tick tock - if only it was that simple!

New Year's Eve at last! But now it seems too soon after a week that felt as if it would go on into perpetuity. How funny. It's almost 9:00 a.m. - what have I been up to since I woke at 6:00? The day is speeding past already, a clear sign that the spiral of the year changed direction and is now almost completely unwound.

When I was a kid I often thought about the year 2000. When I did the math, realizing I would be 47 was terribly disappointing. In my mind that was so old, I imagined I wouldn't even have the energy to celebrate. Ha!

I never thought beyond Y2K, never. 2012? Holy cow.

Even the people who ranted and raved about the Mayan calendar forecasting the end of the earth on December 21, 2012 have backed away from that theory, possibly because people who actually understand the complicated Mayan calendar have pointed out how that dire conclusion is just silly. I wonder if it's a relief to those who were so into the idea of doomsday. I guess I'll never know.

It's not just the Mayans who created a calendar with several layers to accommodate, more or less, the slippery nature of linear time. We, too, have multiple calendars including one that goes on forever. I'm talking about the seven day week that never stops, not for new years or new decades or new centuries, not for landmark events of any kind. Nope, it's SundayMondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturday forever and ever. Except in Samoa where they jumped the international date line this year. They went from Thursday to Saturday, just like that. Snap!

It must have felt very weird. We adjust our 24 hour clocks occasionally and our 365 day solar year every four years in one fell swoop, by adding a day to February, but the seven day week is uninterruptable. Should say almost uninterruptable. That makes our time keeping as complex as that of the Mayans.

Funny, trying to get a grip on time, hey? The truth is, time has a grip on us, no matter what our atomic clocks and electronic calendars synched in the cloud tell us. Father Time, we are your children. Indeed.

Happiest new year to all including those who are already a part of year 2012. Cheers!

Good to be here

It's nice to be sane, well such as I am what with spirit guides, past lives and such. Yes I am friends with the noctilucent cloud people and also believe the planets (including Mama Gaia) are sentient beings. I could go on except the point of this post is to impress upon you how much closer to sane I am than I once was. Wish me good luck with that!

They called me Ruby and I was hell-bent for leather, whatever that means. Ruby was a par-Tay girl, oh my. I remember one particularly bad New Year's Day when I lived at Lake Tahoe in the early 1980s. I finally got out of bed around 4:00 p.m. Within 10 minutes I had spilled scalding hot tea all over my weary, hungover, dazed body. Ouch. It was not a great portent for the year to come. Probably it's not necessary to explain what kind of trouble I had gotten into the night before. That was then, before psychotherapy (10 years worth), before i learned to meditate, before encountering my great teachers. I had no skills, no tools with which to deal with my intrinsic mysticism, hence I was always overwhelmed. And then there were the hormones. Oh I do not miss raging hormones. Whoa.

A lot of people my age feel wistful when they reflect on their youth. I do not share that feeling. I look in the mirror these days, closing in on 59, and for the first time in my life recognize the face I see smiling back at me. I dig my aging face. I've been waiting to be this age all my life.

I look back on earlier eras of life in wonder and gratitude. I was crazy, sloppy and self-destructive, a chariot driver who didn't know how to get hold of the reins. I'm so glad I squeaked through that time and for all the blessings that followed, that continue to fall into my hands. Life is good and I am grateful.

Shalom.

It was a good year

Imperial DC. Both pics are of the building in which the EPA is headquartered, 12th Street just south of Pennsylvania NW.

The last bit of twenty-eleven is swirling and spiraling, heading straight for the gutter. I think I hear a sucking sound like the one you hear when draining the bathwater out of the tub. It's the sound at the very end. Slurp!

I'm waiting for the spiral to reverse itself; that's my signal that the year is done. The shift in the flow of the year comes (to my mind) sometime on the 30th, usually late at night. Seems to take twenty-four hours plus for the last drops to drain away, swept out of the ocean of linear time by reversing spin at the last minute. Time speeds up at the end of the year.

Oh yeah. Have I mentioned that time/space is something I find palpable in my own slightly quirky way? I perceive it as an ocean in which we live and move, the place we park our bodies and beings during this life as a human. Perhaps it's arbitrary that at midnight on December 31, our secular year ends, but our minds make that moment real. Our thoughts have impact, especially when a bunch of us are thinking the same thing. It affects time/space. It does.

Navigating the ever shifting currents of the time/space ocean is a challenge every one of us faces while alive. By the way I'm not the first person to see it this way, though perhaps the language I use to describe what I sense is unique. Maybe not.

This last bit of twenty-eleven feels thick, rather slow. The non week between Christmas and New Year's Day, this year, seems to stretch out in both directions as it rolls inexoribly towards the finish.

At least it feels that way to me. Slog on, people. It'll all be over soon.

I believe it's Wednesday. Is that right?

Brother Wind is blustery and bossy this morning, blowing hard. However since this is my last completely unencumbered day of 2011, I am determined to get out there, walk around, enjoy the empty streets and shops, take in some beauty.

The Hope diamond has been placed in a new gallery at the Natural History Museum. Maybe I'll go for a tete-a-tete with that huge, beautiful stone. I love the museum but avoid it at all times except during August and the non-week between Christmas and New Year's. At every other moment of the year, the place is screaming with people, either families with their kids or school groups, or both - as it should be, I think.

Maybe I'll go to the movies, or maybe sit in a cafe somewhere, eavesdrop on conversations ongoing at tables around me while I pretend to read The New Yorker. The good cheer that attends the gathering of families for the holidays wears thin after a few days of intense feasting, drinking, too many cookies and close proximity and interaction, hence people in cafes are either power struggling with family or venting to friends about whatever it was that bugged them most while family was in town. Perhaps it's evil of me to enjoy listening to these conversations.

