onward!

rope blog

2012-01-07T09:14:00.000-08:00

a lot of energy is required to climb a rope... even more is required to swivel around like you're dancing on the floor... except there is no floor. there is only a rope.

i think i somehow got into this "hard work" mode and was just blasting a high frequency of energy out in my act. almost hectic... like... basically a mixture of "whew i can push myself through this" and "i'm worried that my act isn't interesting so i will 'do more'".... well neither of those are helpful states of mind.

at Konstantin's request and with his ever perceptive eyes, he suggested i bring my energy down to a very very calm place. he reminded me of the character elements i am working with. he saw the show on tuesday. so then on wedensday i decided to try it out. during my warmup and makeup and directly through to the moments of rosin-ing my hands and entering the dark backstage, i kept returning to the idea/feeling of a low, strong, stable, quiet, calm energy. a deep breath. and i did the act that way.

WOW. it was SO DIFFICULT.

my initial experience was: how can i possible ask my body and muscles to perform maximal moves with precision while the rest of me is on a low slow frequency!?!?!? my BREATH was easier after the act, but a DIFFERENT part of me was completely spent and very very pissed off.

that was wednesday. today is satuday. i have been continuing to train this new movement/energy. i have noticed that i am experiencing more feelings of anger. i think this is "good" because i am not pulling those violent feelings of anger out in my act.... energetically. i am also experiencing a greater ease in my body when i do my act. it is more pleasant to remind myself "everything is okay. send a message of calm outward." the general feelings and focuses in the act feel better. - flow through the air, soft, caress, appreciate, respect, peace, calm, stable, easy.... control, power, flow.... breath. waiting. patience..... these are the things i want to focus on.

my body is getting better at doing the high power moves (that one is prone to use brute POWER to accomplish) ... but doing these moves with a peaceful, docile energy. it is a fascinating contrast. perhaps the average person won't realize what sort of insane body confusion i am exploring -- the massive spectral difference between doing a rapid swinging straddle climb and a soft, gentle energy of acceptance and invitation... but whatever. it's not my problem. my problem is to train at the level i am aware of. and konstantin has (once again) brought me to a next level of intrigue and development.

this is my second to last day of the contract. tomorrow is the last day of the contract.

i have nothing to say. i am just staying in the moment. i will tell you about it later. it's been better for me to just stick with the NOW and not worry about the "how."

oh and - about those feelings of anger that are not getting "used" in my act -- yeah. it's weird. it's something i want to and need to deal with. unfortunately, some of those feelings are now getting directed at Konstantin - which is COMPLETELY the wrong direction. he has been the catalyst, but he is not the culprit! i have a chance to pull some junk out of my closet and clean up my energy. i am going to do it. i am going to listen to this anger and learn some more about it. it is something very ancient and deep in me. to me it seems like it has always been there. it is time to begin transforming it's role in my life. this is the beginning of the next step.

food and stress

2011-12-29T02:32:00.000-08:00

frustrated. no not really. confused? actually not confused either.

but here is the situation.

i am an addict. don't laugh - i'm not joking. society wouldn't consider me an addict, but i'm not a typical member of society.

i'm addicted to milk and sugar. this is really tough for me. i mean - everything is fine and dandy in my life now - but small things add up over time... including worry. so even though i have a problem, i can't worry to much about it. weird, right?

so my diet is better than most - but the more i learn... the more terrible i perceive my diet to be.

what kind of life do i really want? you don't ask people with heroine addictions to get over their addition while sitting in a room of junkies. people who overcome an alcohol addicion and regularly attend parties with alcohol have my enduring respect.

it would be harsh to expect myself to radically change my diet while on one of the most intense work tours i could have imagined commencing at age 33. Incredible, no? That I would BEGIN a circus career on highly strenuous equipment (vertical rope) at the age of 33 already sets me well outside the societal norm.

I am dissatisfied with my situation and at the same time filled with wondrous gratitude. It's marvelous to be where I am. But I am not content to stay here. My boiled milk and brown sugar have given me the caloric power i need to continue striving to reach the next hilltop.

I don't want to be one of those "how much land does a man need" maniacs, or someone who never takes a breath to enjoy the view or smell the roses - but i do seem to be a chronically driven person. tempered though my motivations are - they still burn me from within. i can talk about striving for balance or blog philosophically all day long. in the end - it still comes down to figuring how to make the next choice.

i'm going to drink that boiled milk that is on the stove. i'm not going to worry about the next two weeks of my dietary life. i'm going to continue eating as i have. pretty darn healthy - not healthy enough, but i'll survive another two weeks.

then i am going to go to California and take some serious time to rest. i want to do some sewing for fun. i want to go on walks through the hills. i want to do some training to prepare for a Russian Festival. I don't want to stress about anything. i don't want to make any situations unpleasant.

i want to change my life this year. i want to get quiet and listen to what's happening in my blood stream. i want to tune the mind down - i want to write more and see the structure of my book come to life. i want to be more flexible. in fact, i WILL BE more flexible. i want to change my diet. i want to change my living situation. i want to change. i want to begin creating the life that i feel - not the life that society sees as normal.

i'm an extremist. i tend to be extreme. i'm a full of paradox and hypocrisy. but that isn't the worst thing to ever befall a benign being. my life right now - is being completely compromised by the "circus quest". of course, this quest is NECESSARY and ESSENTIAL to the overall quest. i see myself as nearly consumed by the societal world... parading on stage under massive blasts of electronic light and sound. it's ridiculous, really. not at all like living in a cabin in the mountains and talking with the squirrels and beavers every morning.

no problem. just noticing. it's just the way things unwind themselves in the world today. i am unwinding.

without electricity
without cow's milk in a carton from the store
without sugar, brown sugar or maple syrup from a bottle at the store
without a store to buy bread

what if i was just WITHOUT all those things that comfort me and keep me wrapped into my own desires.

don't worry, i'm not about to cut myself off from milk or sugar in my porridge - but these ARE observational admissions to the mental threads i dangle from daily. if i don't have milk - it's the first thing i attend to. GO BUY MILK. if i don't eat enough sugar and i can't find raisins or fruits... i begin to panic... and will then eat any form of nasty chemical sweetener i can find - even if it means going down into the theater in the middle of the night to look in the candy jar.
many people see me as a disconnected, strange, alternatively focused person who doesn't integrate into society very well.
au contraire! i am extremely embedded into the workings of this system. For all of the deviance and abnormality that my life exhibits - i am uncomfortably confined to the comforts of my society. My addictions may be less - and my financial obligations are practically null (though I will owe Income Tax in the US for the year 2011 and probably 2012 as well)... but I am still an addict.

I don't always want to feel this way. Since childhood I can remember longing for escape. I guess that is still what I am seeking for.
Jumping through rings burning with fire and doing the splits between chairs while balancing on a tight wire... are simply alternate ways to climb the corporate ladder, pay your car registration and enjoy a weekend movie on an electronic television with a snack of cookies. Some people probably pity me - I am living in a world where even simple pleasures are insipid evils. It's hard for me too. Of course, I like movies and cookies. Of course, I like driving in my car when I want to go somewhere far away... or for that matter flying in a jet airplane. So yeah - between my own hypocrisy and the number of "not-good-for-yous" that I perceive, it's been a perplexing business - especially when you add in a dictate about not being anxious or stressed out.

I may be incrementally more free now - free enough to turn around and see that the tether is still connected to my ankle.
not that i'm worried about it. no. not panicked. in fact, enjoying a glass of boiled milk right now. all the stupefying and calming effects of the milk are simply helping me through this phase and onto the next one. i don't have forever to make my break... but i do have plenty of time. especially if i eat less sugar.

getting younger everyday - except for lately. something has been off in my sleep. i'm not sure if it is Munich, or Germany in general. Or perhaps my diet and performance schedule. my muscles are severely over trained at the moment. surprisingly calm about that too. in fact, i have been a beast of accomplishment. a very docile beast... who keeps her armpits shaved. so, not really that beastly after all. keeping it calm. just keeping it all calm for the next two weeks.

honestly, i don't know if i'm going to have a nervous breakdown when it is all over or simply melt into a puddle of bliss. perhaps the two can happen consecutively. or in alternate dimensions. or perhaps they can cancel each other out - and i will simply remain calm, docile and suave. like a little cloud floating across the sky. that sounds pleasant.

look up in the sky - maybe you'll see one of my kindred attitudes floating by....

Change

2011-12-27T03:43:00.000-08:00

I keep changing. Sometimes this concerns me. like: if i keep changing, how will i ever develop... as in build on the foundation of the last thing to create the next thing... i mean, that i ask myself if my changes are cumulative, as opposed to erratic. I don't want to be like a car swerving down the highway - sure, always covering distance... but leaving a wake of problems behind and potentially crashing out before reaching a destination. i'd rather my changes and grappling for self-discovery be like a tree growing... the overall ache at least amounts to a final symphony that functions in harmony with the surrounds.

Change is necessary to grow. So i hope that my changes are 'growing' changes. I keep wanting to change my routine, now i am on a kick to change the music again... when will it end? Do i even want it to end? will i find stability? perhaps it is great that i am constantly changing... maybe it means i really am on the path to discovering myself.

I'm experimenting with make-up. looking for a face that isn't a mask.
i feel a little lost with all the changes - changing cities, changing routines, changing colleagues, changing influences, changing music, changing hair styles, changing costumes, changing make-up, changing languages, changing countries. what am i left with? what ever it is... if i could touch it... would certainly be something real. if it weathered all those changes. but - i can't seem to find this center-nugget. i feel lost in the tattered scraps of everything else quasi-un-important... like a mouse nestled into bits of shredded newspaper and still trying to read the article about cheese from France... i can't seem to bring the lines together... my cheese article has been cross-shredded with the comics and the business section.

i'm typing this blog while half-way prepared to go out. i need to walk in the fresh air. it is very sunny today. i am very tired. i went back to bed for a while after breakfast. i'd be happy to go back to bed again -- but i'm restless -- i think, literally. also, i think literally. also, i think creatively at times. but literally, i feel rest-less.
i do let myself rest, don't get me wrong - but i am restless - less rested than other times of my life anyway. but i've been working more than i've ever worked before. so it goes to figure.

i feel like i can't progress until i am more flexible. but flexibility needs to come in time - it needs to be habitually trained and patiently built upon. flexibility is a part of your attitude, your mind set. i must train in letting go of my panicked desire to be flexible in order to become more flexible... that is, if i want to have healthy, enduring flexibility. and certainly, that is the kind i am after.

but it's difficult to feel myself on a slow path - while even in the same breath i would tell you that my life progress has been happening all too rapidly. i am on a stage performing before i believe myself adequate. that in itself presents a peculiar challenge. my standards are pretty high. i just keep trying to believe in the complexity of life and my own goodness... and remember that the sun will incinerate us all some day... so everything is pretty relative. yes, i can tend toward the melo-dramatic. but it works for me.

i can't do the splits. if this is my biggest personal point of shame, then i've either missed the point or I'm not doing so bad as a person.

the truth is - i

well.

many things.

i need to get outside.

i forget what prompted me to write this in the first place.

somewhere, honesty and professionalism must intersect and that is where i want to find my performance art.

just go for a walk, darling. that's really all there is to do at the moment. just go for a walk.

it's been a full while

2011-12-14T02:49:00.000-08:00

I've been so busy being involved IN my life, that i haven't written in a while.

I'm trying to design a digital rope that creates or modifies music and I am feeling entirely overwhelmed, inspired... I am cringing with excitement... questioning myself. sometimes i feel very insignificant and wilty.... as in a flower with not enough water.

i've just got to keep going - i know the world is full of all sorts. brilliant sorts, experienced sorts, lame sorts, wasted sorts, potential sorts... i can only make of it what i make of it. honestly, i am so scared of this - but it is the only thing that is interesting to me. the only good option is the terrifying one!

you know, in show business, they often say: "make it until you fake it." oops - i mean, reverse that. "FAKE IT until you MAKE IT."
but i couldn't disagree more. I somehow want all my self-doubting and nail biting to be AN ACCEPTABLE PART of my progress. if i can't accept myself how i am NOW with my LESS THAN splits flexibility and my confused career past,emotional panics and crooked nose - then when WILL i accept myself? if by "fake it" you mean, "ACCEPT yourself" then i agree.

it's so true that i am a green fruit. i am such a bizarre little package of potentials and sprouting energies - but so.... lost.

i mean, i really DO want to turn out to be someone "special". But what even is that? just the EGO needing to assert a boundary around the self. ultimately that is not the goal - to be a self in a fenced in zone. the genius of others is also mine. any of my genius is everyone else's. the only way forward is through union... knowing we are all made of the same spiritual material. hold on - i'm not going too far. the correct realm in which to create boundaries is the physical one. after all - that is the meaning of having an individuated physical body. the body is meant to be treated as a discrete unit. so, sure - with my unique physical module, i will figure out my life purpose and do something (hopefully beautiful and even magnificent)

last night i had a TERRIBLE performance. i won't go into the details - but it was all a mess.
speaking of which - i need to make a few repairs on my costume so I should get going.

no time for more ponderific ponderings. but certainly a lot has been going on.
supposedly i am collecting material to write a book - but that seems like an overwhelmingly confusing task too.

i mean, i never set out to be an author or a digital instrument builder or a seamstress --- but these are the sorts of unexpected adventures that i seem to be prone to falling in love with. the agony of the wild unknowns only stimulates a greater hunger to find myself - as if "myself" were "out there" somewhere... instead of sitting write here at the computer again... as if "myself" is someone i must go create or find... aren't i already myself? isn't this about acceptance? it's such a paradox.
you have to sit still to go anywhere these days.

non-ward.

land ho

2011-11-26T07:14:00.000-08:00

i'm lost at sea - adrift in a land of water
searching for an island
for some solid ground
here in the world of lumbar
i am without the rock of my sacrum
my ground. my earth.
i am floating adrift in a land of water
searching for an island
searching for some solid ground.

dying of thirst
salt washed kidneys
sugar fed liver
strong heart will beat on
and lungs will pound in the rhythm of my desire
to find an island
to find some solid ground
to find a sacred place to call home
my sacrum.

sacred sacrum - here i come!
coming home...
finding myself inside
walking the line
along the spine
fighting my own breath
crying alone

knowing to find you
i need to give you away

i release my desire to be flexible.
i release my desire to be a star.
i release my desire to be perfect.
i release my desire to be beautiful.
i release my desire to be loved.
i release my desire to be popular.
i release my desire to be thinner.
i release my desire to be someone other than myself.
i release my desire to have a different body.
i release my desire to be secure.
i release my desire to be rich.
i release my desire to be healthy.
i release my desire to be wise.
i release my desire to have knowledge.
i release my desire.
i release my desire.
i release my desire.
i release my desire.

I RELEASE MYSELF.

(inspired by word-crafter and wonder-woman, Candace Younghans, who i adore so very much!)

Window in the Kitchen

2011-11-16T05:53:00.001-08:00

i am cooking. i am cooking potatoes. i am boiling them in a pot of water. i have cut onions and leek and snow peas, a tomato, two thin pieces of ginger and have them ready on the side. my frying pan has a messy, large dollup of ghee in the bottom. it looks to me like this is the first time the pan will be used. i have been moving around this morning - in a new way. i watched a little youTube video by John Barnes and he suggested such a lovely way of moving, breathing and stretching that i spent most of the morning between small movement sessions, skyping with Konstantin and futzzing on the computer with things of various importance. i downloaded a lot of music: notably Julia Savicheva and Finn Martin. I made chai tea this morning and it was so ridiculously good. I am feeling good. my horoscope from the inestimable Rob Breszny said that the coming weeks would be a lot of work and to harness my health and support systems. He also said the universe would help me, which I fully believe. I completely and totally believe that I am doing what I am supposed to and that if i keep my diligent and loving effort working, that I will be protected and guided enjoyably to the next quest and the next chapter. When things are tough (like when GOP thinks they can force extra shows on me without asking as if I am now their meat) then i breath and i know that this is the perfect challenge designed just for me because the universe knows that i am ready to take another step in my learning journey. That's what challenges are: things we are ready to find a way to deal with. The are the fires we need to burn off bits of self that we don't need anymore.

