school and getting mfas, but if so, that's at least a few years in the future. also, the jobs are not surprisingly really competitive.

9. having another baby, probably.

10. selling gourmet popsicles. i think it could be big.

the anarchists' cookbook

sometimes james and i wonder about making a cookbook. we made that veganisn't cooking zine, -- which was fun and actually seems to be pretty popular -- in the first month that we were dating. much more recently we kind of had an actual book deal with ak press, but they wanted what they described as a vegan "joy of cooking", and frankly we just don't have the time or resources for that kind of thing right now. we do have some ideas (as well as a lot more recipes) for a cookbook that i think could be pretty innovative and cool. however, the more i learn about it, the more writing a whole cookbook seems kind of crazy, at least as a money making venture.

ak press was going to give us %10 of sales as royalties, which seems to be pretty much the going rate. even if the cookbook cost $20, which is a lot, %10 would only be $2 per book sold. i've looked a little into self-publishing, print on demand options like lulu, which also seem fine but would still make it pretty hard to earn more than a couple of dollars per book sold. this is strange because veganisn't currently sells for about $3 and costs about 50 cents to print, so it's actually about as profitable as selling a whole book, and a lot less work. on the other hand, we have to sell it ourselves. i wonder if being able to sell a book on, say, amazon would make enough of a difference to be financially worthwhile.

of course, money isn't the only reason to write a cookbook. but we are kind of unemployed at the moment, and need some income producing projects, and for a while this seemed like a good one. maybe we should just make veganisn't 2 instead, or print our entire cookbook at kinkos.

james has a new blog too!

apparently one of the avenues open to aspiring writers on the internet is doing homework assignments for other people. this is, unfortunately, probably the only way i am ever going to get paid to write about anthropology. today i got a real opportunity to do this for the first time, and the money was decent (well, better than eHow, anyway, but i guess that's not hard). i think that i feel ok about this in my brain, because really, what is going to happen if someone unqualified becomes an anthropologist? maybe they will write an inspiring book about shamanism, like carlos castaneda, or a popular quote ("never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. in fact, it is the only thing that ever has"), like margaret mead. umm, sorry about that world.

unfortunately, my newly cultivated intuition is telling me this is a bad idea. damn intuition. i just hope it's really intuition and not some lingering sense of false moralism, because i turned the offer down.

check out the global network of dreams. it's a recommendation engine where you can enter two books, musicians or movies that you like. the thing that makes it kind of unique is that it actually considers the two together and tries to find more things that someone with that combination of interests might like (unlike a lot of places that just recommend things that are similar to one thing you like). i like to enter two things that are very different, and see what kind of bizarre intersection gnod comes up with.