Magnetic Human

I love a good theme.

Perhaps it was an early love of Sesame Street? Tho I don't remember actually watching the show much when I was a kid, 3 of my favorite books involved the characters--of course there's the classic Grover masterpiece, There's a Monster at the End of This Book, and his other perhaps lesser known gem Grover's New Kitten. The latter made me aware of the name Ginger, which I'm still forgiving my mom for not naming my first little sister. The third is a vague memory of a large hardcover that had an actual recipe for cookies with Cookie Monster. I guess it was my first recipe book?

Perhaps this love of theme explains my passion for cooking, too? You know, recipes, regions, ingredients, cravings...there tends to be a rudder (often guiding an undercurrent from behind, since I rarely actually follow a recipe--I let it follow me) that keeps a certain order or container to the endeavor. 

I crave order on the outside because it's often an elusive quality on the inside.

But not too much order.

When I used to teach yoga, I would attempt to craft my classes around a theme. Usually one of the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga (even though I'd studied the style of Iyengar more…which for those unfamiliar is essentially of different branch of the yoga tree even tho the creators had the same teacher). It was an easy way to weave in storytelling or what teachers of the Buddhist tradition call Dharma into my classes, and it kept me on task. Mostly.

Clearly I've never felt strictly beholden to theme. It's hard for a central idea to lord over a mind quite as unruly as my own. But I like a good one, nonetheless.

In 2012, I began to follow a derivative of the Mayan spiritual calendar.

Done rolling your eyes?

Yeah, I know. I get it. 

Before you get up-in-arms about cultural appropriation, it was created by a half-Hispanic New Age peace-lovin, EarthDay-creating hippie in the early 80's as a calendar that is PAN-cultural but incorporates a wisdom of the Maya…and he had the blessing of the surviving modern-day Mayan elders to proliferate this notion to the world. The brass tax is essentially this:  everything we see is light waves, everything we hear is sound waves, how we interpret these sensory perceptions is through brain waves, and we're held here on the planet by gravitational waves, so why not honor time as a wave? Time is measure and movement. The Maya took the numerology of our bodies: 20 (measure represented by our digits) and 13 (movement represented by our main moveable joints) and multiplied them to create a 260 day cycle (roughly our gestation and seed to stalk for corn, their and arguably our main sustenance), that they then imbued with oh-so-familiar archetypes. 

Archetypes that woulda made ol' appropriator Jung proud.

Some people are incredibly averse to this notion. Well, not my close-close people. But definitely some of my used-to-be-close people. And no, it's not because of this calendar we've fallen out of touch. Time and distance, unmeasured and impossible to track, did that.

The idea the creator, José Argüelles, had was that perhaps this unnatural, arrhythmic Gregorian count we're all blindly following is part of what's broken us out of the circle, or cycle, of nature and perpetually sets us up as a warring faction against nature and consequently ourselves. Maybe if we could just wrap our head around a new way of interpreting time, we could convince our bodies to do better things whilst we move through it??

I think it's noble, idealistic and inspiring, but...

But nothing.

I follow it. And it helps me process things. All the archetypes hold incredible value and simultaneously cast dark shadows. The shadows are embraced as fact, not sugar-coated or brushed under the rug. Just accepted.

The whole thing is a veritable rabbit hole of fun and fancy. And acceptance and forgiveness, the Mount Everests of human aspirations. 

I've struggled this week with acceptance and forgiveness on numerous levels.

First of all, I got a terrible haircut. I'm working on a film that relied on the continuity of my haircut from October, so I brought footage of the film to the salon (which I had researched and found from Google's suggestion of "best salon in Knoxville"), and the stylist went to work. Then referencing the video 5 minutes into the cut says "You know, I cut the sides too short…it is a little longer here."

I think I responded with something like "well, don't say that!" As if that could somehow bring back the hair she'd mistakenly chopped off.

I left angry, and I kind of get angry every time I look in the mirror. 

I still tipped her.

And so I get angry about that in retrospect.

Guys. I've been meditating twice a day for 20 min each for 3 solid weeks, and I still get angry about a quasi-bad haircut and my tipping the stylist last week. How ridiculous am I?

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the music video that broke the internet this week haunts me. I can't accept the world we live in. I can't forgive my ancestors or myself for the ignorance and inequity that plagues us. Because the past nips at the heels of the present. Each time we humans rise up in wisdom and knowledge, there's a roller coaster plunge into darkness and confusion. There is the rhetoric that keeps us divided, but there is also denial intrinsic in the suggestion we're all the same. A denial afforded solely to the majority. Privilege does not inherently promote responsibility; that's something we have to teach our children. Teach ourselves. Where am I called to help? To speak truth to power? Where am I called to just listen and observe without comment? How do we accept and forgive one another? How do we accept and forgive ourselves?

