Poème

How many years of blogging? How many years of writing?

J'écris dans un espace, virtuel
À chercher la vertue?
Je m'serais certainement tue.
 Mais
Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays,
c't'un mensonge
Ne tuons pas la beauté du monde
Alors
On danse, les uns contre les autres,
Ma Solitude,
 ta solitude
Je veux tout! Toi et les autres aussi.
Au quatres coins de ma vie
Génération, désenchantée ?
J'accuse, salut à toi!
  Mère
Pourquoi se taire?

Il faut apprendre pour appréhender
Le présent
Like a gift

Apprendre à apprendre.. à appréhender le présent? Le passé? Le futur.
Enseigner. Montrer. Démontrer... ?

In-spirer. Ex-spirer. Ex-primer. Imprimer. 



.

Bercail

Changer d'air. Changer d'air et revenir au bercail. J'ai pris la route hier. J'ai quitté la belle Gaspé, emmené promener mon corps et mes esprits. Me suis ramenée en ces contrées familières.

Québec. Vieille ville de mon adolescence. Là où mes amis d'enfance ont aujourd'hui des enfants, où ils s'achètent des maisons, gèrent une hypothèque. Ils ont l'air bien, se dit en moi la voix de la petite bohème qui se ramène par ici depuis les treize dernières années, toujours un peu sceptique et perturbée.

Je marche dans le quartier St-Roch accompagnée de moi-même-à-seize-ans. Comme j'aimais le quartier! St-Roch et son ambiance trash: la vraie vie. Les rues étroites, les quartiers ouvriers. Je me sentais bien parmi les itinérants et les jeunes de la rue, parmi les problèmes de drogues et les troubles de santé mentale. Je me sentais étrangement bien au coeur de la basse-ville, loin de la banlieue. Je me sentais libre.

Or,
Comme tout le monde le sait: le quartier St-Roch a drastiquement changé depuis le début des années deux milles. Gentrification oblige, les mal-aimés côtoient les vestons-cravattes, et les nouveaux hipsters de la rue St-Joseph. Les boutiques, les cafés, les restaurants abondent. Le quartier est très vivant. Le quartier bat son plein. Mais le quartier... a tellement changé.
Et moi aussi d'ailleurs. En quelque sorte. Car je conserve moi aussi mes dessous et mes facades historiques. Je conserve mes charpentes d'adolescentes sous mes airs du temps.

J'ai cherché à quitter le berceau pour trouver le reste du monde, pour chercher de nouvelles perspectives et poser de nouvelles questions. J'en reviens quelques années dans le bagage, et rien n'a changé. La cité bat son plein.

Robin Williams and the Archetypes

Here is a post from Clarissa Pinkola Estés (oringally posted on Aug.11, 2014), Jungian psychologist and author of the famous book ''Women dancing with wolves''. I don't remember whether I ended up publishing it or not, but I recently wrote about the Puer Aetarnus in another post. The following article by Dr. Pinkola Estés goes into this concept, as well as a handful of other archetypes.

 Rest in Peace Mr. Williams. You will forever touch our hearts and souls. I pray that we may keep growing whole, thanks to the journey you so passionately went through, and the emotional gifts you carried and so generously shared with us. Bless.

_______
From The Moderate Voice, August 11, 2014.
 (All rights reserved to TMV)

 Robin Williams is Gone, Aye! Long Live the Fisher King


    Robin Williams, was not only a consummate actor and tour de force comedian. He appeared to also be a lovable Puer Aeternus, an eternal boy; and also a Pater Familias, a father not only to his own but to many many young persons pursuing comedy careers.