I've got the heater on, it's warming the house. I've got my new Julia Savicheva music on. I've still got sesame oil in my hair from last night. It's been amazing. I've had more whole body relief from oiling every night (from hair to feet) than i have from various pain creams and homeopathic creams. they also help, no question there, but the overall rest and whole body satisfaction of covering myself in oil is so amazing. i mean, it is ridiculous, but if it is helping, who cares!!?!!!

I will see how my act goes today. i need to do some thinking about what i really want to do with it here at this short theater.

i have an accupunture appointment tomorrow - and a doctor's appointment for the bump on my hand. i have a rolfing/myofascial appointment on friday. hey - i want help. i need the support. i am growing, changing, learning and exploding into my life... there is no point in slowly myself down by not utilizing my resources. i am making an investment in my body, my health, my knowledge base and the only use i have for money is to support the creation of beauty and love in life. health, relaxed, open existence state and some cebrebral knowledge will be building blocks in my process of flubbering my way into a wonderful life dance and a economic rhythm of bouncing money. It's still very difficult for me to spend money, but I'm learning how healthy it is to invest money in your life. It's like chi flowing in your myofascial tissues, you need to keep a flow going. stagnating in a savings account may be a seasonal choice, but spring time needs to come at some point and let that ice melt into a gushing river of new possibility.

I've begun valuing my time more than my money as well. if i can buy something for 1 Euro MORE at a place that is 10 minutes less time consuming, i do it. After all, money can be created. time.... well, that is another sci-fi story all together. time is so precious!

i'm intent on placing my focus in the direction of purity, beauty, nature and home. i am intent on using intent. i am easily distracted and dilluted by all the stimulus of the world. comparitvely speaking, i am already threading the needle of concentration, but as with all spectrums, there is an infite ocean of greater resonance above me and i can see it from where i am standing. so, i'm going to walk in that direction. i will not walk the path of meadering, numbness-inducing, diversion based life that is offered to the citizens of the world. It is critical to make your own choice. to which voices will you listen? there are many sources, computer, TV, radio, books, magazines, newspapers, intuition, friends, family, movies, songs, your own thoughts, feelings in your physical body, the view out your window, a view from a place you go.... there are so many ways to influence yourself. the food you eat, the way you sit, the color of your clothes, the way you arrange your shoes in the closet... yes literally everything. the patterns and influences of our lives are simple and subtle. how i walk effects how i feel. everything is connected. happiness is a habit. habit choosing and changing is a lot of work. happiness is a habit is not an upbeat, cheeky, positive catch phrase that Hallmark plans to use in their 2012 card-line - "happiness is a habit" is a very realistic approach to the work and harvest that one can cycle with in life. "freedom is the symptom when wisdom guides the system" Finn Martin. His music has been such a strong and wonderful influence in my life lately.

I'm debating what to get my astronomically cool sister for her birthday this year. She is so darn cool, that she surpasses the need for trinkets and stuff. I want to do something special for her that reflects and respects the beauty of her light-relationship with STUFFn'THINGS and also reflects the international flavor of the journey i've been on. I wonder if there is a way i can encapsulate energies available over here.... and the magic of my own quest and somehow send it to her. Yes, it may take the form of a thing, or things.. but i can't seem to figure out WHAT yet. i am working on it. waiting. maybe it won't be a THING at all. i have also been trying to figure out if there is someway i can facilitate an EXPERIENCE that she wants to have. she too understands that experience is far more precious than a thing. what is her heart hankering for? i have some ideas... but how can i create a senario that enablers to leap into that direction of her hankering?

i've been having another cup of tea and my potatoes are coming along beautifully. now everything is in the same pan and i've covered it all with an disposable aluminmum dish that i smashed open to make-shift a lid for my frying pan.

today is the beginning of a long period of time that will be focused around the 4-7 minutes i spend on stage performing my act. so weird. well, i could write more - but i am done with this for now.

love!

today

2011-10-22T05:10:00.000-07:00

if all days were like today - i don't know if i'd be able to hack this.

well this week has been rough. i am nursing a sore shoulder. i think all the excitement and success of last week (and the last 5 weeks) just added up and PLUS all the NEW work i've been doing with my body - more stretching and etc. especially through the shoulders and chest- just triggered my slightly fragile right shoulder to speak with me. it's okay - i mean, i am managing it - but it is more work and more anxiety. yep. that's right. i feel anxious.

i also feel downright happy.

and i also feel downright confused and overwhelmed. and i also feel like i am doing a damn good job of floating along this topsy turvy stream of tumultuous emotions and letting things sort themselves out.

it's been a strange time. i've learned how to cry - and not let that be a problem. how to blow my nose and move on with whatever i'm doing: leg lifts, putting my costume on etc. whatever. i go onward. i DO cry though - i have to let these feelings out. there is no hope of moving forward if i let things stay stuck in me. i don't need to make a scene about it - it just happens and then i dab my eyes or whatever and take a breath.

today i actually had to stop my warm up to crawl under my blanket and bawl for 10 minutes. half the time i was bawling because i am so happy and life is so amazing and magical - and half the time i was bawling because things are so hard and painful and i've been working so hard and i am so damn tired and homesick. and the other half of the time (oh wait.. i mean... the other multi-dimensional half)i was bawling because there was no reason to be sad or bawling but i was doing it anyway and it was so confusing that it made me bawl. so yeah. things aren't always clear in my head - but not all good things must be clear. Hot Chocolate, for example. it is a very very good thing and not at all transparent.

yesterday i found myself feeling some desperation. i decided on this circus adventure to satisfy a part of my soul. i am being satisfied and fed by this adventure. i knew that taking the GOP contract would be a lot of work and challenge me to grow and decide what my next step will be. i knew that this work would push me to ask the important questions: can i do this? do i want to do this? where do i want to be next? what is my dream? how is this a part of my path?

well - yesterday i was longing for home so badly. 2012 must really reveal for me a step towards home. there is just no soothing this ache for a place. though i don't envy people with "normal jobs", i do wonder how comfortable their subconscious mind must be. They aren't even aware of how nestled into that pocket of their head they are. They don't know what a windy barren plain of rustling leaves and frigid dusty suitcases sits in that same place in my head. well, maybe some of them do. of course my idealized subjections are subject to some refinement. but who cares? idealized subjections serve a purpose. i am aware that each form of life has it's golden edge and it's mud-filled potholes. there is no escaping stress and angst as long as you're walking around in your head. the trick is to let go of the mind's need to fret and just walk your walk. of course, there is still the matter of deciding which road you are going to walk. the wrong road will cause an ocean of extra pain and suffering - whereas the right road can be downright blissful if you're willing for it to be simply so: blissfully falling through life and not clinging to hard to anything. i'd better change the subject - i can feel myself getting teary behind my cheekbones - and that is a definite sign that i am starting to wax philosophical about life.

(not bad - but just not in the mood to weep anymore. today i have two shows and i want to focus on my crisp, calm energy. the simple task of doing what i need to do and caring for my little owie shoulder.)

since i became content with the structure of my act, i have returned to a focus on the technique. i REALLY need to change some postural/flexibility things (this is ongoing) and i am still needing to refine the way i do my straddle climb. i believe i need to figure out what the deal is with my style of straddle climb. it's devastatingly hard (bio-mechanically speaking) on my shoulders and maybe i can re-train it. certainly the whole thing about how i place my catch leg needs to be cleaned up as well as the throw leg.... there are certainly two ways to do it.... i need to decide which way i like and then make it automatic. so shoulders, leg 1 and leg 2.... all a part of the mix.

my beats might stand to be done with straight legs for a while. the bent knees isn't working like it used to.

that's the deal - when your body is always changing... you've got to constantly keep up with it and modify accordingly. it's a full time job. i tell you!

enough writing for today.

training wednesday

2011-10-11T04:41:00.000-07:00

i am going to do this version. i could actually like this act. holy shit. ooops. sorry. got a little excited there. okay. here are my notes:

opening: birth- come to standing looking around and up. you are creature of the earth. carry the earth energy upward with you. pull from the ground.
turn. two steps works better.
like the opening.
at some point try the crucifix with bent legs.
do the climb - straddle up looking better.
take it easy here - nothing too extraordinary - you are BEGINNING your "life" (the act on the rope)
this is why you are in the fly position and looking out.
then you hang.
you hang by one arm.
you hang there longer than expected.
then you finally straddle up.
then you move into the section you know and love. USE TEMPO in sun-pass-pluck section
you fall the first time. and cry a little. but are able to breath back into the movement and find a place of balance. however, soon enough, you slip again. and move along up into a press that shows your desire. hold - develope - catch rope with legs arms out don't linger too long. you can show repeat of desire when you wrap for ankle pop.
Kostya has good ideas about tempo use. incorporate these as able.
ankle pop into your improved straddle climb. good work and keep on opening that chest and holding your shoulders open and back. be large! be full of breath.
hip key - arms. slowly draw in. this is so nice. so simple. but it works.
wrap for bomb just like you did. nice work girl.
then gather your rope carefully and hug it. stay. this is all good. you can take your time.
go for it. bomb drop. spiral out. NOW transition to MERMAID! this is cool. stay at the bottom. then open your arm. you are looking straight down. arch as you can. then come up.
if possible - transition onto the rope in the TEMPO way - this last climb is about pure LOVE devotion WILLPOWER and strength. you will be breathing. be fluid here.
beat beat - slide. look up into the light where you were. flip and fall. unwrap. come down. sit on mat.
LOOK UP.
THEN STAND AND SMILE FOR THE PEOPLE>
HAVE YOUR ACT - then be a performer.

training thursday and friday

2011-10-07T06:08:00.000-07:00

Thursday:
better results!

sequence change idea to rehearse:

after beat, beat drop, leg catch. drop into ankle pop.
ankle pop to straddle climb.

at the top of straddle climb - might need a pose - might not

wrap for bomb drop -
MAYBE pull up rope - or maybe do arms over head....

dropping rope -- into bomb drop looked pretty cool --- effect of something falling to earth and me following.

bomb goes into the fast wheel-down exit and immediately into spiral-out wrap.
release the FEET at the end of spiral out and drop the upper arm off going DOWN into MERMAID!!??!
from here i will need a rest moment -

and then need to CLIMB to top. need to have interesting climb - some standards, some looped standards... maybe even one paperclip climb......

then single beat to slide and back flip. END.
------------

Friday
could not force my body to train this morning and also do two shows. it is frustrating, but i am going to keep trusting that the changes will come when the time is right. konstantin is supporting me in this as well. he says that if it doesn't happen, then the time isn't right - my job is to relax, keep up on my stretching and just be READY for when the right moment comes. then i will be physically and mentally in a good place and ready to accept the changes/new stuff/whatevers.

so. i am running the same routine through the weekend - unless i get a shot of power for tomorrow morning. ha.
we shall see.

training notes wednesday

2011-10-05T05:15:00.000-07:00

well, none of my ideas worked this morning. but that's okay. i'm not going to freak out. good growth is slow growth and i want to make an investment in my long term future. i am done trying to take short cuts and skip critical steps. i want to take it easy and go the slow and steady route.

here were the problems:

musically, the bomb drop at beginning doesn't work.
alternate idea: for today - do the act regular
for tomorrow - try toe climb to some kind of beat or swing??? or ???? no idea really

paperclip is not at all ready - so need to skip that idea.
for tomorrow try: skip second foot lock slide, one beat, catch - pose the to ANKLE POP. then into straddle climbs....star drop... repose...spiral out... climb to top..

didn't really like how the no hands wheel downs looked. im not sure what to do about that/ leave them? maybe still a double from the top would look good? it deserves one more try.

that's about it for today.

TRAINING NOTES tuesday

2011-10-04T06:27:00.000-07:00

i realize the nature of these notes may discourage some people from reading my blog - but the blog is about my journey, and this is what is critically important to me now!

saw another rough vid of my act:

opening okay - not bad - good for now
1) cut thingie in beginning and start toe climb.
2) find something else for accent #2
3)wrap for bomb drop
4) same exit
5) need to exit from one arm hang in different manner. two hands to rope beat?

6) start straddle up for next section on music
6.5) STILL need to address BENT LEG issue on catchers
7) dont hold the arm switch move through
8)nice holding the back push - need to develop the leg away thing to something else maybe?

9) try paper clip - exit to straddle climb - use music as the MOVE - use paperclip as the HOLD
10) will i need something after the straddle climb before the ankle pop? beats or switches or meathook???
11) ankle pop to spiral out.
12) climb standard and/or candy cane climb???
12.5) FAST FLAG TO FRONT BALANCE?? to BEAT SLIDE -
13) ONE BEAT
ending is nice

body feels good after not doing rope for one day. i am tired, slept the wrong number of hours, grumpy, sore in an okay way.... i want more hours to practice piano... lounge.. etc.
oh well. my life is so wonderful. i'll just have to keep living it to "get" more hours. VEGETABLES! are the key.

just saying.

Training DAY 3

2011-10-02T02:19:00.000-07:00

wore my OLD costume yesterday- got a tremendous response.

SO - something about the NUDE COLOR SCHEME - the SINGLE OVER ALL COLOR is better for me.
I will stick with nudes for my next costume.

Got two videos of my routine. have some changes in mind - need to train them on tuesday in order to feel safe about putting in show.

also need to test leaving matt THERE in the act when i descend.

been working my turnout correctly (towards correctly) since i started watching American Cinematic Ballet's video blog. that was about a month ago. Today is the first time I FEEL a qualitative difference. 1 month. interesting.

training notes DAY 2

2011-10-01T02:13:00.000-07:00

today's notes feel somber to me:

1) it would be asking too much of my body to do extra physical training today

2) it is time to really start considering where my next employment might come from -- and/or deciding what i will be doing next year.

3) it is safe to say i can rest until my birthday. so that means by March - I will out and about again.

4) having reached the half-way point here at Munster, the opportunity is really becoming clear: i need to get some good video footage BEFORE MY TIME IN MUNSTER IS OVER.

5) i need to decide WHAT IS IMPORTANT - WHAT IS NOT - according to: WHAT DO I WANT TO MARKET?

6) i can also get video in Munchen - but the ceiling is lower so the act will CHANGE - time to start considering that as well.

7) so how do i spend my time? working on my act here is nice for a video, maybe... but without a COSTUME that i like- what is that worth?

8) idea, CHANGE to bouffon costume, get Konstantin to film when he is here.... maybe that will be good enough? Worry about Muchen when i get to Munchen....

9) as for next year - I want to be training a NEW ACT of some kind - and still available to perform on rope. i want to continue to CHANGE and refine what i do on rope - maybe to include the scarfs.

for NOW: i should focus on the MUNSTER ACT and GETTING FOOTAGE OF IT. on the short time scale, this means COSTUME CHANGE and WORK ON THE NEW MOVES TO PREPARE FOR FURTHER CHANGES WHEN KONSTANTIN COMES.

for NEXT YEAR: i don't need to spend more than a millisecond worrying. i have been brought this far on faith and hard work and i am sure i will only be MORE blessed by my faith and hard work next year. so everything will be perfect and work out just as magically as this year has. i TRUST WHAT COMES AS THE RIGHT THING!!!!!!!!!!!

for COSTUME: it all hangs on fabric. with Marion - the only way to work will be to let her have complete artistic control. perhaps it would be better to work with her on improving the costume i HAVE rather than making a new one - afterall - i don't want to spend that kind of money again.

okay. on track. taking it easy. knowing that everything is going to be fine... even though it doesn't feel that way.

