Misc

Flowing


If you want page views, you should use the phrase “outing myself” somewhere in it or talk about dead people. Although the latter is usually the bigger draw here, I’ve had amazing results with the former this week though I suppose they are technically one in the same.

The last hour of training this last weekend was wiled away with Patanjali. I didn’t have much to say out loud. My opinions on life, energy and the transformation of true self (some people refer to that last as “soul”) are not fully formed and stray far afield of generally recognized lines. Mostly, I listen. Most of the others in the training are younger than I am, many of them could easily be my daughters had I been an early mother. I recognize a lot of passions and ideas that I’ve long since discarded. I am struck by the optimism and that’s a feat because I’ve always found it difficult not to err on the side of Pollyanna’s dreams.

A few things.

First was something I touched on in a reply to Sharon’s comment yesterday.

It’s easy to believe that you have the answers. Read a little Yoga Sutra. Cultivate a yoga practice. Eat quinoa and shun milk for soy. Enlightenment!

No, not really. There is a common feel to the Yoga Sutras. Issues we grapple with today can easily be addressed within its teachings. But that’s so with most philosophical/religious texts that have stood the test of time. The bible. The Koran. The Talmud. Even some of the timeless literature, The Iliad, Cinderella (did you know that every culture has its own version of her story? every single one.) Human beings are complex in their utter simplicity.

Yoga is a good path for the me as I am at this point in time. I would never speculate in detail about decade from now, but I feel safe saying that I will still be following this path or at the very least, a tributary.

But I have no answers. Sorry. I won’t be jumping into guru mode or overlaying sutra on my experiences or vice versa. The margin for serious error is too high.

Monks in Tibet sit around with sutra-like texts and debate it. I am a bit skeptical of my own ability to do much more than merely relate to it and pick up a theme here and there to run with. Apply it to others? Not so much.

The other thing that came up was the whole “religion” problem that yoga has. It clearly has meta-physical roots. One doesn’t have to read to far in before the “g” word comes up.

One young lady, who reminds me of DNOS and Edie in some ways because she has this tiger aura about her, brought up the fact that it is simply disrespectful to gloss over the religion in yoga. One doesn’t have to personally embrace it to gain from a yoga practice but to ignore or disparage it is … rude.

Rude is not the word I would use. I would say “arrogant”. In a very white sort of way. But I’m a fallen away American, and the my adopted country folk are often kinder than I am in their assessments of things.

Finally, our instructor, Kat, talked about the Hugging Guru who’s achieved such a level of  “yoga” in terms of non-attachment (quite different from “detachment”) that she radiates joy. A person can physically feel it radiating from her being like a soul heat lamp. Even before she is seen, people can feel her. A lightness permeates them and once in her presence, a single hug is a bath of love. As a result of this – um – enlightenment? – she really embodies what Kat described as “being in the world but not of it”. Therefore, this woman has caretakers. People who make sure that her physical needs are met, that she gets to where she needs to be when, and that no harm comes to her.

Not most people’s reality.

But,

I realized, and not for the first time, that it comes pretty darn close to mine. And that can’t be an accident, can it?

The Rosetta Stone #fridayflash


The Rosetta Stone

Drop-off was uneventful but for the unfortunate sighting by the alien culture’s ground crew required a swift dispatchment, regrettable, but incidental enough that a report would not need to be filed. Twee, however, took the necessary data and filed it internally anyway, just in case.

Accessing the aliens’ transportation terminal proved less difficult than the drop crew had led her to expect. The vaporization of her initial alien contacts made it necessary to find another to peel. The curious, and somewhat cumbersome, outer layers were a puzzling mix of organic and synthesized materials. Twee was certain her advisor had said the lifeforms were carbon based. The being she peeled before neutralizing had at least two more layers than she was expecting. Donning them over her own near translucent skin, Twee filed the new information before inspecting her new appearance. Normally her internal sensors would make the needed adjustments to features and skin tone to facilitate blending, but Twee noticed a wide range of features in the lifeforms she had encountered already, and she overrode her programming to consciously direct the process to suit her tastes and take advantage of the variety.

Twee enjoyed planet drops. She never shirked her rotation and subbed on as many as she was allowed per planetary system. Though this particular galaxy was known for its beauty, Twee was disappointed when only one of the planets revealed advanced life forms. Her colleagues preferred the collecting of particulars and small cellular organisms. Twee liked her specimens ambulatory and sentient.

Once inside the terminal, Twee wandered freely. No one gave her a glance or sought to interact with her. Instead they hurried by in either direction pulling interesting boxes of varying shapes and an array of strange hues. Some of the beings were smaller and others appeared aged, but mostly they were swift. Twee marveled at their speed, which seemed strange for creatures confined to such a small area. Why hurry from one end to another?