He was also a Lover — of life, so so deeply and so sensitively. His role in Fisher King* was hardly an act, regarding his character’s so easily written upon self, his character’s deep heartbreak for himself and for the world of souls on earth whom he felt had lost their tie to Spirit in all Things.
Robin was also a Mystical King, a person who channeled so many different strains and veins of characterization– and with energy and with ace-accuracy.
He showed in the signalings from his vessel over the decades, such bravery and also, at times, of his vessel being in distress. Anyone with the eyes to see… any with the ears to hear… As the song goes, “Vincent [van Gogh]… The world was not made for one as beautiful as you.”
One could see both the tremendous timbre of Williams, as well as what I would gently and lovingly call, ‘his efforts to constantly be bringing back treasure from the wreck.’
Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, speculated that within masculine psychology are at least four central archetypes… that is, ideas that are enormous in instinct and appetite, pushing a person to great positive ideals but also, sometimes, into ideas darker.
The archetypes are sometimes parsed as these…
Puer, meaning eternal boy…positive in the masculine sense of energy, imagination, inquiry, exploration, ever highly excited about new and interesting possibilities. But also a person thusly configured can fall into the negative aspects of such. That is, [in the Peter Pan trope] unreliability, refusal to ‘grow up’, trying to charm others for not keeping commitments, meet responsibilities. There may be inability to evaluate and in a timely manner tend to critical matters of others and regarding self, because one might be off chasing ‘the next rainbow. That is, whatever most gives energy to an often underlying depression regarding the ‘senselessness of a too tame world.”
Thus the puer in extremis can be swamped by serious addictions that initially calm or give energy, yet leave the person debilitated immediately or over time. The secondary injuries [from addiction] to bodily functions can also add to the devastation of what was initially meant only to have meaning and ‘feel good.’
The middle way is to, just as one for instance, to choose carefully by roots and not just wings whatever one will pursue; to develop a ‘quiet craft’ of the hands and mind, to work evenly, while choosing excitements that build useful things, that bring bursts of life without mayhem and melancholy to the person and to those all around.
Pater, meaning being invested in being a father to love and protect in its positive aspect, but if allowed to tilt too far over into trying to create ‘perfect beings’ in children and colleagues– or in self– then to dominate and destroy in its negative aspect.
In the extremes, think of ‘Father Knows Best’, then think of “The Great Santini”. In the middle way, think of a father learning as he goes, but drawing on time tested good ways from the past, correcting for over or under-doing in love, and creating what needs to be done for the sake of loving others and self, helping to develop self and others in the present and future.
Lover… some have attempted to reduce this archetype to sexual sensations only, but it encompasses far more. It means to enter an alternative state of consciousness that is very real and nourishing of one’s energy, to see the worlds that merge between physicality and the psychic. Jung put it this way; that place in the psychoid unconscious where physicality and the soul are the same thing.
Think of who Lancelot and Arthur cherished. Think of the latters’ foibles in taking up some of the common negatives of the Lover archetype, re ‘taking for granted’ the great treasure, or in attempting to usurp physically the soul of another who’s elemental configuration is far more than physical only. As a positive, think of Philemon of Greek mythos, who like Merlin was said to have lived backward [with Philemon's it was with his lifelong mate Baucis] from the future, and in so doing, whomsoever he loved, [ Baucis who cherished Philemon in return] had the larger overview of what could be, and that love flowed through his loving Baucis, like a river flowing through a beautiful spillway of his lover, to include the mountain, the forest, the mint leaves, the harvest, the animals, the day to day crafts, and all else.
The Lover balanced is one who often may also have appetite for loving the unloved, including oneself. And for returning time and again to just ‘being with’ in that space between all worlds with those one loves, with earth and ideas and creatures and all life that one is devoted to.
King who can walk in two worlds, the mystical King: this appetite/influence/urge to develop a legacy, to create a kingdom in which there are like-kind who can thrive, interested followers/subjects, creative ways of building a world in most positive sense both spiritually and concretely, benevolent, without harms to others. Creating within and without, a golden ideal that holds ideas of the visible and also the not visible, but palpably felt influences of spirit and heart and soul… and doing what one can to administer these, enable these, follow this panorama of a great Self oneself –and to help others follow the best and life-granting radiant ideas.
In its negative sense: mayhem. Torments meted out, disregard for those vulnerable and for the tenuous human condition, ‘wrapping oneself in all the bullion’, killing off the talented, taking unto one’s inner circle the most diseased of minds and greedy minds. Think of the fictional Hannibal Lector. The most chilling combination throughout ancient and modern mythos: intelligent, psychic and… evil. Think of Zeus, the chief God/King of Olympus who could build and manage a pantheon, but often abused and harmed both Gods and mortals including his own son, Haephaesus. Think of ancient and modern tyrants and politicians. But then in a balanced sense, think of leaders of families and towns and states and nations who are evenhanded, who do-over what is failing the people, who listen and who within their powers attempt to make better for all.
Robin Williams. Robin seemed in his chosen roles and in his comedy routines and in his actual private life… understood at some level, was rocked and washed, half drowned and yet surfaced topside, in all these. He is what we call “a Sensitive.” Easily written upon, easily drowned, easily bobbing back up again time and again. Time and again.
Until today.
As the rest of the story comes in about Robin’s death, we’ll know, perhaps, the least important about him, how he died.
But the most important will be who he really was– complicated, easy as butter under a hot knife, intrepid, gifted, so so very gifted in all the archetypal energy swirling about his life as fire. He learned for 63 years of his life how to be ‘the fire handler.’ That is where I would praise him, for what he has managed to do for six+ decades; handle fire, while being made of parchment.
May Robin’s loving family be comforted and know that the angels are walking with them in many forms.
Resquiat in pacem Robin, Rest in Perpetual Peace… and May You Live Forever.
Fly on dear soul, fly onward. Whatever was once paper, is now winged and strong sinew and bone.
____________
*The Fisher King is the wounded king in mythos who is next in line to preserve and shelter the Holy Grail– which stands for the idea of eternal life, and resurrection from the dire, and resurrection from the dead. The wound in various of the mythos can be too much or too little of something physical, psychological, bodily or spiritually.
Nonetheless, the wounded king rises to protect what is most precious, even while injured, perhaps even because, not despite, his injury: He knows what cannot be allowed to vanish from this earth– nor from the minds of human beings with souls. He moves to show this, protect this, preserve this for all souls.

Being and doing (Doo-be-do, bee-do)

I get back to work in one week.

It's the end of the summer; and what a summer.
From one angle: Swaying between being and doing... What to do? What to make? What to buy? And why not just... slow down and stop!?

Because stopping kinda makes me dizzy. 'Cuz as Hiroko Tamano (Subterrean Arthouse, Berkeley) says: ''When you stop, then you start moving at a thousand miles per hour.''
And Google agrees with teacher Tamano:

''The earth rotates once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.09053 seconds, called the sidereal period, and its circumference is roughly 40,075 kilometers. Thus, the surface of the earth at the equator moves at a speed of 460 meters per second--or roughly 1,000 miles per hour.''   -Google

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
― Rumi

Complete liberty! (which is different than absolute freedom, by the way.)  
A whole lot of free time! (At least as long as I have money in the bank.)
As I anticipated, I've felt it somewhat compulsory to ''furnish'' the time-space I live in. I really wanted to do nothing. But I guess the mind did not quite surrender so easily. I guess I can't handle an empty room; there's always writing on the walls. That's what happens when you get a taste of mindfulness: the mind is so full!

I seek balance between doing and being. I take care of small actions that need to be done, like taking out the compost bin or trimming and watering the tomato plants. I dance a lot and I juggle; I so need to move the energy through my body. I haven't learned to contain the impressions the world make on me; I need to find appropriate ways to ex-press them. And when I stop moving my body, it's my thoughts that keep running. Observing the chatter in your mind will make you dizzy. Finding that you're quite powerless when you want to make it stop, that's a lesson in humility. Recognizing that trying to control or fight the stream actually gives the chattering mind even more power, that could lead to revolution.

...

Stopping to face a pregnant void. A distorted time-space of some sort. A plane of immanence. Matrix of potentialities, in which all things get revealed. And many demand to be made into manifestation; to be manifested.

(It's is a beautiful word;

man·i·fes·ta·tionˌ manəfəˈstāSHən,

noun

Event, action, or object that clearly shows or embodies something, especially a theory or an abstract idea.

"the first obvious manifestations of global warming"

• the action or fact of showing an abstract idea. "the manifestation of anxiety over the upcoming exams"

• a symptom or sign of an ailment. "a characteristic manifestation of Lyme disease"

''And I think to myself''... 'Am I manifesting anything'? What am I really doing with the time given me? Or should I ask myself about what I should be doing? What? No! The teachers have told us, 'There are no more shoulds', at least not in this case.
I should be doin' just what I'm doin' right now, conversing with my heart, grounded in cyberspace, spinning a thousand miles, per minute.
Just that. Living a blessed life. Doing what I love.

I'm sorry, I didn't get the credits for these three images. I give all credits to their authors et cetera.

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”
― Rumi

“silence is the language of god,
all else is poor translation.”
― Rumi

Get it while you can

''Get it while you can'' might be one of my favorite songs ever.
This woman here, playing a cover, is quite excellent.

And let's remember the original.

Rick Tarnas and Stan Grof

This is an article from RealitySandwich.com. I wanted to copy it here as a memo to myself, and as as way to expose you to this unusual yet absolutely compelling work. Stan Grof and Rick Tarnas were two teachers of mine at the California Institute of Integral Studies, in SF. 

I've been renewing with astrology lately. These were the people that introduced me to it.

Thank you teachers. 

Stanislav Grof and Richard Tarnas: The Birth of a New Worldview

---

The following is excerpted from Pathways to Wholness: Archetypal Astrology and the Transpersonal Journey, published by Muswell Hill Press. 

Breakthrough in Europe
In the mid-1960s, Stanislav Grof, a young Czechoslovakian psychiatrist working at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, made some extraordinary discoveries concerning the fundamental structures of the human psyche. Conducting sessions with a wide range of individuals in a program of systematic LSD psychotherapy, Grof and his clients encountered experiences that gradually and then irrevocably challenged the orthodox Freudian model in which he and his colleagues were working.
The experiences that emerged during these sessions suggested a far deeper understanding of the human psyche and the cosmos itself than had been previously imagined in any existing psychological theory. After supervising over 3000 sessions and studying the records of another 2000 from colleagues around the world, Grof eventually introduced a far-reaching new model that accounted for the observations of his clients’ sessions, integrated a number of other psychological theories, and reached into areas of human spirituality described by the great mystical traditions of the world.

Grof’s research, although representing a dramatic breakthrough in Western psychiatry and psychology, is supported by many precedents in non-Western and preindustrial societies. Since the dawn of history, guided non-ordinary states of consciousness have played a central role in the spiritual and ritual life of humanity. Stretching back more than 30,000 years, the shamans of ancient cultures began their healing professions through a spontaneous or induced experience of death and rebirth. In a firsthand way, they explored territories of the psyche that transcend the boundaries of normal individual awareness. Similarly, in the rites of passage, initiates were guided into non-ordinary—or what Grof has termed holotropic (from holos, meaning “wholeness”; and trepein, meaning “moving toward”)— states of consciousness and had a personal experience of higher realms that transcend the physical world.

In the ancient mystery religions of the Mediterranean, neophytes participated in various mind-expanding processes in order to move beyond the limits of individual awareness and experience directly the sacred or numinous dimensions of existence. The celebrated Mother Goddess mysteries of Eleusis, for example, which were held near Athens for almost two thousand years, we are now virtually certain used ergot, a naturally occurring form of LSD.1 Many of the creative and intellectual giants of Western culture, including figures such as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Euripedes, Sophocles, Plutarch, Pindar, Marcus Aurelius, and Cicero, all attest to the life-changing power of their experiences at Eleusis or one of the other mystery sites.

As well as the ritual use of psychedelic substances, many cultures have used methods such as trance dancing, rhythmic drumming, sensory overload and sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, breathing maneuvers, fasting, meditation, and other techniques to enter holotropic states. Preindustrial cultures around the world understood an important fact of human nature that we in the modern West have forgotten—that exploring the psyche can mediate a profound reconnection with the cosmic creative principle, helping people to heal a range of emotional and physical problems, transcend their fear of death, and reach a more integrated level of functioning in everyday life.

Modern consciousness research, such as that conducted by Grof, has found that individuals who undergo these transformative processes automatically develop an interest in spirituality of a universal, non-sectarian, and all-encompassing nature. They also discover within themselves a sense of planetary citizenship, a high importance given to warm human relationships, and the desire to live a more simple and satisfying life in harmony with nature and ecological values.
The considerable time and resources that other cultures devoted to finding effective techniques for exploring the inner terrains of the psyche is in marked contrast to the values in our modern industrial society. The dominant world view in Western civilization is concerned primarily with the external and physical layers of reality. In many ways it denies the existence of the human psyche altogether, and especially of higher spiritual or transpersonal states.
Grof’s research thus provides an unexpected gateway to a deeper knowledge of the long-neglected inner world. As we will see, the systematic exploration of the unconscious in holotropic states can initiate a profound transformation of awareness—a transformation that many now believe is urgently needed if we are to face and successfully overcome the great problems of our time. However, the journey into the heart of the psyche can be an immensely challenging process, exposing individuals to the depths and heights of human emotional experience. A map of the inner terrain, a way of understanding and predicting what might take place during holotropic-exploration sessions, would therefore be of invaluable benefit.

An Unexpected Rosetta Stone
For years, Grof and his colleagues had looked unsuccessfully for some kind of diagnostic system—such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test (MMPI), Shostrom’s Personal Orientation Inventory (POI), the Rorschach Inkblot Test, and others—to predict the experiences of their clients in deep self-exploration. Decades later, when the cultural historian Richard Tarnas discovered and systematically applied what Grof would later call the “Rosetta Stone” of archetypal astrology to this problem, Grof had to ironically concede that the one successful predictive technique turned out to be a system that was even more controversial and beyond the range of conventional science than his research in psychedelic therapy. Despite their deep initial skepticism toward astrology, however, the correlations that he and Tarnas observed were striking and consistent over time. Whether the catalyst was Holotropic Breathwork, a psychoactive substance, or a spontaneous eruption of unconscious contents during a psychospiritual crisis, archetypal astrology provides, in Grof’s words, “the only system that can successfully predict both the content and timing of experiences encountered in non-ordinary states of consciousness in experiential psychotherapy.”2

Given the widespread misunderstanding of and skepticism toward astrology in the modern era, a brief preface is required before we proceed. Although many of the founders of modern science—notably Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei—retained a deep belief in the principles as well as the practice of astrology, and of a higher cosmic intelligence or God, subsequent generations would later discard this understanding as the relic of an older time. Although the astrological vision became deeply discredited in the modern scientific West, the world view underlying it maintained credibility and continued to flourish in the philosophical movements of late Neoplatonism, Idealism, and Romanticism, in a direct lineage from Socrates and Plato.

This situation began to change in the mid-twentieth century, however, with the work of the pioneering psychiatrist C. G. Jung. Jung’s discovery of the archetypes of the collective unconscious, his formulation of synchronicity (“an acausal connecting principle”), and his speculations concerning the anima mundi (world soul) provided a conceptual framework for the mature rebirth of a more psychologically oriented and nuanced form of astrology. Brought to fruition through the writing of figures such as Dane Rudhyar, Robert Hand, and Liz Greene, this new approach drew on the insights of Jungian depth psychology while leaving behind many of the fatalistic dogmas of the old astrological tradition. Hand’s work also set the stage for a much more rigorously self-critical and self-questioning discipline.

Then Grof’s friendship and collaboration with Tarnas was to initiate another major leap in the field. A highly respected philosopher and psychologist, as well as historian, Tarnas gained international acclaim with his best-selling The Passion of the Western Mind (1991), which went on to become required reading in a number of university courses around the world. He followed this in 2006 with Cosmos and Psyche, in which he presented over five-hundred pages of systematic and compelling evidence to support his groundbreaking theory.

Tarnas begins by introducing the concept of archetypes that has played such an important role in the Western philosophical tradition. For now, we can describe the archetypes simply as primordial patterns of experience, which influence all people and cultures in the form of basic habit patterns, instincts and emotions. In Cosmos and Psyche’s bold hypothesis, Tarnas suggests that the dynamic interplay of these timeless universals that have shaped our history occurs in coincidence with geometric alignments between the planets and the Earth, intelligible through an emerging epistemology and method of analysis which he calls archetypal astrology.

In contrast with traditional astrological belief and practice, the archetypal approach that Tarnas introduces is non-fatalistic and non-deterministic. The archetypes are recognized at all times as being complexly multivalent and multidimensional—taking different forms in different situations and at different times in people’s lives. Each archetypal complex can manifest in a wide range of possible expressions, while still being true to its basic thematic character. Tarnas carefully demonstrates that the methodology he presents is archetypally predictive rather than concretely predictive. Although planetary alignments can illuminate many essential characteristics of an historical epoch or individual life experience, and even suggest basic expected characteristics of an upcoming period, he emphasizes that the specific concrete expression the archetypes will take at any time remains indeterminate—contingent on additional factors such as cultural context, free will, co-creative participation, and perhaps unmeasurables such as karma, grace, and chance.

It should be acknowledged that many of the fundamental tenets of the emerging archetypal world view concerning the nature of the human psyche and of the universe itself are compatible with the most recent branches of modern science, including quantum-relativistic physics, Pribram’s holographic model of the brain, Sheldrake’s study of morphogenetic fields and morphic resonance in biology, Prigogine’s study of dissipative structures, systems theory, chaos theory, cybernetics and information theory, the anthropic principle in astrophysics, and others.

Grof also mentions the pioneering attempts of Ken Wilber and the successful accomplishment of Ervin Laszlo in integrating transpersonal psychology into a new comprehensive paradigm.6 I would further note Keiron Le Grice’s work in The Archetypal Cosmos, which draws on the implications of Tarnas’ research and integrates many of the new scientific theories in direct support of an archetypal or holotropic world view.7 Perhaps the most concise way to describe this emerging paradigm in science is the realization that consciousness, rather than being an accidental by-product of neurophysiological and biochemical processes in the brain, is an integral component of the universe itself.

The most well-known area of Tarnas’ study to most readers has been his exploration of cyclically unfolding archetypal dynamics in human history and culture, deeply informed by the principles of Jungian and transpersonal depth psychology. A less widely known aspect of his inquiry, and the area on which this book concentrates, is based on his research with Grof into holotropic states of consciousness. In 1990, I proposed the term holotropic astrology to describe this facet of Tarnas’ research that is specifically concerned with holotropic states.

Tarnas refers to astrology as a kind of “archetypal telescope” directed on the psyche, a way of understanding and contextualizing the material that emerges in deep self-exploration. Grof similarly concludes that the role of holotropic and psychedelic states of consciousness in psychology is comparable to that of the microscope in biology and the telescope in astronomy. When responsibly combined, the therapeutic effectiveness of these powerful magnifying processes of the psyche cannot be overstated. During my own three decades of research with workshops, consultations and personal experience, I have come to believe that archetypal astrology and holotropic exploration have the potential to revolutionize humanity’s relationship with its deeper nature and help us to rediscover a more harmonious relationship with each other, the natural world, and the larger cosmos.

Quelques histoires entremêlées

Quelques histoires entremêlées

J'ai passé plusieurs nuits à dormir dehors au cours des deux dernières semaines. J'ai installé un matelas sur la galerie et lorsque la nuit est assez fraîche, je sors tout simplement mon édredon et mon oreiller. Je m'endors au son du vent et me réveille aux chants des oiseaux.

Les oiseaux se réveillent par vagues; les premiers - les cormorans? - entâment leurs conversations dès quatre heure et demie(!), ensuite ce sont les huards et les bruants qui prennent la relève. Ils discutent, je ne sais trop de quoi. Ils organisent l'horaire de leur matinée. Les corneilles enfin se réveillent elles aussi.
S'il est absolument vrai que le chant des corneilles peut être très désagréable, cela n'aura pas suffit à rendre ces oiseaux détestables à mes yeux. En fait, je me suis, comment dire, plutôt rapprochée des corneilles depuis mon arrivée en Gaspésie.  Je les considère comme des totems. Des spirit animals.

On les nomme charognardes et même nuisibles, mais elles s'occupent de ce qui doit être accomplit pour que le cycle continue. Elles sont omnivores comme nous. Elles s'adaptent et sont fidèles, intelligentes.

Et ce noir sans fin..

Toutes mes excuses à l'artiste, je n'ai pas la source de l'image. Oups!

Je me réveille doucement, j'observe la terre qui tourne. Le soleil se dresse lentement sur l'horizon...
Quelle heure peut-il bien être? Il est huit heure, presque immanquablement. Je fais quelques étiremments et j'entre dans la maison pour prendre un verre d'eau.

Ces deux mois de vacances m'auront appris qu'il est angoissant de se lever le matin sans avoir de projet pour le jour. Et surtout, sans avoir personne à qui devoir quoi que ce soit... outre soi-même bien sûr.

''La liberté totale! Je peux faire ce que je veux! J'ai tellement de 'projets' en tête! ''
 Et souvent la seconde voix: ''Et si tu n'arrivais pas à accomplir quoi que ce soit aujourd'hui? Quel gaspille!''
Peur d'avoir peur.  À chacun de ces matins incertains je flirt un peu avec cet étrange sentiment. C'est fascinant.

Alors quoi?
Une routine s'est tout de même installée: salle de bain, déjeuner, facebook et courriels, bouffée d'air, salutations au soleil pseudo-yoga style, tournée des plantes. Je mange toujours un peu avant de me faire un café. Les habitudes me dérangent et me sécurisent à la fois. Sont-ce des habitudes, ou des compulsions?

''Encore une autre journée. Encore la même rengaine.''
L'ennui sait si aisément s'émiscer, pernicieusement, lorsque je m'énorgeuille de savoir surfer la vague du ''moment présent''. Car le moment présent, c'est pas une figure de style. C'est un choix profond, la conscience des actions posées à chaque instant, dans une perspective de totale liberté...
Oh! Ces existentialistes!


Ces derniers jours ont été merveilleux. De la bonne compagnie, beaucoup de clowning et de jonglerie, beaucoup de danse, et de musique, de slackline. Mon invitée aime chanter and so do I, alors on s'en est données à coeur-joie! C'était remplit de musique!

Clowning at Haldimand

J'ai obtenu un ''gig'' à la plage Haldimand, dans le cadre de l'annuel concours de châteaux de sable! Au départ nous étions supposé y aller à deux, C. et moi, mais il n'a finalement pas pu se libérer du boulot alors ... mon premier gig ''seule''.

Mon rôle, ma job, c'était de déambuler en jonglant. J'avais mes balles à jongler et mes quilles... et aucun contrôle sur la musique de l'événement (part idéale d'inconnu, le régal du clown). Impressioner l'audience? Ce n'est pas l'approche que j'avais choisie.  Je préfère mettre l'accent sur l'interaction et le jeux; c'est là qu'est tout le défi! Tension entre ce besoin primaire de plaire, et l'ambition de souligner un peu de vérité. Si j'échappe la balle, c'est un fait. Tous le voient et tous ressentent l'instant du ''comment devrais-je me sentir?''

''Introduction à la gravité!'' que je leur lance!

 Je voulais essayer d'être tout simplement... full of Love et de danser et de jouer comme j'aime tant le faire lorsque je suis seule et que je m'imagine dans le feu de l'action.  Mais est-ce que la musique allait m'inspirer? Ou plutôt, qu'est-ce que la musique allait m'inspirer?

Je me suis lancée, pantalons mauves à l'appui, et j'ai fait ce que j'aime faire... La musique: booyah!! (Amen!)

Je me promène le long des sites de construction. J'invite les équipes à célébrer leur oeuvre en devenir, je les incite à danser. Je jongle et je danse sur le rythme; je m'fais plaisir!

Un homme est étendu sur la plage, pénard. Il s'essuie le ventre alors que je passe près de lui. ''C'est une cause perdue m'sieur, c'est certain que vous allez avoir du sable dans le nombril!'' Les enfants s'émerveillent, ils veulent jongler eux aussi. Je leur propose d'essayer de faire tenir une quille en équilibre sur le bout de leur doigt. Je les fais danser... J'adore ma job!

Je suis à Gaspé depuis environ sept mois, enseignante au cégep et clown à temps partiel. J'enseigne les sciences politiques au secteur anglophone, je leur parle de libéralisme, de marxisme, de nationalisme.
Dans mes temps libres, je chante dans les bars. Je danse une danse un peu macabre, de l'eau jusqu'aux genoux, le vent sur ma peau. Je marche lentement. Je marche sur un fil.


Le challenge, c'est de continuer de dire oui.

Oui aux journées vides et difficiles. Oui aux imperfections, aux paradoxes, et à l'humilité.

Oui aux erreurs, aux échecs, aux cul-de-sacs et aux rebondissements. Oui au chaos et à l'inévitable aléatoire.

-Je réalise parfaitement qu'écrire à la première personne comme je le fais peut sembler indiqué plutôt une inflation de l'égo**, et pour ma défense je dirai simplement que... j'essaie.

Carl Jung on the Pitfall of Ego-Inflation

 

Finalement, troizévénements

1. Assise dehors, j'entends le son des vagues - de petites vagues - et celui du vent dans les feuilles de bouleau. J'entends les oiseaux gazouiller, et de temps en temps, j'entends.. une flûte! J'ai un voisin qui joue de la flûte!

2. Plus tôt: Un colibri s'est approché de la galerie pour explorer un peu - les mobiles et sculptures en bois, un bouquet de fleurs sèchées, avant de poursuivre son chemin. Juste là, maintenant, colibri est revenu nous voir mais cette fois-ci il s'est stationné à environ un mettre de ma ''station de travail''. Tout petit, minuscule, il a joué de son bec avec un bout de corde à linge pendouillant, puis avec une épingle à linge. (Je ne crois pas qu'il ait remarqué le chapelet!) Wow.

Si voyage rime avec magie, alors je suis en voyage ici.

3.

Il y a un oiseau qui s'est frappé dans ma fenêtre, alors je suis sortie pour jeter un coup d'oeil. Il a paniqué un moment et s'est trouvé un spot sur une poutre, tout près de moi. Et il est resté là pour reprendre ses esprit. Je suis restée avec lui.
Nous nous regardions, tous les deux mal à l'aile..

(Car je m'suis vraisemblablement foulé le poignet)

Perfect Love

Tonight I opened one of my old books randomly, called Perfect love, Imperfect relationships. I read something about love being like the sun (yes, I do feel it this way) and how ''the sun's warmth makes clouds by prompting the earth to release its moisture'' in the same way that love makes our wounding and our fears arise... which often veil the presence love.
Yes, I know that.
Furthermore,
 ''Our ability to feel a wholehearted yes toward another person fluctuates with the changing circumstances of each moment.''

I feel it and ponder it every day. I love to muse over relationships as mirrors. I do love love. But I also want to be ''careful''.

I'm not exactly cynical. I see the phenomenon called ''falling in love'' as a mechanism, basically. Not a machine, more like a process. There's attraction, projection and chemistry. There's timing. There are needs, some of them conscious and others not. There will generally be some pushing and pulling.
But if the two fall at the same time, we'll have what I like to think of as the crucible.

Though the crucible doesn't actually necessitate commitment between two lovers ( though someone could very well notice their attractions, and observe their projections in order to bring more consciousness onto their individual patterns and yearnings.
 It's deeply... transformational, when two individuals can and do commit to the relationship. This will happen through the wounds and fears, and other ''trigger points''. This pushing of each other's buttons may lead to fighting, or to freezing/numbing, or to... fucking (the 3 Fs).
To the extent that a partnership is consciously worked with,  what we loosely call love can be an excellent opportunity to grow as a human being. I think this is marvelous!

So you see, I'm not cynical. It's just that I've read on the matter quite a lot, and, well... I've gone through the crucible too. I now feel more rational about relationships and about the process of love. I'd like for everyone to have it clear once and for all: attraction, infatuation and love aren't the same thing at all. When I speak of love in the context of a romance or partnership, I'm talking about the type of love you have to learn, together.

I also know Love as that light that shine above and through it all. Some sort of Agape. In fact, I'm very much caught up in the two forms and I realize I sometimes have a bit of a hard time distinguishing between the two. I love certain people with all my soul. I feel connected to their soul and I love them profoundly and unconditionally. Sometimes, however, I guess my personal story creeps in a bit. 

Sankai Juku

This story has to do with going to war for love. Whether it is agape or eros, I find myself being called to sacrifice in the name of love. Wouldn't it make sense, in the understanding of the aforementioned mechanism, to want to give up certain things (i.e. own projections, let down some walls) that we might be attached to?

I guess we just gotta make sure we give up the right things... for the right relationships.

Random note: Definition of the term overstanding:

The state of mind that emerges when all illusions- those in the conscious and subconscious mind- are removed; the intellectual state free from mis/disinformation, propaganda, lies, and deception; a grasp of the whole truth; human beings' natural state of mind undisturbed by the ego.

All that being said, I would say that I'm willing (and able) to grow in love. I would still need to experience that initial spark of attraction, and for it to be reciprocal. That's the tricky part, the one no amount of rational thinking can provide. I need some magic

Well, anyway, thank you science for helping elucidate this crazy little thing called love. I wish we could collectively decide to focalize this abstract concept we call love, to better define love's multiple facets (Here's an interesting article titled ''The Ancient Greeks' 6 words for Love'') and give ourselves a chance for some radical changes. I don't know if it can be done.

In the meantime I'll keep trying to figure out that whole thing about how ''to feel a wholehearted yes toward another person''. Can I keep my heart open, and whole, in front of those who do not seek the same relationship? Should I? I tend to think I should, but then again it can be such a painful experience sometimes. Can I keep my heart open with those people I feel an attraction for, as well as with those who I do not particularly wish to engage deeply with? (What's the difference? There is one of course, but underneath it all...)

Omniprésence de la solitude

Je me retrouve seule à la maison. Le paradis... à moi toute seule. J'ai décidé de recréer ce feeling de liberté que je ressens lorsque je suis seule en voyage. Après tout, c'est pratiquement la même chose.

On me demande, ''Qu'est-ce que tu fais de ton été?'' Je réponds que j'ai l'impression d'avoir plusieurs étés en un.

Le mois de juin fût le mois de la visite. D'abord la famille de Fred: mère, tante, grand-mère et copine. Puis la famille d'Isa: sa soeur Geneviève, et son neveu de huit ans, Léo. Lorsque tout le monde est partis, ce sont mes parents qui sont arrivés.

La fameuse colonie de fous de bassan de l'Île Bonaventure, à Percé.