Perhaps.

No matter, it's a day completely free and clear of commitments. There is spaciousness in the form of open, unstructured time all day today. I've got my camera and tech gloves, a warm coat and hat. So what am I waiting for? Ahhhhh. I am smiling.

Hope your day is lovely as we slog onwards through the non-week.

limbo

Between Christmas and New Year's Day, tell me, what happens? Does anything happen? I'm guessing some folks are busy - the people who work in hospitals, retail, and service industries, for instance. I'm working this week, of course, though not a lot.

Even with the structure of my half-assed schedule, the days in this non-week flow one into the next. Is it Tuesday? Wednesday? I should pay attention since I'm going to go receive a massage on Thursday. I would hate to miss that!

The office people sometimes work this week in order to save vacation time. But I seriously doubt anything worthwhile is accomplished. As I remember from my career as an admin, mostly what happens is a lot of sitting around, going out for coffee, feasting on cookies and leftovers in the xerox room, skipping out early for prolonged happy hours.

Do offices still have xerox rooms? Who needs paper these days? Memos once printed and copied on paper are now emails, reports once printed and copied are now either powerpoint presentations or spreadsheets, shared on the ipad or laptop. Maybe in 21st century offices, there is no longer a standard xerox room with stacks of boxed pens and pads of paper.

I'm all for it! Save a tree.

This post is as rambling and vague as the non-week between Christmas and the new year. Maybe I should stop. OK.

Have a wonderful day, whatever day it is, yes? I say yes. Shalom.

Apres the Day

Everything is closed on Christmas. Even the Smithsonian closes. It's the only day of the year the museums are closed. And people say the U.S. is not a Christian country. Is too!

I'm very happy for friends, family, neighbors and clients who enjoyed their Christmas, those who gathered with family, exchanged gifts, feasted, played board games or watched movies or got a little drunk together. Bless their hearts!

I'm equally happy this morning for those of us for whom Christmas is always a little bit weird, even when we try so hard to be OK with it. Those who celebrate always have a remedy for we who grew up outside the Christmas bubble. They invite us to join their families, which is very generous, or they suggest we create our own, parallel tradition (the reason Hanukkah has become kind of a big deal; it's a minor Jewish holiday, on steroids these days to compete with Christmas.)

They tell us Christmas isn't about religion, it's a holiday of love, generosity, and family. OK. From their point of view, they don't get - they really can't understand - why the day is awkward and uncomfortable for we of other traditions, or for those of us who chose not to marry, have children and such in this lifetime. I don't blame them! I salute their pure happiness about Christmas ...

and ...

I am dancing around my living room because it's December 26! Yay!!! Woot. Hurray! Yippeee. It's over. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. I had an OK day yesterday, I wasn't miserable, bitter or suffering, but because it was Christmas I was at loose ends as I always have been, trying to find a current in the flow of energy that works for me. As always I did not locate the current I was looking for. I expect I'm not the only person to feel relief when it's over.

I'll work for a little while today, get out at the end of the afternoon for a nice walk before the chilly rain arrives tomorrow. DC is very quiet between Christmas and New Year's, which is both spooky and wonderful.

Life is good and I am grateful. All is well. Onwards to 2012!


Spotted on Seventh Street yesterday afternoon. There's a baby in the stroller and the woman is pregnant. I wondered if she is the mother of all these kids. If so, well, wow!

There's no hole in my bucket - not yet!

According to the urban dictionary, the term "Bucket List" comes from "kick the bucket," slang for dying. It's fun to think about what I might include on my bucket list. I especially love the idea that when I die, everything in my bucket will spill out, go back to the world, whether or not I attained, accomplished, or completed my list. Even wishes go back out into the world, once the bucket has been kicked, right?

I could get all abstract here, talk about the wishes that are part of my prayer routine every morning. I could describe the metta prayer of lovingkindness with which I wish for happiness, peace, good health and love for myself, my near and dears, people I have no connection with, and of course, all sentient beings. Those wishes are "spilled" into the world consciously and purposefully. I do it every day. They do not go in the bucket, though perhaps they should also be placed there. Who knows?

This morning is Christmas, a time when people who celebrate this festival exchange physical, material things: gifts. In order to dance in shamanic alignment with the energy of Christmas morning, I'm putting aside the purely abstract. Here's my bucket list. I admit it is abstract, but less so than metta prayer.

1. I want to see the northern lights from someplace very far north, like Iceland, or maybe while standing somewhere on the Canadian shield. That would be a dream come true.

2. You can't imagine how much I long to go to divinity school. I'd also like to go to cooking school. I am a lifelong student!

3. While I believe there is a book inside me waiting to be written, it's now clear that it is not a spy novel written within the span of one month! Ahem.

4. I would like to learn to ride a horse. They are such beautiful, powerful animals. I used to be afraid of them, but I think I could manage to be brave enough to learn how to at least go for a nice stroll on horseback. Wow.

5. I will turn 60 on 2/13 of 2013. My dream is to gather with women I love at a beautiful spa where we will receive all kinds of spa treatments. I imagine the group staying at a house where we can cook together, watch movies, play music and dance around inbetween spa treatments. Ideally this would take place somewhere on the Mendecino coast of California. What a way to turn 60, hey? Wow.

It isn't a long list, is it? Maybe more wishes will come to me; a bucket should be full, don't you think? Or ... maybe not, who knows?

What do you hope to do with the rest of your beautiful embodied life?