On a personal level, I have had trouble accepting and forgiving a cohort. This particular cohort blew up the sanctity of our ensemble in a dramatic, self-serving display of deceit and manipulation last year, and somehow (self-preservation is real, folks) has created a reality for themselves in which they are the victim. (Using the genderless pronoun here to attempt anonymity...tho part of the egregious offenses of said cohort would hold up in court as libel and slander against another so they barely afforded themselves the courtesy.) Luckily there are eight of us, and the solidarity of the seven who were pawns in this cohort's mind games has kept us all sane and relatively happy working together. But this particular cohort garners a lot of positive attention from the University and department, and of course strangers ignorant of their volatile potential. And a witless partner of whom they spoke poorly and will likely hurt.

I hate even bringing it up on this public forum because to even do such a thing says more about my deficiencies than h...theirs. But my point is about my own ineptitudes so I hope that point is not lost. I cannot accept that they'll glide through life manipulating and lying and hurting people and still be viewed as the charismatic lovable character they portray to the world. I didn't think I could forgive.

I thought I had at times, but the forced proximity and professionalism have made catharsis and forgiveness a long, slow windy road.

Speaking of roads, yesterday a lovely young lady I know shared this meme on Facebook:

Of course, I hastily commented about drivers' ignorance and cyclists' rights and how I thought this jackrabbit's joke was in poor taste having woken up in an ambulance after being hit by a motorist from behind, and I prefaced with "I know you're young..." 

I realize now that maybe in the context that could've been patronizing, but as a 36 year-old woman, it's hard to think of young as anything but a compliment. I meant it more as an acquiescence.

>>I feel it necessary to interject here that the woman who hit me 4 years ago was on her phone and veered off the road to hit me on a wide shoulder of a busy road. I also have forgiven said woman because she was out of town, it was her 59th birthday, she was on her GPS and I'm sure she felt awful--though she never told me so herself.<<

The friend and I had a really productive and forgiving conversation after we both got over being butthurt, and I think we both felt good afterwards. It was a tiny little micro-victory in acceptance and forgiveness yesterday.

So I guess there's hope.

Afterall, to err is human; to forgive, Divine. -Alexander Pope

The theme of the next 13 days (appropriately called a wavespell) on my weird, wild calendar is imbued with the archetype of "Yellow Human." 

Yeah, I know this means little to you, but I'll share some of the propaganda that brings so much solace and purpose into my life. About the Human archetype (or "tribe" as it's called in the calendar):

We influence each other by modeling our values. All we think,

say, do, create, choose and feel impacts those around us, and

contributes to the Collective Human Consciousness, which we

are in turn affected by subtly and overtly. All that we consider

acceptable or normal merely reflects the precedents we have set

for each other. The behaviors and attitudes we've inherited from

our families and friends are for us to either perpetuate, or to 

change and evolve. By design, we humans have a shared 

vulnerability, yet we evoke invincibility when we connect with

each other and tho the Spirit which animates our humanity.

As we see the many faces of the One Humanity, may we

humbly honor diversity. 

-Eden Sky

Tomorrow (as every 2nd day or Lunar day in a wavespell) is the challenge to Yellow Human. Challenge to strengthen. It also happens to be the signature of the day I was born, making me a Red Lunar Skywalker. 

Now it makes all the sense, right?

Nah? I know. It's like a different language. 

It's what's called my Galactic Birthday. It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to.

Probably won't tho. And if I did, it'd be from happiness. I'm working on a film that I actually get to act in and have a fun evening planned with friends and authentic Haitian food.

Skywalker for the Maya represented the cornstalk or the maize goddess. Argüelles thought this represented a prophet or connection between heaven and earth. So listen up!! 

Or don't.

Trying to avoid plastic was making me crazy so I cooled my jets at the grocery store. From saline solution to bags of apples and potatoes or loaves of bread, I've moved it to the unavoidable column for now. I even used a plastic fork at lunch on set yesterday. In my defense it was not a plastic fork from catering, but one I've used and carried in my back-pack for about a month. I threw it away when I was finished because I was mindlessly chatting and following suit. But I did challenge 20 people to give up straws for a month. Not sure if anyone's truly taken up the challenge. And I even forgot to say no straw at a restaurant the other day (though now I'm happy to report I remember more often than not). It is certainly a losing battle to fight alone. 

Who really knows the best way to challenge folks? I watched the film Whiplash last night, which left me reeling, pondering that exact question. I don't think I want to end up abusive and an asshole about ecology and sustainability, but the film explores how effective a tough-love pedagogy has the potential to be. Of course, this efficacy comes at a cost. It's not really my style to demoralize and berate folks, but we'll see how I feel in a decade if we're still spinning our wheels.

Apparently the last show done at the Clarence Brown during my time here, Urinetown, did not do well at the box office. One reason might have been because even though actors had gone on television to promote it, they were not able to say the title because it was vulgar. 

Urine is vulgar, but plastic is a non-issue.

Humans. We may have inherited some ass-backward priorities, but I'm ready to change and evolve. Who's comin with me?

I leave you with some entertainment...our fight song, if you will: