Fall, 1996

The following is an edit of a piece I wrote for my writing 121 class in fall of 1996, I may be posting a few of these in the weeks to come.


I finally close my eyes and let sleep overtake me. As I count numbers off in my head and regulate my breathing pattern and heartbeat so that they get slower and I start to think about them less and less. I have replaced this system with active visualization, focusing on the that point in the center of my forehead, laying flat usually with my hands on my chest, taking slow deep breathes. This seems to induce visualization which allows me to fall easily into sleep. Slowly my subconscious takes over and a myriad of images play in my mind. These images shift rapidly some more vivid, some discernable, some more a blur of visual data. For awhile I have some control over these images, although this control is easily lost as the images shift and reform. I see this and the doorway to the world of sleep the dream place, and find myself more rested when allow myself to visually drift into dreaming. This is the play we all go to unravel the ancient mystery of self, that in played out in dreaming. This is a place more powerful and mysterious then the waking mind of the day can fathom, and in turn the language of the dream world with is formulas, formations with subjective and objecting contextually blurred when trying to translate the information into waking consciousness. There is a sense of loss, signal degradation, an inability to translate all the information, sometimes the information seems to slowly fade from my awareness. Others there is just a ghost recognition of something that was there and is now gone. In deep sleep and dreaming we have more access to the secrets we keep from ourselves, allowing us to function within the minimal requirements of the waking world. Of the small fraction of dreamtime data I’ve manage to bring back with me into the waking mind, some of it has been inspiring, some confusing, some very insightful. Some dreams seem to be reminders of past failures, other motivating, and some even seem to be filled with the awe of a mystery of self that is just too much to put into worlds.

2006

Well here we go, another year has begun according to the standerd calendar. I tend to think of the year actually begining in spring, and everything in between is just building up the momentun for the new year. Well, I've got my taxes completed, not yet file, but the forms are done, and finished my 2006-2007 FAFSA, this is the first year in quite some time where I'm just been on it, didn't really think about it, it's just done, now I have to figure out how to pay back LCC the $400 I owe them from last summer and then the intention is to start back in fall. The theme for this year for me will be release, simplification, getting rid of or letting go of excess clutter. Most of you may have noticed, I got rid of a lot of weight of the top of my head, good start if you ask me. So from here I'm waiting for a tax return, so I can get new glasses, going to get rid of a bunch of old books and clothes, and start sorting through the random stuff I have in closets, like computer parts and random electronics, if anyone wants a 800 meg hard drive, I'm probably got a sitting around. Its felt for quite some time that a lot of my struggle with self motivation has been organization, and a lot of good advice I've recieved has been minimalize...so that's the goal for 2006, get rid of stuff that does not all to my life, and replace with stuff that is more efficient, or amiable to my goals. Another month will bring me to the 2 year mark of the end of my last long term relationship, the death of my grandmother and my 27th birthday, all 3 of these things happened within a matter of 2 days, or at least the fulcrum of those events was centered around a mere 48 hours. Relationships don't just end overnight, and my grandmother was in the hospital for a few weeks before she went in for the surgery from which she did not come out. These events and others that where already in motion, led me to a lot of self questioning, and grasping at some understanding of who I was where I was going and what I wanted out of life, can't say I have any answers just yet but I certianly feel that the only place to go from here is forward, that you can't get so caught up in your exceptations of how things should be in fact you are better off to let go of them and let it be. There have been lows and there have been highs, moments that I will never forget. The truth of it is that you just have to live it the best you can, because you can't be prepared for the twists and turns you meet along the way. I just try to live by the rules that I'm making up as I go, being kind to my neighbor, keeping in mind those that have been kind to me, and letting go of those patterns of behaviour that leave me unsatisfied.