À travers tout ça, mes pensées, mes idées, de multiples voix et avenues possibles. Du nébulleux, mais du certain aussi.
Je suis certaine que je suis bien ici, entre les montagnes et la mer... comme à San Francisco.
Nous sommes bénis par la présence d'un soleil ardent et généreux. Les vents dansent sur les flans de falaises et sur les plages. Je découvre les oiseaux: pics-bois, corneilles, bruants, martin pêcheurs, hérons, cormorans, hirondelles, colibris, mouettes et fous de bassan...

Notre belle maison si accueillante est soudainement vide et je me retrouve avec moi-même comme seule intra-locutrice.
Tout ça est une question d'équilibre et de ré-adaptation. Suis-je déstabilisée? Un peu, mais je m'en sors plutôt très bien, depuis deux jours. Ce que je fais de tant espace-temps? Je converse avec ma solitude, bien entendu. Je saisie l'occasion pour me faire du bien, me sortir, bien manger, et me reposer. Mes pensées partent dans tous les sens mais je les ramène vers moi pour apprendre de leurs messages. Mes désirs? Mes craintes? Qu'ont-ils à m'enseigner?

Je m'approprie l'espace et je fais ce que je veux. Je remarque que ma relation avec la bouffe est différente, plus zen, lorsque j'ai la cuisine à moi toute seule. J'ai envie de cuisiner des petits trucs tout simples et frais. Mon tapis de yoga est étendu dans le salon, près de la guitare et des partitions qui traînent ici et là. J'ai installé mon ''bureau'' sur la table de la cuisine. J'y fais mes prestations de chômage. J'écoute la musique dont j'ai envie et quand je le veux, dedans et dehors. Je danse sur le balcon, libre de tout regards. Je prie. Je me promène nue.

Mais... la solitude!

La solitude est une douleur tabou. Je parle de cette solitude qui fait s'enraciner la peur de n'appartenir à rien, d'être aliénée, absolument et irrémédiablement déconnectée du reste. La solitude est une tension, un vortex, une attraction. Elle teinte nos relations, bien évidemment. (D'où venons-nous?) (Où allons-nous?) Lorsque je me sens seule je suis en train de vouloir être avec l'Autre. Dans l'absence de cet Autre, je ressens la tension, le vouloir, le manque. C'est physique autant que c'est psychologique.

Je me projète sans cesse dans l'avenir et dans le passé. Je suis seule avec mon esprit et ses dix milles projections. Certaines sont plus réelles que d'autres. La solitude me fascine et pour cela je la remercie.

Coucher de soleil sur Petite-Vallée

Alors je jongle. Je danse. J'écris. Retranscription d'une page écrite à la plage cet après-midi:

Vent du sud-ouest. Rivière St-Jean, Haldimand. Mes pensées calent ou veulent s'envoler. C'est pour ça que je danse, c'est pour essayer de les suivre. C'est pour me laisser la chance, le droit, d'explorer le monde qui m'est présenté. Inspirée par l'air salin...

C'est pour ça que j'écris. C'est mon encrage, mon ancre. Je m'accroche à ma plume comme à l'enclume, pour ne pas décoller. Je m'accroche au stylo, un Pilot pour voir où cela pourrait me guider.

J'écris. Gaspé! Grandiose Gaspésie! Rflet de mes horizons: Ta beauté me garde à ma place. Humble et forte, je me plie devant tes grands airs... en restant debout. Or je l'admets et le chanterai: Tes grands airs me font littéralement chavirer!
Belle!

Puis Paf! enantiodromia!


Immanquablement, le sentiment d'exhaltation que produit ta beauté se renverse en moi pour dévoiler une profonde peine. Puis c'est la rage.
J'ai mal de te voir si fragile. Je suis en proie au désespoir...
(Puis je me dis que tu n'es pas si fragile; que je suis bien anthropocentriste!)


La solitude est un puit profond, qui provient de la source. Elle nous relie tous, omniprésente.

Descendez au fond de Petite-Vallée, puis tournez à droite.

Je suis un point d'eau, une goute dans l'océan, un grain de sable, érodée, issue d'une étoile, un phénomène égoïque de plus dans la Grande toile cosmique... Je suis une accumulation de circonstances et d'inter-relations.

Je suis un vouloir de conscience, aspirée par l'attraction,
pressée par la résistance.

The Body Free I Driven: Butoh with Hiroko and Koichi Tamano (Bay Area)

This might be my favorite YouTube video EVER.

It is exactly what I have been hoping and craving for.

Thank you Hiroko and Koichi. Thank you very much to the film makers. This is gorgeous.

Ave matrix

It is hard when days awake heavy like this. I try to understand the reasons behind my depressed feeling while at the same time I know that it will pass, like everything else.
I feel guilty when I get depressed. My life is one of privilege, and that's why I want so much to give back. Where does it come from, this sense of ... duty? And how do I find out what it is that I am best suited to offer?

AND... what is it good for?

The world seems so desperately decadent and decaying. Governments and soulless busy-ness leaders are shamelessly raping Mother Earth, while lying and stealing from the masses. Threads of narratives and varying information are thrown at us from all directions so we all get tangled up and overwhelmed and ultimately lost in translation: what is real? Facing chards of truths we continue, all too human, as if the familiar made for our principal area of safety. For better or worst, until death do us apart: we're all in this together.

Fuck! It doesn't take a Ph.D to check in within one self and know, in our guts, that the oil industry is evil. But what can we do?
I feel so fuckin' powerless.

They say knowledge is power but I'm not so sure. We know well that our fruits and vegetables gets sprayed with pesticides which generate cancer and pollute our waters, we know our food travels by gas-guzzling trucks from hundreds of kilometers away. We know chickens, pigs and cows get tortured by underpaid workers before their flesh gets nicely packed for the supermarkets. We have pictures of shale gas mines and we've walked on the latest trash continent that was formed in the Pacific ocean. We know sea creatures are suffering from pollution and we can see glaciers melt with a naked eye now.

How is knowing all of this empowering?

I know there's a seed in the rage and anger we feel. But how are we to act? Why aren't we doing anything? Many are trying. Many are doing many positive things and working real hard to create the world they envision. I bet their vision holds many of the same elements as mine; it all begins with respect and it does not involve a choice between fourteen different sorts of toothpaste...

There are times when I see more clearly what it is that I want to contribute. There are times when I have more faith in the fertility of my insights. Today I am restless and I wish I could just go for a swim in the river so I'd feel like a little girl for a moment just long enough for my mind to relax and or my creativity to flow...

But I'm afraid there are too many chemicals running in its waters...
So I'll just make space for my anger and sadness to overflow a bit. And I am sending prayers along, grateful for the web and the way it virtually listens to me when I need it.

Vieux délire, vieille élucubration

(Écrit quelque jour de la fin 2013...)

Je ne sais plus dans quel blog me vouer. Puisque tout est pédagogique comme tout est politique. La pédagogie de la politique.
Entre deux langues, entre les nations, internationalement...
D'où venons-nous? Est-ce que le nationalisme est fondé dans la génétique? L'idée du clan, de la race... un concept qu'on n'ose plus considérer aujourd'hui mais qui perdure inconsciemment... Vouloir pouvoir cueillir le fruit de nos labeurs, être habitants de nos terres, sans se faire taxer et sans se faire envahir, librement.

Réflexions sur le nationalisme, sur la construction d'une idéologie qui définit ses racines par la tradition en même temps que le discours se construit de par les médias actuels...
La politique, c'est un organisme vivant.

Délire à l'orée de la trentaine

Poème écrit en octobre 2013

Merci.
Les mots, peuvent-ils être suffisants?
And in which language, anyway?
None of 'em can do justice to the way I feel.
Car je préfère le rythme aux mots-pas-vous? Comme lorsqu'un  rappeur enchaine des mots de plomb sur un beat qui fait battre-la-tête-coeur,
On ne peut que battre sa mesure.
   de toutes choses. De deux choses, lune.
ou l'aube, car à chaque jour suffit sa peine.
Sysyphe! Toi qui roule ta pierre à perpétuité.
Comme on connaît bien le feeling.

Pourquoi se battre? On se demande souvent.
Pourquoi s'ouvrir, s'ouvrir comment?

Big Bang.

Théorie. Pratique. Pragmatique.
Où allons-nous? On se demande souvent.
Pourquoi vouloir aller quelque part que ce soit
alors que toute l'existence se vit ici bas, maintenant?
Psychopop: l'instant présent.

Mais pas si c'est pour demeurer servile. Nietzsche said it:
''Mankind, is something that must be overcome! What have you do to overcome mankind?''

Je suis anarchiste, et poly-passionnée de métier.
Mais si vous êtes là,
 c'est que vous savez déjà ça.

Chroniqueure de l'heure critique. Calinours de la cybernétique. À coup de blogues je me défoule dans le Grand Vide. Dans le Void. Toward Infinite Space.

Call me spaced out. Well. Open your eyes. Our world now should contain the cosmos.


Une sorcière a witch. So I wish to cast a spell tonight, if you agree. Let us call it a wish. Je vous invite à écrire un souhait, d'en formuler un. Svp.

Bonsoir

Pouf! Je me replonge. Je reprends le temps d'exprimer...
Même si j'exprime déjà beaucoup souvent
J'exprime des projections et je projète mes impressions. J'essaie.
Les impressions du monde
m'impressionnent;

À l'autre bout de cette session d'enseignement
À prendre part et à adorer oeuvrer auprès ''des jeunes'' et tous ces collègues penseurs au bon coeur.

J'ai plein d'amour à donner! .. C'est le lien avec FoolofLove en fait!)- Ça me fait quand même étrange d'écrire dans cette espace. Je suis dans un autre pan de cette vie que j'écris depuis presque quatre ans... et pourtant. Je visais justement à décloisoner nos identités, ou du moins à les explorer.

Bien sûr, j'aimerais partager ma béâtitude avec toi
ou avec quelqu'un-e autre
Mais je suis bien forcée de voir la réalité:
La solitude est un fait
Tout comme nos milles amitiés.
Et la réalité est un fait

J'ai passé les trois derniers jours à méditer et à tenter, parfois avec succès, de m'habiter. Belle expérience. Toute l'expérience que je vis au cegep depuis les quatres derniers mois est une sorte de bénédiction. Une véritable roue de hamster, certes, une course, une initiation, mais j'en étais rendue là.

(Or je me pose toujours la même question: mais à qui je m'adresse au juste?)

En classe, ce que je préfère c'est entrer en connection avec les étudiants. Il n'est pas du tout faux que les étudiants ne veulent pas de cours magistraux: ils veulent qu'on les guide et qu'on leur transmette des ''connaissances''. Ils sont curieux, affûtés, aux aguets, impliqués, créatifs. Ils ont une vie bien réelle en dehors de l'école, mais elle n'en demeure pas moins un grand morceau. C'est ça que j'aime: rencontrer des êtres.

Bref, j'adore pratiquer ce métier. Et c'est beaucoup parce que j'aime moi même apprendre..
Et je me pose toujours l'autre même question: mais qu'est-ce qu'une relation au juste? Il en existe tant qu'il me semble absurde d'en chercher une seule définition. Or ce qui est trippant, c'est de continuer à y travailler.

Je voudrais que ceci soit mon topo, mais j'ai trop besoin de poésie.
J'aimerais dire à haute voix avec mes mots digitalisés, avec mes doigts robocamisés,
le feu qui consume tout, les rêves qui m'attisent: un earthship, l'autosuffisance, la culture, les amis, la musique. J'aimerais, m'exhalter jusqu'à en perdre haleine.
Soufiste envie. Rieur Sanglier.