TRaining Notes Day1

2011-09-30T05:03:00.000-07:00

I've started a new training thing:

day1 notes:

new wrap to sitting - wheel down extra wrap around same leg and sit up
can try some scarf juggling from here
ideas:
a) throwing - fall back and catch (from wheel down sit)
b) sit and juggle 2 and/or 3 and/or 4
c) wheel down with one and throwing - try to find way of doing this!!??!
d) throw fall catch -- just think of some ideas
e) climbing with in toes - not sure how it looks, but easy. need to remove from toes before doing much else because they get wrapped
f) long scarf was fun - the longer it hangs in the air, the more choices i will have

it was fun and felt interested - but made my neck somewhat tired. think it will help me exactly what i am doing with my neck that i don't need to - hope to find it in my stomach.

-----------

costume: made some further decisions about costume needs.
1) NO LOOSE COTTON. this makes me so f@#(*@(#* pissed off. in fact, no loose cloth on the hips, crotch or feet. just pull that stuff TIGHT. how many times do i have to say it?
2) SEW the cotton down to the lycra to FURTHER reduce movement and pulling.
3) use a DARK nude/ light brown color for legs? use it in cotton - everything else in lycra?
4) USE MINIMUM 4 layers on thigh crotch area... you're gONNA NEED IT SO MAKE IT THICK!! it should be COTTON INSIDE - then lycra, THEN TWO OR EVEN THREE LAYERS of cotton on the OUTSIDE! JUST MAKE IT THAT WAY --- no more THIN CRAP!
5)USE TEXTURE AND DETAIL - no more FLAT COSTUME with no DIMENSIONS
6) PREPARE TO DO A LOT OF HAND SEWING if you do this YOURSELF -- which you very well might have to.

NEwest design idea picture is attached below.

ALSO - thinking ahead to WHAT COLOR would the scarfs be... and where would they attach to costume? on head?
anyway - i WANT TO HAVE SOMETHING FLUTTERING and FLOWING and in the WIND when i do rope.
I MUST HAVE THIS.

have the idea of weaving the scarfs through the bra portion - and pulling them out akin to the CARMEN scarf of the heart - could do this somehow.

These notes are for me, but the blog makes a convenient place to collect the words and pics together.

practical documentation

2011-09-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

just a little practical documentation: the days are ripping by. Every single one of them feels so full.

I have thousands of feelings everyday - the adrenalin of the show alters everything that is going on inside of me. In fact, the responsibility of performing forces me to work my way to a particular kind of mental place everyday. That is part of the work too.

Today I was feeling particularly sleepy. I dont know why - I didn't try to question it or berate myself for it. A great accomplishment for me. I let myself feel how i felt and i let myself take TWO naps. yes. TWO. I performed clean tonight - so that is what counts.

It was SO hard to wake up though! my body did not want to work. But i had to - and I had to deal with many other feelings and thoughts swirling in my brain.... "Julia is so gorgeous, the twins are so flexible, Jenny is so adorable, Roman is so professional and experienced, Igor is so talented, Julia is the most gorgeous woman on earth... " and so on... the pitfall of comparing yourself to other people - a pitfall i am so fragile and susceptible to.

so i had to go through the whole inner dialogue of self-boosting and love again: "you have acheived amazingness to even BE here on CONTRACT... you have done it! you are working in an amazing place - you MUST be beautiful! your beauty is your beauty and it is something only you have, you can be who you are and express wondrous and good things. you are still learning and it is fabulous to have such nice and gorgeous people around you to inspire you! what a lucky situation to be in... surrounded by kind and inspiring people while GETTING PAID! the key to becoming who you are is to just be where you are today and accept and trust everything in your life process. there are an infinite number of things to be infinitely grateful for - and so it wouldn't hurt to relax and possibly even enjoy the experience - no matter what is happening. the best way forward is through enjoying life. so enjoy - there are so many good things.... " and etc. and so forth.

it was so hard to wake up from my second nap... and apparently i didn't even hear my alarm clock ringing. i started my warm up training and groaned with the lethargic sluggery of a doped up sloth. i wanted to make a cup of coffee, but a part of me was very judgmental of that. "coffee is bad! you're cutting down on the amount of coffee you're drinking! you haven't had coffee in three days, maybe you should just stay away from it all together! don't buckle to your desires!"

the other part of me responded, "but if i never give into my desires, then how will i ever wind up somewhere pleasant? how can i learn to be a happy soul if i constantly choose to take the sterile, devoid-of-enjoyment option? how f*@*@(ing bad can a cup of coffee be? After all, i am living in the middle of a city, performing circus every night, exposed to millions of chemicals and situations that i don't find 'ideal' anyway and i think that not drinking a cup of coffee is going to somehow secure my self-belief or purity? am i trying to prove that i have self-discipline or something? come-on! i have already done yoga this morning, a stretching class with the contortion girls at noon and now am preparing to do a 1.5 hour warm up, a show and then cool down stretching.... a cup of coffee certainly isn't going to send me reeling over the edge of debauchery or gluttony. (eating cake on SUNDAY might do that - but that is a different inner debate that i have ongoing) what if i just had a cup of coffee with cooked milk and some sugar - and felt better and then did a good job on my warm up and moved on with my life and continued the TREND LINE of healthier decisions AS ABLE!?!?!?!?"

I resisted the coffee another 10 minutes and struggled to move into my warm up.

And then I shoved off the training mat and headed for the kitchen. WTF. I was going to feel better. I made the coffee and resumed the work out. interestingly enough, i started enjoying the workout after only one micro sip of coffee-that-was-still-too-hot and didn't even drink the rest of the cup for about 15 minutes! and i had such a great warm up. i did all my splits and tonight did them all again plus a bridge... actually 2, and am feeling okay. i am actually feeling myself becoming more flexible... so if i just keep up the good work, i will begin to see a REAL CHANGE in my movement and body shape.

i have bitten off a bit much. you know - there are so many things to be done!
learning Russian
playing piano regularly again
training on the cables at the gym for postural corrections
i have resumed cardio training again (much needed)
stretching training
handbalancing training (self-training mini basics)
performing my actual JOB everyday
improving myself as an artist and performer specifically on the rope
developing myself as an artist for something NOT on the rope
cooking/eating real EARTH-FOOD everyday
writing/documenting my life experiences because i plan to write a book....

i mean how much can i possibly jam in there??!?! maybe i should add in plate spinning and knife juggling... which actually - i would really like to practice my knife throwing... but i just can't seem to find the time.

after all, showers and sleeping have to fit in there too. and if i keep feeling 2NAP tired, then there will be even less time for extra-curriculars like knife-throwing... which could actually work into a circus act someday - but.... there are so many directions to go in.

ANYWAY.
time for a shower and bed. my eyelids are already heavy again.
I performed fairly well tonight. i am still having issues with my costume. i admit. i am very disappointed in it. i don't feel pretty or elongated. i need to quest a better solution for next time.

but not tonight. that's enough questing for one day.

the land

2011-09-25T03:14:00.001-07:00

when i say, "the Fatherland"

where do you think of?

when I say, "the Motherland"

where do you think of?

when i say, "the Homeland"

where do you think of?

and so it goes...

2011-09-24T23:34:00.000-07:00

i've been happy - sad and etc.
the full spectrum of emotions just keeps rolling by. i am in another cycle of feeling sad. i have run my act to new music for almost 2 weeks now. the insecurity is starting to set in again. now i am having major problems with my costume. i hate how it looks. it's ripping and tearing every show. so my problems are both functional and emotional. the emotional ones are harder to deal with.
the girls in the dressing room said it looks like a weird costume. well it is! honestly, i feel like a rose colored cow. remember the tears and miscommunication agony i went through in having in made. well - of course it didn't turn out how i wanted. it worked for me for almost three weeks - and now my ORIGINAL feelings are back - so my attempt to feel another way lasted for about 3 weeks. truth - that thing that rises to the top of the milk.

i've been training too much. i've got to back off even MORE and become even MORE accepting of who i am today. it's so difficult.

i try to remind myself how i have gotten to where i am without the guidance of an agent or director...i try to remind myself of the many hours ALONE at the circus center coming to understand my body on the rope and trying to find myself. i remember the hours of tears cried at Mr. Brad's trying to do his impossible exercises. i remember the hours sitting at the sewing machine, sewing my own costumes (at this point i think i would be better off spending those hours myself - i am SO SICK paying for something i don't love)
anyway - the point is, i'm really trying to give myself the benefit of the doubt. i remind myself of the hours i've spend studying languages and the hours i've spent on trains moving across the earth on nothing but a gut feeling. i remind myself of the hours i've spent stretching and breathing and trying to let myself accept and relax that i am upset and not relaxed... trying to strike that balance point of being who i am and gently fostering a change at the same time.

i burnt my pot of food yesterday. i dropped a HUGE clump of sugar into my milk this morning... the last two days have been so full of dropsy and clutsy that i can tell i am wearing a little thin. i need a breather - a rest. i need a little rejuvenation. i am just SO SO hard on myself and SO relentless in my pursuit... and i'm also taking good care of myself and being nice to myself... and everything is perfect.

i mean, i also remind myself that... i wouldn't be fretting about my costume and my act if i wasn't comfortable with where i live. the fact of the matter is- i love my apartment and everything is fine. i am having the luxurious experience of the ARTIST'S AGONY. yes. i feel ripped open, dumped onto the stage and then judged. of course, it is only MY OWN judgement that i am feeling. i am judging myself like CRAZY right now. WHY? is it serving me? it must be. i must be using it for something or else i would see how painful it is and just stop.

so maybe i can figure out what has been so useful to me about judging myself and then get some extra benefit out of it. i dont know. but this territory feels really familiar and i think i am getting sick of the wash and spin cycle. i want to hang out in the sun to dry a bit.... and maybe find a different kind of dirt to play in for next time.

second week into the third

2011-09-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

two weeks at GOP completed. i am swooning with what i think would be called happiness.
at the moment - i am a little tired, but dont really care. i am sitting at my wooden table in my wooden chair and eating a bread twist that has some sort of tomato sauce and is topped with poppy seeds. it is like a weird combination of a croissant, a pizza stick and poppy seed roll. it's completely unhealthy - contains some sort of baking powder, probably something toxic in the tomato goop and definitely doesn't grow wild in Mother Earth... but... well... but... welll... i have nothing to say.

i am drinking a little milk-coffee that i made this morning and was left over. also not in the 'ideal diet'. but. neither is living in a city or working for a company or wearing shoes with rubber soles. it's going to be a gradual adjustment. i just got back from a brief workout at the gym. i have contrived a stap/cable machine like the ones i trained on at Brad's and so am doing my 'gyrotonic' style stuff again. i always get weird looks from other people working out - but then again, that's the norm for me in my life.

yesterday most of us from the cast trucked about 300 kilometers(each way - i had to drive) to see the 7fingers show. damn was it good. there were absolutely no jaw dropping tricks - no body did a full release twist or a double salto from toothpicks balancing on flaming alligators or a one arm handstand while playing foot violin... i mean, obviously, the technique was strong and the tricks at a nice level - but that is NOT what the show was about. the show was about ENERGY - CHARACTER - CONVEYING ENERGY INTO THE AUDIENCE - A MESSAGE. I was THRILLED. They did everything right. The show was a MODEL for things I have dreampt and aspired to. It was a mutual experience. It was the true goodness of theater. It was an example of WHY people should come together to watch a show. It was a crystalline moment for me. I got teary several times.

okay - well i have to rest a bit and fix my costume and clean up my house a bit. it was a great weekend.... and now back to my work week.
OH and i want to watch the video of my act that i got. whoohooo.

the tug (continued)

2011-09-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

so i wanted to continue the documentation of this experience -

i really did spend a week reeling with insecurity. it was a psychological storm. wow here, i am - two sentences in... and i am overwhelmed by the urge not write about it again. but it was such an interesting and different experience, that i felt it really worth logging into the book.
hmmm. a really touchy subject for me, i guess.

the tug

2011-09-15T05:56:00.000-07:00

"My Pisces friend Rana Satori Stewart coined some new words that happen to be perfect for you to begin using and embodying. "Blissipline," she says, is "the commitment to experiencing a little or a lot of bliss every day; the practice of expanding one's capacity for bliss and being open to receive it in any moment." A "blissiplinarian" is "someone who enforces pleasure and invites opportunities for more pleasure," while a "blissciple" is a person who aspires to master the art of blissipline. I encourage you to be a blissciple, Pisces, because it will put you in sync with the effervescent invitations the cosmos has scheduled for you."

this was my horoscope by Rob Brezsny and I have to admit - this guy's writing never fails to amuse, inspire and encourage me. Whether or not his western astrology system connects to the inner workings of the universe is slightly irrelevant - because what he writes is always so useful to me.

i've been having troubles and bliss here at the GOP. For such a stressful experience, I don't know how i am so relaxed. For such a living nightmare, I don't know how I am so care free and happy.

Right at the beginning of a career opportunity of a life-time, i'm having what i've decided to label an "artist growth moment".

you might think that this is a beautiful and creative moment, full of symphonic background music and maybe even a montage of all the past training and dedication that went into achieving this moment... you may envision a billowing dress in the wind - and a soft dawn light caressing the artistic tears of effort rolling down my face - and you may imagine the eloquent and poignant words of inspiration that i utter with a jagged breath as i cast myself forward over the precipice of artistic mediocrity into the chasam of creative genius - an act of such courage and sacrifice - of such beauty and fragile love - as the artist leaps forward into the unknown whispering lovely lines of poetry and protected only by whispy pieces of chiffon rustling in the wind... such is how one might imagine the "artist growth moment".

i can assure you. this is not the case.

an artist growth moment is when everything you're doing is horrible, nothing works, you hate everything, you are clumsy, disorganized, ugly, perhaps have pimples, feel dense, clumpy and generally are the most boring person you've ever met. it is a moment in which you are nothing that you've worked for - you resemble a barnyard animal more than a twirling fairy princess and you can't seem to find your own nostril to pick it. literally, it feels that crummy.

so i'm dealing with a lot at the moment. Here i am, in foreign land realizing a dream that lay dormant in me for decades... and that in itself is bound to create some emotions:
am i good enough to realize my dream? is this really what i was dreaming about? do i still want this? what will my life be about when there is no more glory and sugary layer of idealized icing on the dream cake?

i am also in the middle of continuing to become myself. uh. okay, that sounds weird, i know. we are always changing - as people, as personalities... etc. some people change more than others. i would say, that i change a lot. i want to change. though part of what i'm learning in my changing is that i don't need to pursue CHANGE as a means of proving that i'm GOOD ENOUGH, i will still proceed to use the vehicle of 'change' to BE myself. does that make any sense? i am excited about who i am becoming and what experiences i will be able to have on this path. but hange is work. change makes you ask questions - bump into brick walls that need to be torn down - rake up piles of leaves collected in corners of the mind - change is... well, what you make it. since i tend to make things difficult, i often make my change-path difficult. this is also changing, by the way... so even if i am beginning to make my life easier, it is still difficult due to the disorienting nature of suddenly being in what feels like "some one eles's life."
as in: "WHAT? i can actually ENJOY something? no!! how is this possible!?!?! think of all the years i spent NOT enjoying these things?? AHHH!HH!H! you're telling me that life can actually be EASY? how is this possible???"
whatever okay moving on before we get stuck in a word-swamp.

My cast mates here at GOP are world-class. Three in particular. One from Russia and two from the Ukraine. One has nearly a billion years experience and the other two are fresh, young graduates of the school in Kiev. I am so intimidated. It is ridiculous, i know, but it is the reality. i am so sick of writing this blog right now!
i am totally going to stop and finish another time!!

HURRAY for Mommy!

2011-09-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

Fortunately, i Have a wonderful mother who delicately went through my belongings, picked out my favorite items, carefully wrapped them all and shipped them to me in Germany.

Unfortunately, she decided to ascribe a value of $465 to the goods in the box - some clothes, some lotions and some vitamins... this triggered a response from the German import office and my package was confiscated. I was sent a letter and told that I owed a hefty import tax.

Fortunately, i was able to breath a stay calm.

Unfortunately, the import tax office where my box was being held was on the other side of town. i don't have a bike or car here - and i had never used the bus system in Münster before...

but Fortunately, i live across the street from the main bus station, so a little internet searching and a little crossing the street 3x to find the right bus stop resulted in boarding a bus toward the import tax office.

Unfortunately, a ticket cost 4,40Eur - that's a lot!

Fortunately, the bus was pretty quick and i jumped out at my station, used my good sense of direction and set out walking... under the sunny sky

Unfortunately, it was a long walk and through a barren industrial zone with huge trucks and smelly exhaust

Fortunately, i kept my spirits up and believed that everything happens for good and just tried to enjoy everything. it wasn't raining and my legs were getting a nice walk.

Unfortunately, the street addresses did not run sequentially ... building number 15 was followed by building number 2... and there was no building number 7 in between...

Fortunately, i saw a graffiti covered sign that pointed the way down an alley to the import toll office, so i followed it down one road...

but Unfortunately, i had to keep going a ways. i walked past auto repair garages and chrome wheel shops and shipping yards...i was coming to a river edge that looked very industrialized. all the buildings were corrugated steel or concrete, very boring and ugly. the river edge was controlled by a massive slabbed sidewalk and steel railing, chunky, industrial stuff was sticking out of the earth everywhere... an autobahn blasted by on the other side of the river and i still hadn't found Eulerstrasse 7, import tax office...

however, Fortunately, i finally saw another small sign with another arrow pointing the way. so i turned left and walked down a narrow lane between a parking lot and the river - LO! there it was: a drab metal building about 5 stories high... the import tax office!

Unfortunately, the man in the office spoke such fast German that I could not understand what he was saying.

Fortunately, he could understand my German... so I guessed what he was saying to me, translated it back into my toddler German and asked him if that is what he had said to me. It worked pretty well, he was friendly.

Unfortunately, they wanted me to have brought a copy of my work contract with GOP... but all i had brought was my passport with the work visa, not the work contract. They brought my box out, opened it and pulled some of the things out on the counter. The tampons were sitting there for everyone to see. I felt very silly. They chatted about my stuff in German and one lady said something like, "most of it is stuff you can buy here." which isn't actually TRUE, but you can't expect people to understand your needs.

Fortunately, they didn't really seem to know how to deal with me. I continued to eavesdrop as they conferred with one another. One lady said: "it is clear these items are not worth 500Euro." They seemed to be debating whether or not to simply let me go or to proceed with the "proper German way" of dealing with things: PAY YOUR TAX. They asked me several questions: how long was I going to be in Germany, did I have any meat in the box.... Finally, the woman waved her hand and walked away. I could tell she didn't want to be a part of what was about to happen. The nice man that spoke speedy-German said: "Okay, so we'll do it like this. Here is your package and have a nice day."

HA!

Unfortunately, I had a long walk ahead of me with a big box...

Fortunately, i found a way of balancing it on my head and holding with my arms that resulted in a delightfully painful shoulder-opening stretch

unfortunately, i saw my bus in the distance... across six lanes of traffic

fortunately, i dashed across the road with my super springy run and barely caught the bus just in the nick of time. the bus driver chucked at me.

fortunately, i hadn't wasted any time or heart energy being upset or worried about the import tax letter when i received it, because in the end it all turned out wonderfully. i found the office, found the bus, walked the walk and affirmed for myself that being at peace is much better for the soul than any other option.

HEY! wait! that was TWO fortunately in a row! is that allowed??? HAHAHAHAAAA! :) :)

performing with GOP

2011-09-10T05:35:00.000-07:00

what a different experience this is. I have my own place to live with a kitchen. They bought me a new frying pan. they are buying a new mattress for me because the one in my apartment is too old. they offer me free water, tea, juice and coffee. They always smile and say hello. there are people here who's JOB it is to make sure i am feeling happy and taken care of. well, it's working. the director gave me some time yesterday. we looked at a video of my act and worked on the opening section. the stagehand asked me twice if he's moving my safety mat just how i want. it's unbelievable. the team here is amazing.

i am standing on a wooden dowel at the moment. i got up late this morning and have been doing some body work. i am standing on the dowel to try and open my feet up. i need to create more space between all the bones in my feet. the bones have become grouped together and are limiting movement and correct standing posture. it's not something that is going to change this morning - but i have to keep making a regular investment. i literally am going to be changing the size of my feet. i have to give my skin and tendons and muscles and ligaments time to add more cells and become longer. everything needs time to change. the nerve cords need to be longer - the sheath that protectively wraps the nerve, the arteries, the veins... the scar tissue needs to soften and morph as well.

body change is all or nothing. if i want to change my hips, i need to be aware of how my feet will be affected. if i want to change my shoulders, i need to be aware of where my back tensions will change and how that will pull on my hips. so if i want to change my shoulders - i have to check in with my feet. and if i'm changing my shoulders, that will certainly change how my neck sits on my spine and the slope of my trapezius - so that means my throat, ears and scalp will all be affected.

if my throat is changing and my shoulders are adjusting - then certainly my whole rib cage will have a different space to fill. my rib cage and sternum are being trained to BREATH more... to open. and if my sternum and ribs are rising and falling to a new breath, then certainly my stomach is settling up against my inner wall in a slightly different place. indeed: my body has found a way to let me know when i'm on the right track. if i am doing an exercise properly, the left side of my mid-abdomen will growl and turn over. i feel a churning and an opening. it almost feels like helpful chemicals are being released into my body from a secret box that's hidden in my stomach. that's probably not too far from the truth.

and if my stomach is relaxing into place, then surely my food is being digested better. and if my food is being digested better, then surely my brain is working better. and if my brain is working better, then surely i can come up with all sorts of new exercises to try with my feet.
so, see? it's all related.

is it a fast solution? no way. not at all. this is more painstaking than trying to loose weight, i think. well, okay - maybe it is similar in terms of tempo - but not in terms of required hours. to loose weight we can modify what we eat. to change the structure of your body you have to do billions of hours of exercise.
well you can do exercise to loose weight too - but i am trying to make myself feel special here! by hyping up the glory of my slow quest to separate the bones in my feet, release the tense achilles, soften the inflamed tendons in my calves, open the lateral side of my knees, relax the tendons of my quads, release the external rotators, lengthen the entire back (parts concave parts convex), make the ribs spiral in a breath, spread the chest open - especially into the front deltoids, drop the scapula into place, connect the arms to the abdomen.. and i have to look in a mirror at myself constantly... and not freak out every time you see all the places i have absolutely NO MOVEMENT. i've completely lost touch with so many places in my body. it's scary. okok you get the idea. i have a destination.

i do see changes. changes are happening at a frighteningly fast rate. every three weeks i have a fundamentally different body. this is very awkward. sometimes i wonder how i recognize myself when i wake up in the morning - i always feel so different.

oh - this blog was supposed to be about performing with GOP. well. i messed up HUGE in three shows and i got two shows okay. eh. not the best. but typical. actually the mess ups were huge in MY book - but not really that bad. the worst thing i did was i let the energy of "i'm messing up" go into my muscles. then it leaks into the room and i can feel the people feeling confused. of course, i know how to continue on a win the people back by letting "everything is okay and you can enjoy this" go back into my muscles - but still. i have a lot more training i could do. if and when i feel like it.

i am still training myself to only do what i feel like doing. if i am going to BREATH and actually TRUST my body, then i need to also trust what i FEEL. i have to trust myself. I have to have SOMEONE that i can just simply fall back on. i have to go with my feelings more. i have enough thoughts to cover the thought needs. it's now time to see where my feelings can take me. i've got a solid base of rational thought - so it is now safe to listen to the other very smart side of me. time to find the flow. and do some floating and enjoying. so i am doing what i feel like doing and learning how to be okay with that. you'd be surprised at how scary that is for me. i feel so GUILTY for enjoying anything! it is shocking!!!

but everything is connected. as the bones in my feet separate and my hips open and my femurs fall down into the socket where they belong and my obliques stop holding my ribs in a twist... i will feel much better just simply enjoying life. i won't feel like such a bad person for feeling happy or loved or relaxed or well-paid or comfortable in bed. i won't feel bad for enjoying how sweet apples are or standing on a stage and being applauded. it will just be okay. i will sit under tress and look at clouds without thinking that i'm lazy. i will stroll instead of stomp. i will chat instead of excuse myself. eh... on second thought, maybe i still will excuse myself. i don't have to become more social just because i'm relaxed. HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA

but everything is connected. so you never know.
:)

Münster!

2011-09-06T05:19:00.000-07:00

The train trip was normal - I wedged myself into all sorts of bizarre, unsophisticated positions in an attempt to feel comfortable. I have such a difficult time sitting in those chairs. I usually wind up sitting on the floor or lolling over two chairs... feeling very undignified, but much more comfortable. Anyhow. It was an uneventful journey. I hauled my THREE suitcases in and out of train doors and up and down stairs. It is certainly not easy with three bags, but i just can't do it with less. Living supplies take up two bags and Circus Props fill the third. On the up side, I've gotten some pretty good techniques now for three-bag-hauling and i know to stop and breath when i get tired. no point in wearing myself out before i'm even under the spotlights.

my apartment is a dream come true. Literally - it is BETTER than i could have hoped for. i have three massive windows and i look out on the sky. i am on the fifth floor and look to the west over the town of Münster! Though I will miss most sunsets due to my work schedule, i enjoyed a nice sunset last night. The air was fresh and the clouds moving briskly about the sky. I can see a clock tower in the near distance that is black and pale blue with age.

I already feng-shui-ed everything to my liking. I moved the bed, took the art off the walls, moved a dresser and chair, stuffed the TV into the broom closet - along with a lamp that made a buzzing sound, washed all the silverware, threw the microwave in the cupboard under the sink and unpacked my bags. That was yesterday. It was so fun. I'm home! I live here now! TWO WHOLE MONTHS of not moving will be blissful. That is TWICE the amount of time I have stayed anywhere since March of this year.

This morning we hung my rope and tech-ed my act. My shoulders are hurting as well as my neck. I am working on them. I'm changing a lot. It's okay. it's difficult, but it's okay. The people I am working with here are SO AMAZING. I really like them. Especially after my experience with Bouffon - I feel like a princess here. No, I am not ACTING like a princess, but I feel so welcomed and important to people. It is so lovely and nice to experience that.

The theater is TALL and my heart is soaring. I can CLIMB with speed and aggression and let my arms dash into the air. The stage is a bit narrow - so crimps my opening a bit - but that is okay. not a big deal.

Light is pouring in the windows of my apartment at the moment. The dull white clouds are moving by, they're off to somewhere - not sure where. There they go... sailing along. I am up in the air with them. I am on the top floor. Wow. My vata is UP right now. With all this upper floor living, rope climbing, train riding and excitement... my vata is probably peaking out around squirrel-on-caffine level. oh well. haha. and there is another thing that made my heart race like a motorcycle screaming down the freeway. THEY HAVE A PIANO HERE.

I think i hear the girl with my frying pan coming down the hallway. that is the only thing missing in the kitchen that i need. hmmm maybe not, okay.

well, i'm off to do some shopping for dressing room stuff and a thing to scrub the pots out with. then we meet again at 6pm for a rehearsal.

After the grueling, confusing, emotional and painful month of August, it feels so nice to just say (excuse me) "fuck it" and let's move forward. Now I am into September and feeling so grateful and excited about this contract. my body issues are a concern to me... I want to start feeling better, but i believe it will come if i can keep implementing my relaxation techniques into my training and keep refining my should technique on the rope. it's hard on a body to change all the time - but since no one can simply TELL me how i should be doing these bio-mechanically destructive tricks, i have to figure it out. rope is not a friendly apparatus. it is very hard on the body because the repetitive positions close the shoulders and chest down in the front and it's disastrous without good cross training. i'm working on it all... and appreciate when ever i encounter a person with body knowledge that can help me.

k. gonna head out. i'm so relieved to be feeling some elation. relieved... a little skeptical... and moving forward gently.

i have 10 minutes to write this

2011-08-26T05:24:00.000-07:00

yesterday i was low energy. i was craving sugar all day - but i didn't completely give in. i did eat, of course... but i stuck to things that had a nutritional value AND some sugar. i ate some fruit... and at dinner i had some beet, cabbage, kidney bean salad that had a dressing with sugar in it. i figure, i have to progress towards the goal, not gallop.

last night i had a dream. it was so startling and vivid and wrenching for me. actually, last night was one of those nights where i partially woke up multiple times and was vaguely aware of myself performing some sort of relaxing exercise for my tight muscles. my sleeping self is much better at working on these stiff places. with every time that i woke up, i could feel myself gradually releasing a clenching tension in my thoracic spine. before bed i had done a good 20 minutes of a breathing relaxation... which helped, but through the night i was still clenched inside. the sleep therapy exercises (i don't know what to call this sleep exercise that i wake up to find myself doing) was further helping...

anyway:
the dream:

--- my mother was at the wheel. we were in a rugged, wide and soft tan/green colored jeep. this was an adventure vehicle. my mother was young and her long, straight brown hair whipped back in the wind. i was in the front seat, next to her. there were people in the back seat - it felt like my sister was back there and someone else that i have a close and loving bond with... but whoever was back there felt young and part of the family. we were driving at a rapid speed across a wide land. it was gently rolling and covered in dry grass with an occasional low bush - something manzanita like, but a little darker in color and very dry. the wheels of the jeep crunched any branches in our path. at first we were on a vague dirt road - but then my mother began to pick up speed. she drove with skill and confidence. she was blasting through this countryside. i looked over at her. she was wearing sunglasses and the wind continued to tug at the long floating strands of her hair. she pressed her lips together and i wondered if she were worrying about something. "why are we driving fast?" i asked. about that time, she left the road - or the road disappeared, i am not sure which and she navigated aggressively forward and punched a perfectly straight line into the grasses and over the bushes. i heard the dry sticks of one bush shatter under the jeep as we launched over uneven ground and bottomed the suspension out on the driver side front wheel. we were diving forward over the land like a wild animal. "what are you worried about?" i asked my mother again, amazed at her strength and clean overland driving. she answered me as we crested a hill and a new site came into view, "i am worried about the pot of sugar left on the stove and burning the house down."
that's right when i saw it. just to my right in a little dip of earth was nestled my childhood home; red wood panels with peeling paint, windows framed in white and a feeling of welcome, countryside and happy life. on the far side of the house, a thin grey plume of smoke was willowing rapidly up into the sky. FIRE. and time began to slow down....

my mother whipped the jeep over the hill like a warrior just as the thin grey plume of smoke bulged and expanded into a heaving black belch. i was watching the critical turning point of the fire unfold right before my eyes. the voluminous belch of smoke meant that the fire within had just leapt to life - from tender flames licking at the wall behind the stove, to a mad inferno consuming the countertops, ceiling, dish cupboards and rafters. i sprang from the jeep before my mother had even screeched to a complete halt and i dashed to the garden hose that lay behind the house on the back side of the kitchen. my mother ran the other way to some special water pipe that came out of the ground. i understood that she was going to try and deliver as much water pressure as possible to our property. we sometimes had low water pressure. in my mind, i wondered how much water really did lay in the well that provided us with water. ironically, the garden hose was running. three inline sprinklers were spritzing the grass beneath the bellowing fire. i ducked low and reached close to the smokey wall to turn the force of the water as high as i could. i ran to the end of the hose while thinking that i would spray what water i could on the fire while simultaneously trying to detach the sprinklers from the line. the sprinklers would only cut my water pressure more and spill water out in hopeless places. i didn't know how i would hold the house and detach the sprinklers all at the same time - but knew it would be rushed, panicky and uncomfortable... and my body said: but it will be a feeling you're familiar with, you always try to juggle too many things in your hands at one time.
i looked up at the back, smokey and flame licked wall of my burning home and i felt overwhelmed. my mind was whirling with ideas, trying to think of other ways to put out the fire if the water was not enough. i woke with a start and lay stricken in bed with these images. i continued to think madly even in my waking consciousness.... what could i do? wet blankets and try to smother the fire? shovel dirt over the home? what could i do?
"a pot of sugar" how those words rang in my head. what did this dream mean? did the fire symbolize digestion? was the sugar a problem? was the house a symbol of my body? did i need more sugar? was the 'pot of sugar' the symbol of a problem or of a desire? my diet has been so diverse and healthy the last two weeks.
images of my mother in the dream flashed before me again - she was so calm, so strong... she drove the jeep over the rugged earth with such steely grace. i saw the way she pressed her lips together in a firm grey line and i saw the wind tugging at the long dark brown strands of her straight hair.
"we never had a jeep." i was thinking. "but my sister should would love that vehicle. it would fit her perfectly. i can totally imagine her trekking overland to some remote cabin in the woods."

i had several more dreams that just evade my memory... but this one stays with me and lingers in my conscious mind.

i am off to the gym to train.

and i checked the stove to make sure it was off - and there are no pots of sugar out.

the thirsty rebel

2011-08-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

yes, i am rebelling from the gym today.

it's super. it's strange.

I'm ensconced in my house, my room, my kitchen. i haven't moved more than 100 feet today. i've been back and forth between the kitchen and bedroom no more than 3 times and the heavy wooden blinds in the bedroom are still lowered. my room is dark and lit only by a small salt crystal lamp and tiny slivers of daylight beaming through the slats of the shutters.

i have never been like this in my life. i have always loved light and sought light and sought to be outdoors. but, right now i am enjoying my darkened room. i feel like hibernating. i feel like cloaking myself in a soft darkness and sleeping. i usually motivate to get out of bed and "do things" but somehow that desire reversed. at the moment, i love sleeping and doing nothing. i think these are clear signs that i am in need of a deep rest. a time of recovery and a time of gentleness on myself. i've been suppressing these urges to hibernate, sleep and rest for over a week. i think it's time to try the alternative and indulge a bit.

yesterday i had my second physio appointment in which breath, and trusting the inner knowledge of the body are emphasized techniques. i say emphasized, but really i mean THE technique. i become relaxed in such a peculiar fashion, that my entire life perspective changes. i find it a little scary. i find it quiet disorienting. it is scary to leave my anxiety behind. it is scary to see my state of anxiety and know that i am often making life decisions while in an axiety state. state changing is scary. i think it's normal to feel disoriented during huge changes in perception.

today i decided not to look at a clock. i woke up and then went back to sleep. i had no idea what time it was. i feel the massively strong desire to simply let time flow and to simply exist and to not force anything to occur or happen. i gave into this desire. i forced nothing. i still don't know what time it is. i don't care. i will realize that it is night time when the slivers of light stop shinning into my room. whatever energies are rising up in me, i want to honor them. i want to hear my own voice. i want to do what my body knows is best for me. i want to honor my feelings. i want to trust that my urges, can lead me equally well if not better than my logic. i want slow down and re-sensitize, so that my urges are not cluttered by the surface layer urges rising out of an anxiety state, but the urges of an intelligent, living organism. i want my deep instincts to be my guide.

To clarify, what i'm saying is that not all urges are created equal. i am aware that i have some unhealthy urges. urges towards sweets and pastries are at the top of this list. these are not the kind of urges that i want to indulge in the long run. i need/want to somehow RELAX in such a way that the cycles of anxiety and suppression which give RISE to the unhealthy urges are diminished to the point that i hear the true and fundamentally good urges within me. yes, this means that i am assuming that my inner nature is fundamentally GOOD and that i am an organism designed with instincts towards health and life - that my body knows what it needs and can use urges/desires to communicate those needs to the conscious dimension.
the trouble is: getting to those urges! UNLAYERING through the panic and fear that result in my teeth bathing in sugar or hiding in a dark house all day.

for example: my urge to stay indoors, not open the blinds and sleep for 12 hours is not an urge that would benefit my organism if repeated on a daily basis for the next 5 years. this urge is a reactionary urge - likely a reaction to the deep exhaustion of working my first circus contract.
so while it is an urge that i choose to honor today, i also see it as a sign that my urges need to be un-layered! i want to live in a state where the urges that arise in my system are the same urges as yesterday and will be the same urges tomorrow. urges that create a lifetime - a lifeline and a life.

i am aware that my system is somewhat "dirty". i know that some of my urges are reactionary, or cyclic or addictive in nature. (wanting sugar, wanting to sit in front of facebook for 3 hours, wanting to sleep more, wanting to eat when i'm not hungry etc)
but i can't simply authorize the MIND to control what urges i follow and which urges i don't follow... because .... well, that's what i've been doing and it doesn't work. it makes me miserable. the mind is good at building rigid systems and rationalizing reasons to say "no" whenever fun ideas come up. i usually hang pretty tough with the mind and discipline myself admirably, but then it's only a matter of time before the urges-river swells up and overflows the mind-dam and floods the whole valley below.
and then there's a big mess to clean up. it's just not a good system.

i need to find a life-style that begins to shift my behavior away from discipline-driven (task mastering myself to do what is determined as the 'correct' action according to the mind's assessment of information currently present in the brain)

and towards the urge-responsive life style: one in which the communication between
"body-DEEP-subconscious" and body-conscious is direct and flowing. this urge-responsive life style ought to be corroborated by the mind's assessments of what is 'correct'. and, in my current vision of true-healthy functioning, the mind could eventually be educated/altered/expanded BY the urge-response driven experiences of the organism. in other words, the deep inherent nature of the organism would be expanding the understanding of the organism's mind.

but the confusing and difficult part is: HOW? when i KNOW i've got dubious if not downright unhealthy urges keep floating down the river, why should i just rip the mind-dam down and let those toxic urges wash all over the valley that i just finished cleaning up from the last flood?
in other words, i don't want to abandon all cares and become a complete hedonist. I've met enough suffering post-hedonists.

So the mind-dam is not working for me. Neither would blowing the dam to bits. But what IS my mind here for and what should i do next? at the moment, it's a pretty formidable dam... and the pressure is getting unbearable.
i am searching for (and slowly accumulating) functions for the mind that are helpful for the organism - as opposed to controlling, unhealthful and damning. i believe that my mind cannot easily release it's controlling ways if it is not offered some attractive alternative function. i have found it difficult to find alternative mind-jobs.
there are many spiritual/life philosophy practices that focus on mind health or mind-volume-reduction and i, as many Americans with mind-discomforts, benefit from these practices to a certain degree but eventually another layer of concern rises: i'm learning how to quiet the mind, or what NOT to do with the mind, but what SHOULD i do with my mind? what is it good for?there are also some teachings that go so far as to say "the mind is bad" and this adds to a sense of uneasiness and lack of satisfaction. it seems some would recommend the mind as a candidate for "next vestigial organ: so vestigial, you can't even see it! just mediate that sucker right off the map!"
i'm not saying meditation is bad or that all guru-people teach this ridiculous fallacy, i'm just pointing out that i find meditation to be a wonderful TOOL but very incomplete as an ANSWER.

i feel strongly that i must have a mind for some good reason. i'd like to know how to use it properly and to my advantage. after all, i could have been born a single celled organism, fruit fly or bed-bug. but seeing as i wasn't, i may as well explore my facility.

the mind can't simply be told it is bad and yet still be required to reflect a sane consciousness. one must love their mind just as dearly as any other physical part of their body. for example, if the stomach has an ailment, we don't attempt to function without use of the stomach. we don't pull the stomach out and say: there is a problem with this part, it's not working so get rid of it! we attempt to restore function to the stomach. i believe it is so with the mind as well. the mind has a function in the organism and is needed. BUT WHAT SHOULD MY MIND BE DOING?

----

at the moment, of course, my mind is VERY occupied trying to "run the show". But should i try to allow the body to lead, what would the mind do? this complete reversal of methodology is downright terrifying to contemplate... in the mind. "you'd loose your mind!" says the mind.

i think we are taught to function as "mind leading body" by the forces shaping the "civilized" world today. One example of the "civilized" world today would be American society. I was raised in an American society. i think this "programmed me" to function in a "mind leading body" way. Some people are more affected by this programming than others. Other forces in my life have shaped and supported the "body leading" method. For example, some forces must have inspired me to write this blog and question the directional influence between mind and body.

so i sit here and type, search for clarity and i return to the example of staying at home with the curtains drawn... and eating crackers with butter spread over the top of them. are these actions INHERENTLY BAD? no. they are serving a purpose in my life at the moment. are these actions coming from the deepest level of my desire for life?
no.
they are arising out of the reactionary chain of events that is constantly ongoing in life.
will this reactionary chain of events ever be fully extinguished? well, yes... but it's called death.
what i'm saying is: there is no more point in trying to eliminate all reactionary actions than in trying to eliminate all mind-function. it's not BAD that i "reacted" and used butter and slept in. it's not BAD, it's just an INDICATION of my current position as i walk a perilous, transitional, experimental path between the two methodologies. i want to be more "body leading".

so here's what i propose:
it's messy, but i think it's great!

3 2 1

GO

...

right now, i am HERE. (in my pajamas) and even from HERE (where i eat butter) i can:
1) listen more closely to the urges that do arise, instead of immediately tossing them into mental wastebasket otherwise known as "denial".
2) allow the mind to continue to function and assimilate information from the brain, with the added advantage of information derived from the observation (and perhaps even occasional uncontested fulfillment) of rising urges.
3)do not attempt to change anything else and don't try to understand what is happening too hard.

Any more detail in the protocol for shifting into a new functionality cannot be described here! It must be discovered, not mandated!!! I can't use the mind to jepordize the role of the mind! The single and only thing i can do to initiate the discovery of this shift is state that i would like to and am ready to discover it.

so, now it is happening.

it wasn't happening when i started this blog and now, it is happening. wow. that is so cool.
and SUDDENLY, i suspect that THIS IS one of the mind's greatest uses: the mind is a place to create/visualize/intend a future. the MIND can hold an IMAGE of a reality YET TO COME. the mind houses the awareness of our goals... the images of our dreams.

Maybe the mind is not designed to figure out HOW to get to these "image-dreams". the mind is better suited to function as the infinite canvas of our dreams. we must first have a place to SEE the "image-dream" before we can be affected or inspired by it. the mind is a non-place in which invisible/un-manifest things may begin their journey towards being manifest... but it is NOT the tool to use to figure out HOW to make it manifest. (obviously it helps out with general suggestions - but can't be expected to correctly determine every action)

when the mind holds a image-vision such as: "i dream of performing with a circus in Europe." there is now -potential- to manifest this image into reality. without the image, there would be no focused drive in that direction. had i been holding the image-vision of "attending graduate school to further my education in mathematics", it would come as a shocking surprise to suddenly find myself performing with a circus in Europe. Likewise, i'm not expecting any acceptance letters from Harvard or Yale, since i spent the last two years in a circus gym. There is a certain correspondence between our image-visions and life paths. Complete control? not by a long shot. But without the image-visions ONLY random chances or random choices will shape your life.

so my mind held this image-vision of performing with a European circus, but it certainly did NOT figure out everything about HOW my journey towards realizing the goal would occur. as i look back on the last two years, i see that my mind did not know what to do along every step of the way. There were times when i followed irrational urges or urges that seemed counter-productive to reaching the goal, there were many occasions when i proceeded without planning at all. the mind often let me know that what i was trying to do was, "completely crazy at your age."

and the more i think about it, the more i wonder if what my mind told me was what i actually needed to hear. if i had not listened at all to the directives of my mind, would i still have accomplished the goal? my mind told me that a tremendous amount of physical training would be required, and that is true. But exactly --how much training-- was not one of the questions my mind could answer. The mind said, "when in doubt, more training." I wonder how much my URGES would have URGED me to train. Would my urges alone have been enough to inspire training through my DESIRE to be in a European circus? I don't know... and we can't ever know... and we can't ever do a double-blind study... because currently accepted science states that there is only one of me on one forward running time-line. of course, there may be other dimensional Rosannahs on other dimensional timelines, but those other dimensions are not understood or accepted in any working scientific models of the universe - so we can't do a scientific study on whether urges would do a better job than the mind.

too bad. so instead of being able to rely on science (finely tuned mental reasoning, a.k.a. mind-function) to tell me how to live, i am "situationally encouraged" to go back to that 'ol subjective thing: instinct, or urges, or body. But SURPRISE! isn't that what i just said i wanted to do anyway and isn't it also a perfect little irony!

when i give the mind a chance to answer the question using it's own methods and an opportunity to endorse itself... poof! the mind runs out the back door, leaps of the balcony and disappears into the underbrush like a raccoon caught stealing butter of my kitchen table.

and what's more, the raccoon leaves these buttery footprints all over the countertop:
in posing the question: who should lead, the mind or body?

we ask the mind: and the mind cannot answer the question
according to Goedel's completeness theorem this would imply the universe is consistent but incomplete - i.e. that there everything makes sense and nothing contradicts, but there are questions we can't answer.

we ask the body: and the body answers "me, the body should lead."
according to Goedel's completeness theorem this statement does not imply the universe as either complete/inconsistent nor incomplete/consistent.
it's just a single data point - it neither answers all questions(complete), nor demonstrates the existence of an unanswerable question(incomplete). it neither proves consistency nor examples inconsistency.
perhaps some of you are jumping out of your seats, "wait!" you are saying, "how do you know the body would say 'yes'? maybe the body doesn't know either. because if so, then this also implies an incomplete/consistent universe!"
and to this doubt your body responds "you didn't think your heart was beating because your conscious mind implored it to, did you? do lizards, antelopes and hedgehogs survive because of conscious mental pondering on the molecular structures homogeneously suspended in pond water? do they rationalize the need to eat a certain number of calories a day based on desired body-weight or do they shop at Target for umbrellas, calculators and butter? no. they do not. they survive without all that. in fact, living creatures without minds spend more time engaged in activities intended to maximizing life span and vitality than most creatures WITH minds. i would go so far as to postulate that you've already lost your mind and that i'm the only thing keeping you alive - your brilliant, resilient, ever adapting body - and the less you listen to me, the faster you'll die. have a nice day."

wow. that's a body with attitude.

so - in conclusion:

based on all my other life ponderings, i have found that PARADOX plays a huge role in the rolling of things. (if this were a book, there would be a chapter on paradox here) This leads me to suspect that anything implying the universe is incomplete/consistent, i.e. without paradox, is wrong.

So even if the MENTAL-jury(mind) is unsure of exactly HOW good things will turn out with body-as-guide, the MENTAL-jury(mind) takes note that the body-as-leader option does not make any determination on the true nature of the universe. All realms of possibility remain open. This encourages the organism to live in a constant state of observation and investigation... experiencing and refining understanding... and these are activities that the mind LOVES! how convenient is that!!?!

Moreover, the body is able to lead without over-controlling. the body claims to control everything in the body, but the mind is not a part of the body. So the body does not control the mind. The mind is free to wander around and write ridiculously long blogs about itself... noting ironically that the mind actually IS being used to jepordize the function of the mind...even though earlier i said the mind didn't want to do that. desperately seeking to be useful through contortions of cleverness, the mind is constantly on the go. go little mind go. no body is going to stop you.

On the other hand, when the mind leads, the mind usually struggles to control the body. "You should get up at 10am. You should not eat that cookie. You should do 10 reps of this exercise. You should go to school, get a job as an accountant, sit at the desk all day and make a stable income. You should chew each bite of your food 30 time for optimal health. You should exercise regularly because it will help you live longer and you will have fun." or whatever your mind is saying to you.
The point is, the mind isn't happy just to control itself, it also tries to control anything else that passes by.

which is just another nudge in the direction of allowing the body to lead.

ok.

i think that's about enough.

i like my plan.

oops

2011-08-19T01:53:00.000-07:00

i'm running around the globe flying from ropes and dangling off stages as if i have the energy of a 19 year old. an experienced friend of mine told me that a body needs a lot of rest after a circus contract... like more than a week off. more than two weeks off. more like a month off.

well - i messed that up. guess it explains why i am in such agony and feeling so dysfunctional. it's been a growing sensation that peaks and subsides. i was trying to ignore it and be "tough" as usual.

i've been training hard to develop a number for my GOP contract. you ask, why yet another number? because every time i'm on the rope, i keep developing my style and my technique. what worked for me in January doesn't work anymore. i'm worse than the computer industry... as soon as you purchase a routine, that model is outdated.

so i am simply trying to put together a compact, body-friendly set of tricks that represent my current level for the next 4 months of shows. the music i am working with is really neat-o... but i've struggled to figure out how to use it without looking like a 12 year old from 1983... meaning, accents in all the over-obvious places.
i've also been learning how to find a new kind of movement - clean and gentle.
before, i was sharp and strong- almost gymnastic
then with Bouffon i learned to be flowing and gentle with the help of Konstantin
and now with the new music, i need to blend the two - into a third thing. so instead of the "clean and jerk" i am going for the "clean and gentle".
it's a subtle thing to use STRONG music - and not let it PULL you around, but to be stronger than your music without using a melodramatic show of force.
i need to somehow coax the music into following MY lead... and it's difficult to strike that balance. i don't want to fall flat - and miss the accent and edges, nor do i want to set off 14 atomic bombs and slightly overcook my perm. i just need to find ....

the sweet spot.

at the moment, the only spot i find sweet is under my blanket with the blinds pulled down and snoring like a kitten who just snorkeled a bowl of warm milk. that's about what i feel up for today.

turns out...

2011-08-17T02:26:00.000-07:00

guess what:

i like my new costume.

i am so sore - i think it's a good thing. i've been training really SMART, but not too hard.

i get to have internet in my kitchen now!

i get to be home alone for the next two weeks!

i found a physiotherapist here in Berlin who will be able to help me.

i feel like i am still "coming down" off the last contract and that a true vacation has to be 1 month: minimum.

i went a little crazy with the butter last night while i was baking. The cake i made is practically moo-ing.
the borscht i made was fantastic.

i still don't have a new rope routine, but at least i still have ideas worth trying out.

it feels so good to be a little more relaxed! i forgot how nice it was to feel good! and interestingly, i don't mean: i'm in less pain, that i get more work done now or that i am generally happier...
what i mean is: that some tightly bound resonating coil inside of me has cooled off about 12,000 degrees and the high pitched squeal emanating from my aura that was piercing dog ears within a 200 miles radius.. has finally dropped into the range of human hearing. though it is still buzzing like 40 miniature violins playing the "Queen of the Night" aria at quadruple speed while 17 alto sopranos sing their eyeballs out.... at least the pitch has been coming down. I feel so much better. WOW. I'm practically a different person i think.

i still want to train handstands, violin and maybe some Ukrainian folk dancing... and play more piano. i won't be doing rope forever... so it's time to sit back, relax and do nothing before i get around to doing all the stuff i want to do.

yay

2011-08-15T17:33:00.000-07:00

yay yaya yayayaya.

i just watched old videos of my rope stuff. and I've changed! it's official!

i really have gotten more flexible. i really am different. I AM I AM I AM> i can't doubt it anymore. sure - these changes have taken a year, but hell - THEY ARE HAPPENING! it's awesome.

ok. NOW i can go to bed.

HAPPY.

nevermind~!

2011-08-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

forget what i said about babysitting. the tables turned. the next day I had the breakdown. then the day after that, the tables turned again and she was the one crying. then the day after that - WE STILL weren't communicating and I AM STILL FEELING UNHEARD.
so that's enough of that.

i'm not going to bother explaining. i've done enough attempting to explain myself. it's clear to me that while it is NOT fully MY responsibility to ensure communication, that I could do my part better. so in the future, i plan to do better. i'll learn. eventually.

next point- is: i've been increasingly aware of how focused on positive i've been. like - weirdly so. i'm so anxious about whether or not i am positive. at the moment, i am finding that positively ridiculous and just as silly as being negative about things. i think it is time to just be about things and let the good and bad come. i am GOING TO BE NEGATIVE SOMETIMES. i am GOING TO BE POSITIVE SOMETIMES. the crux of the matter is that i don't have the energy to sit around worrying if i am positive enough. i know i am. i am not like one of the people that i judge... and hope that i am not like. i know that i am not like them. so enough. stop worrying about it and move on.

and finally: i have become aware of myself alittle these last three "costume" intensive days... 1) i do not like to give other people control
2) i may not know what i want, but i am VERY CLEAR about what i dont want
3) i would be in my comfort zone if i could "do everything myself."

eh well - so that is who i am for today. good bad or otherwise. i don't care. i don't have the left over energy to sit around and judge myself about it. Marion helped me come to this new place - not exactly this one - but related. and... ironically, Marion is also representing the most painful thing about communication:
i don't feel heard!

maybe it's my fault. okay. oh well.

nothing has happened that is going to cause the Circus tent to fall down.

just a lot of frustration wrt communication in my life right now.

and i'm working on my new routine for GOP and it is not coming together - normal.
it's normal for things to be like this. i'm probably pushing a little too hard a little too fast and i'm probably anxious and judgmental and it's not helping. i might break down and cry about it in another day or two and then i am sure everything will work out fine. so. i'm going to bed now.... after i rub some hot sesame oil on my sore muscles.

tomorrow i hope i find time to actually cook something to eat. today was one of those "survive on trail mix days". yuck. horrible.

but then again. who cares. i'm going the right direction so i won't sweat the small stuff. of course the other part of my brain is screaming: THAT"S NOT SMALL NOTHING IS SMALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
but i'm just going to turn the volume down on that right now. it's nuts and raisins, folks... not diet coke and ice cream. so i think i will be okay. i'm just going to go to bed.

training day Berlin

2011-08-12T13:52:00.000-07:00

well today my morning was used by my friend, landlady and costume maker. she is feeling stressed out and tired and has to make my costume. she's a smart lady and i love her - but she needed a little babysitting this morning. i so very much want this costume... and yet i am so very aware that the ENERGY with which the costume gets made will affect the costume.

So - i dropped what i was doing and focused on what i could do to help the energy in the place. there was a frazzled, annoyed and irritated vibe- and that couldn't help at all. we made great progress, she and i! we talked about all the misunderstandings and miscommunications that were going on... and though it felt like walking on eggshells strewn over thin ice... I DID IT!

(for today anyway)

i was happy with how i stayed calm. i was happy that i understood what was happening and didn't take the situation personally. i was really happy with how we came through the sticky moments.

so far, the costume looks great... but we've only got a handful of days before she leaves for Spain. yeah. not the ideal schedule - but she made the plans, not me. anyway. trusting trusting trusting trusting trusting.... just gonna keep trusting cuz there is no other way to move forward.

then i went to the gym and did my new workout. whew. it was good. and difficult. and then i wanted to go home - but i had to rig my rope and work on my new act. which i didn't want to do at all. but i did it anyway.

i am working on some more re-training. i think the way i have been using my shoulders has been crushing my neck and causing head-aches. you know, honestly... i have to admit the ROPE is NOT a bio-mechanical piece of equipment. i'm frustrated. i am very frustrated. this is a hard road. i am putting my body through HARD THINGS.... and yet i want to create beauty.

i can't tell you the number of times i have considered using OTHER equipment or developing an act that is BIOMECHANICALLY healthy... but i just have a LOVE for my rope... and besides all that - i have a CONTRACT on my rope RIGHT NOW ... that is starting in less than 3 weeks.... so..... i don't have a choice at the moment. i can only choose to work on rope in as HEALTHY a way as i can figure out. and so i feel alone. because i am learning all the time about the things that i didn't know before. and my body is the only body i have... and it is the instrument that is having to go through this learning process with me.

i think about the day when i don't do rope anymore. i mean - i don't really want to do it FOREVER... i want to do it NOW. i think about all the ways i will REST my body... but then i realize that i could learn how to be a better rester NOW.

so i am resting into my own craziness. and resting into how little i rest. and i am resting into finding a way to make this do-able and ENJOYABLE... and i just gotta make choices that will actually work for me.

i think this blog is somewhat broken record like. i am hounding and pounding on the same doors all the time. well - LET THAT BE A RECORD OF HOW SLOWLY TRUE CHANGE OCCURS! let this be proof of how ACTUAL LIFE unfolds one cell at a time!

i will now go eat some potatoe, leek, cabbage soup that i made... because i think it will be a good topping on the chocolates i just ate. and maybe before then, HOT SHOWER! YES! oh i feel better just thinking about it.

been feeling some fascinating new mobility in my low back - of course associated with pain... but what else is new.
been enjoying how i KNOW the city of Berlin and how i can zip my way anywhere on the trains here.
been enjoying my KITCHEN and how i can COOK stuff and make MESSES!
i bought some baking supplies at the grocery store today... so that i can BAKE yummy things.

i'm happy to have a new book to read - recommended by my mother - Leo Tolstoy's The Cossacks
I'm looking forward to going to sleep. It was a tiring day. Some girl was in my head talking to me all day about what i should and shouldn't be doing and i kept telling her to be quiet... but i think what i need to do is find something else for her to do. i can't just say: "BE QUEIT!" she really wants a JOB to do.... so that i can sit around and relax. maybe i will kick back, have a beer and watch the Simpsons. HA!
THAT is a joke. but it COULD happen.... just not likely.

Recapitulation

2011-08-11T11:05:00.003-07:00

yesterday i didn't understand why i let myself get so wrapped up (in the writing) by the concept of love. i kept going back and editing bits and wondering: how did i start asking this question and how did i get here??? sure, it was an interesting thought train... and besides, i was using WRITING as an excuse to keep me from going to the gym to train... so i just KEPT writing.
But today, i had a little more clarity on WHY that question is even important: regardless of the answer.

what am i really seeking at the moment? what do i lack? what is the drive here?

I am STILL uncomfortable with my body. fundamentally, that is what prompted all that talk of happiness, sadness, apathy and love.... I am still trying to figure out what attitude to take about my body and the physical nature of my current work.
Sure, Sure - I know. I have a beautiful body. I do. I know it. HOWEVER, 1) my body is in pain, so that implies it is not functioning properly and 2) I STILL hold an aesthetic value and a set of standard: "what i should be able to do's" that i am currently not satisfying.

My body attitude is MUCH healthier than when i was an 18 year old in being turned away from professional ballet schools. I see the beauty of my body style as well as the beauty of other body styles. i realize that different body styles have different abilities and i know it's my job to BE my body style and BE that style to it's best.

But let's stay a little more organized in today's writing:

Statement of the Problem:

Physical Pain and Emotional Pain
- Physical Pain because I am not yet aware of or able to perform my job duties in a technically and bio-mechanically healthy way
- Emotional Pain because I have a lingering frustration with my life path.... because the most "obvious" way to the technical ability that i want, is to be enrolled in a professional training program as a child and I was not. Between the ages of 15-20 I studied dance in classes that did not educate a correct use of the body and established poor posture habits. between the ages of 20 -29 i was trying to find a life NOT as a professional artist... and spend years looking other directions.

NOW - i am 33 years old and holding RIDICULOUSLY high expectations of myself to perform to the flexibility and level of a Ukrainian Contortionist.

Hmmm. okay. perhaps we can see where some of the mental confusion and discord is coming from!?!?!?!

So that was why I was trying to THINK my way through the "how should i live life" question. Because I am looking for a REASON to push myself through training everyday as I inchworm MICROSCOPICALLY closer to my REAL goals... of being able to do the over-splits.

BUT for a girl that wants to do the oversplits and backbends... i don't spend much time DOING the splits or DOING backbends.... and i have many MIXED PHILOSOPHIES (voices in my head) telling me the "RIGHT" way to correct my situation. Since I am not of a SINGLE MIND, my progress is FURTHER devoured into the void of inner waffling.

I need a life-clue. I need to know if I should be questing for HAPPINESS(don't train so much!), SADNESS(TRAIN MORE!) or apathy.... (train if you feel like it and if you don't then who cares!!?!?!) or for something else..... and i was using the word : LOVE, but i don't think that word fits very well. Not that the exploration wasn't valid... but I am (for myself and my own sense of clarity) trying to understand the "point" of it all. I only want to work to answer the question if it's really going to make a qualitative difference in my life RIGHT NOW.

PROPOSED SOLUTION:

if i could answer the question of which Life-Focus to employ, I could apply that answer to my training dilemma.
if
pursue:
happiness - then TRAIN LESS!
sadness as a means to happiness - then TRAIN MORE ! A LOT MORE.
apathy - then who cares if you train or not?
"love" / center point / persnickitude / balance - then TRAIN WITH A GOOD ATTITUDE ---- which doesn't really help me out at the moment... because 'having a good attitude' is what i can't seem to muster from the caverns of my heart.

--- so that was the origin of the massive blob of blog that came out. ---

SO WHAT I REALLY DISCOVERED IN WRITING THAT - was, i was LOOKING for a justification to RELAX AND NOT TRAIN - because i Couldn't muster a good attitude... and i was feeling desperate inside. anxious. far from California.... on a LONG PATH ... on a LONG ADVENTURE... to somewhere...i don't know where.

BUT! that's exactly what i wanted. a long adventure to an unknown destination. and i am RIGHT ON SCHEDULE! every artists needs a good week of fretting about silly things every now and then!

I want to know how to approach the next chapter of my life. I feel like its time for a little attitude growth.

Of course, the sign RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME WAS: "you're using a blog to avoid training. How about you just realize that you need some TIME OFF!!!!"
and i didn't realize that until today.

And on top of that: I remembered today that when I came back from Germany the first time, I spent A WEEK not training at all - and I was TERRIFIED that I was "broken". And then one day I got up off the couch and drove to San Francisco and started training again and then I came to Germany and got two contracts. So even though it has been more than a WEEK since I have done "real" training (NOTE TO SELF - BY WHO'S STANDARDS?) i remember now that i have already made it through times of "TRAINING PHOBIA" and come out on the other side.... employment worthy. SO IT'S OKAY.

i went to the gym today and did a few exercises. i can tell that my body needs something COMPLETELY NEW now. I will have to FIND this COMPLETELY new thing. the fact that i need something new now, is a good sign. it means that my body is STILL CHANGING. which MEANS THERE IS STILL HOPE! i still might reach my PERSONAL GOALS of being flexible. I'm going through a lot of pain to get there - and so far, a lot of the pain has been mental..... and physical.... and emotional. but not so bad. i mean - i am so happy to have THESE as my pains in life. What fantastic and LUCKY pains they are.

A final note:
I noticed that I hurt less today even though YESTERDAY, I spent the WHOLE DAY SITTING. but i was LETTING myself sit. There is still WAY to much INNER struggle going on in me. i am always TRYING and TRYING to RELAX.... and trying so hard to relax - that i don't even know what it means. My Attitude has more to do with my over-splits than I originally attributed.... and it is a TRICKY deep thing! BUT! it is coming out one little inchworm step at a time.

And there was ONE more note that crossed my mind - but I can't remember it now.

I really do want a teacher. I really do want to train VIOLIN, HANDSTANDS and STRETCHING..... I really do.

and I want to play more piano.

and i want another performance piece that IS NOT on rope.

and - - -

inching.....

onward.

the days

2011-08-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

**this snippet was written in the middle of July**

spin by. it is time to do the last weekend here in Koeln. We have two shows today and two tomorrow. This was a much better performing experience. LIving in Germany is easier on me than Mallorca was.
--------------------
had to rush to the tent and do two shows where that dotted line is. I didn't realize how late i'd woken up this morning. basically, there was just enough time ...

----------------------
interrupted again. had to check the flight back to Berlin, because Konstantin was worried Boul didn't buy him a ticket too. It wouldn't be the first time Boul had forgotten Konstantin. By the time I was done checking the ticket, I needed to take dinner off the stove before it burnt. So now I am done eating and it is time to take a shower. Essentially, there is really no time to write these days.

But I am determined. I will get a few more snippets in eventually.

WHOPPER

2011-08-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

ug.
i've been wanting to write - or feeling like i should... one of the two.
but i guess i haven't had the heart to write.

i sometimes feel like the motivation to write only comes along when i have something especially bad to say.
and i don't want that to be the case.

however, when things are good, i am out in life EXPERIENCING the good things.

at the moment, i am in Berlin. I am not working. I have FINISHED my first contract. I am paid and free. I did it. I am done.
I am in a lull. I am in the scoop of the wave.

In other words, i am in a natural slump. and boy do i feel slumpy.

that doesn't mean everything is bad. no, i really don't
want my life to be characterized by this focus on negativity... but there IS so much struggle inside me still. i think i am
seeing how focused on negativity i am, or HAVE been. and maybe that's okay too. maybe i can be positive about focusing on
things that are negative? eh. today i woke up feeling like, "whatever". i just can't analyze too much. yes. i do know how to
give myself a break.

two nights ago, i dreampt of a spider. The message there for me is "trust feeling rather than seeing." and so yesterday i tried to
return to that message when i felt myself clenching in thought.

but back to other things.

so the circus contract is over. it was a time characterized by people disrespecting me - and then pretending that it was only my
interrpretation of the situation - that if i was less uptight, then I would not have "felt" so disrespected. "you're too much in
your head." they told me.
my response?
well, sure - they may use a truth to defend their lie, but i still don't have to believe it was all my fault. sure, i'd like to
be a little less in my head. HOWEVER, just because they happen to observe one of my weaknesses doesn't mean they are absolved of
their responsibilities to be HONEST and RESPECTFUL people!

i was very disoriented much of the time. it is VERY hard to hold your own in a group of different people with different agendas. it
is so confusing when DIFFERENT LANGUAGES are added to the mix. some people want you to work for free, some people just want you to
feel bad about yourself, some people are jealous of you, some people are simply angling to make sex jokes all day long,
some people are angry, some people are stupid, some people are stressed out and can't see straight. it is so hard to know what to
take in as "real communication" and what to disgard as a "riccochet reflection of someone else's confused inner workings."

Poor Konstantin. He is such a good soul, but when he is stressed out, a part of him melts like a crayon in a vat of hot oil. His tone
of voice rises an octave, the speed of his speech accelerates to "olympic sprint" and his volume varies between inaudible and
blasting. Moreover, he is completely unaware of how he changes. He can't hear or see that he becomes a completely different person.
he is inside his own storm of stress and anxiety... a pirate on a stomy, briney sea.
It is so hard to work with him in those conditions. I am still SO sensitive to how people speak to me, it's true! It is one thing if the fat director uses a rude tone of voice with me. it is easier to see the toxic mud flying my way; to label the onslaught as such, to know i am hearing words, but not really LISTENING. i try to pull out a deflector shield and doge wildly to the left while holding up the plastic to keep the splatter from getting on my costume. I can immediately regard and then disgard what comes out of his mouth as pure garbage. it still takes psycological energy and effort on my part, but at least no sifting for nuggets of truth is required. At least it is a black and white situation.
On the other hand, when sharp words are coming
from someone you trust - from someone you collaborate with - it is more difficult to filter the necessary, from the "stressecary."
A collaborator is someone who sometimes needs to tell you the tough truths... someone who sometimes challenges you to see yourself in a
new way - and so there are open doors in the relationship...doors that open into tender places of the heart. When poison darts slip
through these doors and lodge into flesh, one is liable to have a stress response of their own - regardless of how many yoga postures
one did that morning. people have their limits.

for the trip to perform in an Italian Circus festival, the travel requirments were ridiculous. Thursday evening consisted of three hours in the car, a late dinner at a restaurant and getting up at 4am to catch a flight to Italy. So Friday began in an airplane followed by three hours of driving from Milan to Turin. Arriving at the tent, it was time to unload the truck and set up the show in a new tent. Completely different aerial rig heights make for bizarre and radically different dynamics in my act. I decided to simply deal with whatever I had to. I had gotten up that morning at 4am and had a show that night at 9pm. I couldn't admit to anyone that I thought it was crazy. I don't want to be labeled a "complainer". The sort of response i'm likely to get from a Russian is: RABOTIT RABOTIT, "work work!"
After the show, I reluctantly joined the group for dinner. My options were: 1) no food and -pay out of pocket- 20Eur cab ride to the hotel or 2) reliquish independence and join group at restaurant.

I opted for the restaurant. There was pressure from the group to demonstrate my group abilities. At the restaurant, my abilities all but fled the scene. my group abilities consisted of grouping up my tears into a napkin. I wound up sleeping with my arm over my face on a bench at an empty table. I was exhausted beyond belief and sitting at a table on a balcony in the middle of the italian night and unable to formulate any feeling other than, "I WANT TO SLEEP!" We didn't leave the restuarant until sometime between 2 and 3 am which meant i didn't get oriented into my hotel room until after 3am. i don't know why the food took so long to arrive at the table. Igor was angry, and tired and hungry as well. he has a much quieter way of dealing with his emotion. He took his pizza, folded it up and stuffed it into a plastic bag and jammed the bag into his backpack. he did not want to stay any longer at the restaurant either. Of course, i didn't actually see him do this because i was lying on a bench with my arm over my face. Konstantin told me later. Igor was one of the last people to receive his food. The food came in waves... like the waves of car sickness i had endured earlier that day in the back of a van blasting down the Italian autobahn.

It was horrible. No one told us that anything about the plan for the weekend. All we knew was we had a show on saturday and that we were not sleeping at the hotel another night. It was a one night stay. At the hotel, the poster on the back of the door said, "check out time, 10am". as i mentioned, it was already after 3am. i groaned at the thought of needing to be out by 10am... and then what? sleep at the circus tent? to make matters worse, the poster also said that
breakfast was served between 7am and 9am.
So, the next morning I drug myself downstairs at 8:50am to have a chance at food and try to discover what was going on. I was in a foul mood to say the least.

The hotel was atop a beautiful hill surrounded by nothing but trees and an old castle. It was a lovely location and the nature was rich and beautiful, and basking in the warm Italian sun. The trees were tall, lush, dark green and varied in texutre; creating a soft wind blown tapestry of rustling leaves outside my window. The view included far off mountains and a scape of red-rooftops in the valley between us. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming,the sky was blue and open.

My head was filled with a ragging headache and the burning pain of exhaustion. Not enough sleep.

The breakfast was dismal. There was no real food - but plenty of bleached white flour, glucose-fructose sirup, coffee water, modified food starch, sodium benzoate, chocolate morsels, non-hydrogenated vegetable shortning and sodium bicarbonate. The names of the "collected chemical packets" were confusingly labeled with the same names as actual food: "chocolate filled coissant", "puffed cereal", "bread roll", "strawberry jam", "chocolate hazelnut spread" ... but unfortunately, were NOT actual food. The packages SAID it was food, but upon entering my mouth, my tongue told me RIGHT AWAY that what I was eating was the chemical cousin of cardboard. They tell us we have 99% the same DNA as apes - well this food had 99% the same molecules as a newspaper.

I imagined these items assimilating into my blood stream and being converted into the muscle tissue that would be pulling me up the rope that evening. Dismal. It's a good thing that instead of eating pizza last night with everyone else, I made a HUGE PROBLEM and a SCENE for requesting "hot water for tea and cooked spinach and zuccinni to eat." If they made vegetarian pizza with spinach and zuccinni on top, how hard could it be to give me the vegetables with out the pizza? And if they had a kitchen, how hard could it be to bring me hot water? Why did people have to roll their eyes as if i was asking for a microphone and a soap box to annouce my diva-hood to every Olive and Salami in Italy?

I sat at the restaurant table and stared at the rose buds in my tea cup. They were my rose buds from a plastic tupperware in my suitcase. i couldn't bear to speak with anyone. Konstantin was annoying me beyond my wildest imagination. i felt like ripping my hair out and jumping off the balcony. i figured it was safer to not speak at all when that close to a downright panic attack.
Instead i wrote about 4000 negative thoughts down in my pocket journal. i just let the feelings fly out onto that paper as black and dark as they came.
lucky for me, my vegetables came first. i ate. and then while everyone else waited for their pizza and pasta, i fell asleep on the bench at the neighboring table. it was cold, but i held very still and the air around me warmed up slightly. i call this effect the astronaut blanket - like on Apollo 13.

That was dinner. At least there were vegetables.
So, as I chewed my cardboard breakfast bread roll and drank the coffee that was peed out of an automatic machine, i appreciated the vegetables from the night before. see, i'm being positive!

One of the other performers showed up in the breakfast room. I heard from him that we did not have to check out at 10am. Ah, relief. Then I overheard someone else in the breakfast confirm with the kitchen staff that the breakfast hours had been extended to accommodate their large group of kids in a weekend circus camp asssociated with the festival we were performing in.
HOW VERY CONVENIENT! Extended access to food-imposters and ALSO extremely convenient that I was informed of these things via eavsedropping and AFTER i drug myself out of bed early to make it to the chemical breakfast table on-time. How i LOVE organized and TIMELY communication.
This circus director of mine was truly living up to EVERY SINGLE sense of foreboding i had felt about him. My instincts and hunches of his decrepitude were accurate indeed.

So, I got to take a LONG nap after breakfast. It was quite a positive experience. Of course, i wanted to be exploring the Italian hillside and basking in the butterfly filled Italian sun, but I was sleeping in a hotel room that had a bunk bed and crayon scribbles all over the walls. At least I slept with the window open and the sound of the wind in the trees. it was indeed a very delightful nap. i restored just enough energy to make it through my warm-up, another rehearsal and another show. The audience was lovely and the people appreciative.

After the show, we tore everything down, packed it all up and loaded the truck and promptly drove three hours back to the airport in Milan. We then were allowed two hours to sleep before flying for over an hour and driving for another three hours and setting everything up in the tent again... and then performing again. To reinforce the idiocy of this experience let me clarify. After performing until 11:30 pm we loaded a truck and drove until 4am. We then woke up at 6am and went to the airport. We then landed back in Germany and retrieved the cars and hit the autobahn by 11am which put us back in Muenster at 2pm. We then unloaded the truck and re-rigged everything in the tent, and had just barely enough time to "warm-up" (if you want to call it that, it was more like --rolled on the floor in agony and disbelief for 20 minutes--) fixed hair and make-up, unrolled sweaty costumes from the luggage and put on a show at 5pm. I must note here: Konstantin did more work than anyone. He is the only one qualified to rig his straps and therefore becomes the default man responsible for rigging everything up top. Since he is up there to rig his own equipment, the director expects him to also rig everyone eles's equipment and adjust all the spotlights and carry all the heavy boxes and etc. etc. etc. Konstantin worked so much and slept so little that i expected him to look like an albino-blind-mole squinting under the glare of the spotlights, but he hung on to the very end: he performed both of his numbers without even being allowed any time to eat since 6am that morning... in fact, it is a good thing we had to STOP to re-fuel the CARS... because other wise he wouldn't have been given the chance to pee.
Seriously, i don't know how he did it. i hope he did not sell the last two months of his life in exchange. this circus does not deserve it. but he needs to learn to set better boundaries and not be used by Bouffons. (IMO)

I'm glad i've finally found the energy to tell this story... even if my telling is incomplete and scattered. it feels like a good vomit to get it all out. i'm a sensitive girl and my body doesn't take kindly to this sort of treatment. perhaps that is why my last few days in Berlin have been so "dysfunctional" feeling. i am actually still recovering from all this.

---------------- PART 2 ---------------------

well, today, i hope to ENJOY my training and to continue working out some of the stiff and frozen places in my back. i have slept in too many awkward and uncomfortable positions on planes, trains, trucks and hotels in the last few weeks to even remember what a comfortable sleeping position is. i miss my california bed. my back likes that bed. i stuck a bunch of boards under my mattress here in Berlin to try and firm it up, but in the morning, i still feel slightly like a frog or a turtle who sat too long in one place and is sinking into the swamp silt. i have to paddle my way out of bed and wipe the swamp crust from my eyes... when my feet hit the ground they feel like wooden blocks attached to the ridgid, cracking posts of my legs. my back is cramped and i hear the voices in my head arguing:

"you should do your exercises! yoga will help you, use the warm sesame oil! do your breathing exercises!"
vs.
"i don't want to be disciplined! i am tired! i just want this pain to go away! can't life be easy for a little while?"
vs.
"but you need to train patiently to correct these places of tightness,
you know what you need to do on a daily basis to create a new and stable posture of health. you NEED to be disciplined to make this
pain go away!"
vs.
"but you are a task-master! you never give me a break! here i am in recovery and i can't even recover because i am
in so much pain and you won't give me a day without telling me i need to do exercises. did i ever mention to you that exercises hurt!!
how can i relax when i'm in pain and to exercise is pain? how can i feel good about any of it?"
vs.
"good things come with patience and dedication! i am not a task-master, i am a voice of logic and practicality. life is not about
pursuing happiness and comfort. pain is a part of life. don't run away from pain. if all you ever do is seek pleasure, you'd just eat
ice cream and lie around watching movies all the time. i know you're tired, but you're just too sensitive. if you weren't so sensitive, then you wouldn't
have been so affected by all the stress. you just need to buckle down and be disciplined like those beautiful ukrainian
contortionists. what would Leslie say to you now??? come on, girl - you're in the circus! it's not a walk in the park!"
vs.
"but you don't understand! sometimes i just can't anymore! somehow i have to learn to RELAX and how can i learn that when you are always hounding me to exercise and stretch?? if i never relax inside, then no amount of stretching will ever help me! of course i need to train my body, i KNOW i have problems, but i also need to train in the RIGHT WAY! and i need HELP at the moment. I need help and i don't know who can help me right now. I can't do this alone and I can't do this with so many voices in my head arguing all the time. i need some PEACE and QUIET... and i need to resolve this before too many more days go by, because my next contract is COMING
and i want to be ready. so just CHILL OUT and let's try to find a balanced path."
vs.
"sure, okay, but drinking coffee and eating a pastry or two and several bowls of ice cream is not going to help - you USE your 'balance and relax' argument to justify doing things that are
NOT GOOD FOR YOU AT ALL! How can I allow such bad behavior and subtle trickery into your life? hmmm tell me that!?!?! Self-deception is not healthy either!!!"
vs.
"AHHHH I DON'T KNOW! just
shut-up and leave me alone! i can't handle all this chatter. i'm going to be productive and healthy today... i just need to have some fun. i know that pastries aren't good for me... but i don't know how to reward myself. i am SO addicted to sugar. i told you already:
i know i need help - i know i need some good inspiration and support from the outside. I'm working on it. god damn it! i am working on it."