As fascinating as they were, Twee knew she needed to ascertain a way to communicate. Her time was limited and she needed to collect her required life forms. Standing very still, Twee listened and scanned the area very slowly. Aliens whizzed by her and one or two nearly knocked into her in their haste, but Twee ignored them, focusing her attention on the sounds around her. Normally, she had trouble picking up speech, but the terminal was cavernous and sound swirled around her like the watery wind on her home world, saturating her audio receptors.

There was such variation. Shrill pitches pricked to the point of discomfort. Gutteral tones rumbling like the engines of a ship. High summer sweet pitches that tickled her receptors. But among the noise, Twee could discern no single common language and that was problematic. Twee was programmed to localize and learn any language but she needed to be able to listen to a pure dialect. Variety was spicy but too many was a tasteless muddle. She wasn’t a machine despite her programming.

Thinking that perhaps she could get a lock if she stood off to the side of the hive like forms as they flitted back and forth, Twee removed herself from the common travel area and to her surprise found what she needed. An open kiosk manned by a short, dark life form was talking to the air in one dialect after another in perfect sequence. As nearly as Twee could ascertain, it was repeating the same information in each dialect. Twee stepped closer.

“Are you interested in learning another language?” the small dark alien said.

Twee blinked and flinched back. Aliens rarely made first contact unless her assimilation was incorrect in some way. Twee ran a quick diagnostic, preparing to make adjustments when the alien spoke again.

“We have programs for a surprising variety of the world’s most used languages,” she said as she handed Twee a box.

Uncertain, but feeling more confident, Twee took the box and scanned it. A smile spread unbidden but in response to the alien’s matching one. The box contained a set of polymer based disks loaded with language data.  Twee’s eyes widened and her smile with them.

“This is English? she asked the alien.

“Yes, but we have Spanish, French, Italian,” she took the box from Twee’s hands and replaced it with another. “We even have all the Chinese dialects. Would you like to see them?”

Twee placed the second box back on the kiosk shelf.

“Oui, merci.”

Rambles


Rob read my post on the whole class/teacher license thing the other day and said,

“It’s interesting that you didn’t once mention writing.”

And I hadn’t because I was grappling with the whole safety net thing – again – but also, I am not sure that a person can really make a living writing. It seems to me that there are mid-list genre writers who make decent livings and there are the sacred cows on the bestseller lists who get published regardless of the quality of their latest offering and then everyone else writes in addition to conducting workshops, running literary magazines, editing, being an agent, or teaching.

I have a writing gig at 50 Something and it pays me exactly nothing. I have an offer on the table for a slot on a new education blog which will also net me about nothing. Okay, there are bylines involved and a publishing credit isn’t nothing, but they don’t pay bills or buy stuff – not that I am much into the accumulation of stuff anymore, but you know what I mean.

Shaking the idea that marriage eventually leads all women to the food bank is difficult. Especially for me. I have never in my life not been the breadwinner. I believed all those feminists who said that a woman should always have a job because taking any time away from the workplace is the first step on the path to doom.

Now you’re thinking – how did we get from writing as a so-so career to a feminist manifesto on traditional marriages being the ruin of women?

I was reading a review of that new tv show The Good Wife and the reviewer insisted it was about the dangers women face when they buy into the idea that they can come and go from the workplace easily and without penalty. I am two years out of the workplace now. I am not accumulating points for Social Security. My pension is simply clocking interest rather than contributions from me and my former employer. I don’t have current references regarding my work ethic or ability. I don’t know anyone in the “business” here and so don’t have contacts. My logical mind tells me this is all bad. This is not what I was raised to do. I was taught better.

But, I like staying home. I am happier as just a housewife than I ever was teaching despite the fact that I am quite passionate about education and that I don’t much care for being the keeper of Dee’s schedule and the organizer of her social life. And I wonder just what I am giving up by accepting the fact that I will not attain the lofty pay heights I knew in my last years of teaching. Are feminists more concerned with the stuff of the standard of living than the living part of it? Life doesn’t lose meaning when shopping is needs rather than wants based, does it?

So, writing. I am working on the memoir. It is slow because the beginning chapters are all about Will and caretaking and how dementia kills a marriage and then it shifts to the even cheery dead husband stuff. I will finish the first half by Halloween and the second – more cheery meeting Rob and falling in love again stuff – by year’s end. Then query and look for agent and …. you know.

I don’t know if this book will make me a writer or just someone who wrote a book. I worry that it will change my life in a way I am not prepared for which is probably another reason why I focus on details like classes and licenses rather than think about being a writer.

Anyway, I am off to writing group. I finally found one that meets during the day.