terror 2010

I have dubbed this year The Year of the Authentic Voice. That means that I'm attempting to express all of those things that arise and either make their way into my confidential (?) journals or just dissipate back into the ether. Attempting to jump that most terrifying hurdle between thought and action (as I gave advice about in my last post, ha).

So to anyone who happens to be reading this, I just want to let you know how this very act, even if I was typing knock-knock jokes, is terrifying and humiliating for me. I'm not even talking about anything humiliating!! The humiliation is residual from a time not so long ago when I was wide open, over-confident, maybe a little too trusting, and certainly naive. I was in a relationship (not a romantic relationship, but a student-teacher/mentee-mentor relationship, the kind from which I used to derive the most amount of security and comfort) that went confusingly awry and resulted in the proverbial rug being pulled out from under me. I've been falling ever since. Intellectually, I have processed the experience. I can understand the steps that got me up to and through the chain of events, and can also see the deep, deep benefits I've derived from it. Emotionally, I am still scared. And scarred. I am terrified to speak up for myself or divulge anything too personal in most contexts (also old and a nice Catholic pattern, yet and still...). And of course I'm reading today about the concepts of generosity and 'stinginess' in Tricycle magazine. The passage hinges on a quote from Rumi:
"Not being stingy with one's life, with one's self, with this precious short gift we've been given is often associated with voice, with finding one's voice. Rumi writes:

Let your throat song be clear
and strong enough
To make an emperor fall full length
suppliant at the door...

You that come to birth
and bring the mysteries.
Your voice thunder
makes us happy.
Roar lion of the heart and tear me open."

So really what I could continue doing with this blog is just to keep quoting other people and deftly hiding my own thoughts, sneakily continuing to shield my own voice. And I probably will continue to include quotes because I enjoy sharing the things I experience directly from the source. But I'm starting. And I'm scared. And I thought you should know.

At some point the Year of the Authentic Voice will include me reading poetry out loud to people I don't know. My own poetry. Haha. Oohh!! The thought makes me shudder. That's how I know it's necessary. Bloody hell!

On another note, if you haven't looked at cainer.com for your horoscopes for the day, week, month, year, and decade, you're missing out.

When is the last time your astrologer quoted Mother Teresa? " 'Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.'" He (Cainer) also advises generosity in the form of compassion, forgiveness, and empathy in a 'the more you give the more you have' kind of way. Sounds great in theory. My mind says "I can totally get down with that." and in the moment I clam up. And I'm sure it also goes deeper, but I can trace the hurt response back to that relatively recent (3 years ago?) painful separation. Maybe I'll tell that story someday. Again.