and so on. you get the idea.

so positivity has been a hard thing to find lately. i have A LOT OF IT... but it seems to come in equal dosage with the negativity. I'm tired. i'm just tired and willing to use a little apathy to get me through. Thus, my waking thought: "whatever."

things are great. i'm doing exactly what i set out to do. i am gathering exactly the kinds of experiences that i needed and wanted. i am learning through living. i am being. i am struggling and i am having moments of beauty in between.

who knows? who cares. everyone says i am "living my dream." well - yeah. i am. what exactly does that mean? are they not? am i lucky? i feel lucky.

are they lucky? i hope they feel lucky too. i don't want to feel bad because i am suffering through the ecstacy of living my dream and they aren't.

confusing.

buddah-ish philosophies say we shouldn't quest for happiness, because it will leave us with empty hands: a futile quest.. and i understand this and appreciate related philosophical ideas such as "detachment" and "acceptance". But here is how I feel:

if i can exercise a moderate amount of detachment and acceptance, i find it helpful in maintaining a balance and an inner center - but then what? what CAN i pursue in life? i can't be TOO detached, because that leads to lethargic apathy for everything. if i listen to detachment and acceptance ONLY, then i will have no drive at all. so instead, i look for some direction that is WORTH pursuing. so i look around the universe and i notice that i LIVE IN a universe full of opposites- i live in a dualistic dimension. there is happiness and sadness. negativity and positivity, dark and light. there is a spectrum, there are extremes and i can choose anything i want. i am free to choose. that's great, BUT i need to decide what i'm choosing. where am i going?
if pursuing happiness, i'm told it will leave me sad and empty, but certainly it cannot mean that i should pursue sadness!
the universe is not a simplistic joke of "opposites day!"

you will not find me whipping my own back with a bamboo rod in order to attain enlightenment. (but perhaps i inadvertantly do this in a figurative way at times? maybe this is something i should actually address in my attitude? Perhaps I am a bit of an ascetic circus monk?)
Well, in my *conscious* mind, i know that pursuing sadness is not the way. What then, IS the way?
The simple answer is: get away from the endpoints, girl! So i look to the principle of BALANCE, that implies i should pursue something in the gray realm of sort-of-happy-and-sort-of-sad... in other words, some pain and some pleasure? And suddenly the "simple" answer is not so
simple any more.

Great - so it's back to the 'ol pattern of life... searching in the dark for the balance that "works for me." It'd be nice to bump into an absolute every now and then - even if it did mean a stubbed toe on the dresser. HOw can i know "how much" happiness to pursue and "how much" sadness to accept?
There is no trigonometric identity or integration rule that tells me. There is no commandment in the bible that says i should feel 34 pounds of happiness and 26 kilograms of sadness. i spent years studying math... because the absolutes made me comfortable. out here in the world, it's not like that. you can build a skyscraper using geometry, but you can't take the derivative of your feelings and get an "A" stamped on your forhead by the "Life Authority for Good Girls". So then my head hurts and i struggle through life and i wake up feeling critical or apathetic or sore or grumpy... and i still want an answer... or something to "go for".

and then i have the thought:

"It's not about happy or sad, it's just about LOVE."

[insert sappy sound sigh here ug!]
LOVE? what is that? what do i mean? PEACE? or CENTER? or STILL POINT? maybe CENTER POINT is a better term... but still, what does it mean? i may as well use the word "Persnickitude"... depending on how i define it. so what is "LOVE" and why would i think that's what life is about?

and then the arguments begin:

If God is love (this statement is loaded with religious and philosophical implications that i will not side-track into explaining or clarifying - just accept it as a fairly good, though not literal, summary of what i believe. or alternately, If God is a Persnickitudinal CENTER POINT...)

and

God made nature

and

nature consumes my cousin David (God rest his soul) into a hole in the ground

and

natural lions eat natural gazelles...

then something about LOVE isn't very concerned with HAPPY or SAD.

could this be???

and furthermore:
LOVE is not apathy either. There is no apathy when you loose a family member. There is no apathy in the eyes of the gazelle as it's throat is being crushed in the jaws of the lion. There is no apathy in wanting to be in Germany, but missing my mother in California... it's not happy, it's not sad and it's definitely not stagnant, lethargic, apathy. It's love??? It seems to be a rather ferocious energy...

and apparently, Love is not who I thought it was. (as my list of ex-boyfriends would seem to indicate as well.)

"But love is all we need." (hippie music playing faintly in my subconscious)
so what then am i questing for? to be eaten by a lion? no. to be swept into the ocean? no. to be a star in the circus? no. to eat ice cream all day? no.

my mind takes one final swerve in an attempt to avoid hearing that music still playing in my subconscious, "PLEASE DON'T PLAY THE HIPPIE LOVE CARD!" it screams. "I'd rather justify happiness than LOVE! besides, you can't even DEFINE LOVE! and you're using some generic geometry term 'center point'... because you're not even sure what you mean by 'love'... how is that possibly accurate!!!!??! come on... it's all about happiness, not this persnickitudinal love thing."

(amazing how the mind will torture me with guilt in an attempt to validate the importance of happiness... the irony cracks me up.)

"you could be worse off!" the mind tried to convince me, "think of all the people naked and starving in africa or think of all the people with serious diseases like cancer or think of all the people who don't have a job or think of all the people who were born with down's syndrom or think of all the people who died from malaria or think of all the people who didn't have a chance to go to school and now have to work their job in the chemical food-imposter chocolate croissant factory... think of all the people who are WORSE OFF THAN YOU! You should
just be HAPPY for who you are, HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY......"

"you should be happy...."

but no! this argument doesn't work either. here's why:
relativity is a fact of physics, but not a healthy way to choose how you feel about your life.
"since Suzy got Lyme's disease, then I shouldn't feel sad that i lost my car keys." or "since Bob is dying of AIDS, i shouldn't feel sad about my amputated leg." or "since Sarah doesn't have work right now, I should be happy that I have a job working for an asshole."
Obviously, too much relativity is ridiculous. It's an important tool, but a dangerous one.
After all, i am currently inside MY BODY, i was born into this, one, discrete, physical body. i have been given a certain PERSPECTIVE from which i see the world. i am this person; this subatomic particle. we are all quantized into discrete particles of life. we all stand behind our own eyeballs.

if i constantly jump out of my own life in order to view the world from other peoples' perspectives, then i abdicate my point in space. i give up one of the very very few "absolutes" available in my life. I will not actually BE or BECOME anyone else, nor will I truly be MYSELF - I will be fractured reflection of what my PROJECTIONS of THEIR feelings are.
Of course, It's good and healthy to KNOW and respond to the REALITY i'm not the only diva with a soap-box, but it's bad to calculate my own position/velocity/worth based on other RELATIVE particles! In other words, the diva-hood and dilemas of other people are just as relative and relevant as mine. Some people have more dilemmas, some people have more diva. How could it be up to ME to decide where I fit in... much less SUZY and BOB and SARAH? I am simply one of the particles in the mess! It's not my job to line up the particles from tallest to shortest, or oldest to youngest, happiest to saddest and then rate the particles in comparison with another. It's my job to be a "me".... though exactly WHO that is... is still under considerable research investigation.
Anyhow, if Relativity WERE the correct way to choose an emotional outlook, how many of us would be forced to be "happy" simply because we weren't standing in line to be burned to death in a jewish prison camp oven?
Clearly, relativity is not my answer.

So i cannot guilt myself into being happy using the argument of "relativity."

So..........
that's when i try to formulate a life quest in gray terms... maybe even using the idea of "love"? how does this sound:

i will remain detached and acceptant to the degree i am able to: including the acceptance of moments in which i am completely unable to be detached and acceptant. (is this love?) i will apply my actions towards happiness and goodness, believing in my right to *enjoy living*... (this is LOVE?)and sadness? pain? confusion? what about these parts of life? neither ice cream nor meditation will make sadness go away... neither running from sadness, nor facing it with a bamboo whip will provide a final solution. i don't have an answer. it seems a thing one must just accept. (is that love?) but, according to what i said above, i will *accept this as best i am able*, which sounds very much (again) like Love?
as in "love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things..." eeeehhhhhh i don't know if i like the direction this is going.... sounds like lots of uncomfortable situations to me.

So, conclusion? prepare for discomfort?

?

what exactly is "love" doing? how is it SOLVING the questions in me? Just saying "LOVE" maybe makes the sentences sound "mature and smart" or "like you're finally in your thirties" or "more like a Hallmark commercial" ...

but it doesn't actually CHANGE the difficulty of certain moments in life!!! Does it actually HELP to say, "In my life quest, I focus on Love." ?? Ask Jesus, living a life of love does not reduce the chance of aches, pains and suffering. In summary: Using "love" as an answer doesn't exactly fill the nooks and crannies of anxiety in me with a warm, fuzzy feeling.

More investigation required:

What exactly is LOVE and how exactly did I begin asking this question, why am I here again and what does it matter? more importantly, will this thinking exercise make me happier?

----
i think what i am trying to do is define love as a alternate-neutral to apathy... but with positive overtones... because i am desperate to be positive and happy.
i.e.
sadness = bad
apathy = neutral with negative tones
love = neutral with positive tones
happiness = good.

WHAT A TRICKY LITTLE TRICK that would be! but anyway, let's continue with the ideas and see where they go.

------------- PART 3 -----------------------------

Okay, let's start over:

if God is love,
and God made nature,
then love can be found in nature....
presumably....
?

or?

well, if so: it would mean that:
Love seems to be a thing that kills, creates, destroys and renews... it is a force
that protects, reveals, burns, waits, drives, soothes, grates... it seems that love looks like many things...

so theoretically:
love kills prey to feed a predator; love creates a baby, a new tree, a song; love destroys a rock with a running river; love renews a plant with rain, a heart with quiet, a belly with food; love protects turtle with a shell, a child with a mother; love reveals the truth of the matter without bias; love burns forests with fire; love waits for summer and then waits for winter and without hurry, waits for summer again. love doesn't count the passing of time... love can be found in sunny day and a lightning bolt, a furry bunny rabit and a shark, the vacuum of outer space and the bacteria in a dirt clod and the plaque on a beaver's tooth... so, love is diverse and flexible...love is found in death and life and......

so if love is ALL THAT, then what is LOve NOT? how can love be death and life and killing and growing and hot and cold and ... and ... and ... what guides love? how does love know who love is? how can love be everything? this theoretical definition is starting to feel like another new-Age hippie cop out. "love is everything." "we are all one." well, OKAY... i DO believe in the great Oneness, but what about my ACTUAL QUESTION: what am i living for? what am i striving for? how much happiness am i allowed to seek?

Is nature a reflection of love?
Maybe Nature isn't a reflection of love? maybe my thought experiment needs to change track.
Let's veer onto another street and try a new idea:

Maybe love can only be found in HUMANS.
Maybe that is what makes humans DIFFERENT and SPECIAL from the rest of nature. (i know, i'm assuming that we ARE different and special. which not ALL people agree on, but i believe it and this is MY BLOG, so there.)
But even so, does that help me understand LOVE? or who love is? or how to LIVE MY LIFE and not sit around eating ice cream all day? OR WHY MY BACK HURTS SO MUCH AND I DON'T WANT TO GO TO THE GYM TODAY AND I AM DREADING THE NEXT TIME I TRY TO DO THE SPLITS????? HOW COME I CAN'T CHANGE MY POSTURE FASTER? blah blah blah ETC.

So I am STILL ASKING:

WHO IS LOVE?
IS ~Love~ the ultimate masked super-hero?????

so maybe the life quest is to discover the masked super-hero's true identity ---- WHO IS LOVE?

and if this were a Disney Movie (which maybe it is) the discovery would be, that it is YOU. and in my case, that it is ME. LOVE IS ME. it is my quest to be love. i need to discover that, in fact, I AM LOVE.
i need to change like nature changes: i need to be rain and sun, night and day, quiet and storm, prey and predator. there is room in life for seasons and change. there is room in life for happiness and sadness. there is room in life for acceptance and struggle! there is room for it all. there is room for ice cream, death, paychecks, vaccations, sore muscles, assholes, misunderstandings, stress, relief... there is room for everything. there is a bathroom, a bedroom, a living room... even a exercise room... love can handle it ALL. we don't have to walk through the gray, pulpy mass of the middle ground, the middle class, politically correct balance point of "some pleasure after some pain."... 2 days off after a 40 hour work week...

[music swells to a penultimate, tear-jerking, climax while popcorn spills unnoticed out of your fingers and you move to brush a tear from your cheek leaving a little streak of artificially-flavored, butter-like, chemical-imposter-substance on your left upper lip.]
(Disney Movie continues and all loose ends of life-question-anxiety are tied up into a HUGE, beautiful, red Hallmark bow)

instead - we can strive for EVERYTHING in love. i will be love. love can love un-love. love can contort to manage any paradox.

......Credits roll ...................

I don't know. how does that make you feel? Personally, I am still a little un-sure of it all.

or maybe it really is true:

love covers a multitude of sins... meaning - love handles all confusion.

?

BUT!

but, exactly what is love again? did we define it? what does this mean about the moment to moment life decisions? what does this mean about the next time i feel like flipping someone off and punching them in the face? or jumping off an Italian Balcony while throwing pizzas at crappy circus directors... i mean, i've BEEN working on living a life focused on "love" and i still have these moments of lame-ness. so, have i REALLY come up with an ANSWER HERE? no. not really. still not.

how do I know what IS love and what is NOT love? maybe it would be love to throw a pizza at a circus director in SOME situations. how can i know? there are certainly lots of love-imposters out there too. is valentine's day love? or is it a chemical love-like imposter? when is "tough love" actually called for? when is is "tough love" just an egotistical imposter? there are some tricky tricky situations in life. all this thinking about things, and still nothing has gotten any easier. I still don't feel any real: SUPER CONFIDENCE. God damn it: studying math really was easy compared to this.

it's a tricky thing... thinking.

i'm sick of writing. i could keep writing. i mean, i could twist up more words into sentences that would explain how i'm deciding that EMBODYING LOVE is the greatest quest of life and it's meant to be a QUEST and a process: I don't have to do it all right the first time.. and it doesn't have to be CORNY, like a Disney Movie. I could explain how I'm learning that making mistakes is great (or at least OKAY) and that is what forgiveness is all about and how i'm learning to forgive myself and love myself
and all that - and i could write for another hour or two and explain that i think the way to KNOW THE NATURE OF LOVE is through FEELINGS, not THINKING and that we can trust our INSTINCTS and CONSCIENCE to be our GUIDE as we quest for love... and blah blah blah... and things could continue to borderline between --completely subjective blather-- and maniacal attempts to be reasonable....

but i am tired now and sick of writing and i just dont want to do it anymore. maybe it is a sign: enough thinking (thinking = writing) for the morning - try some feeling. ("FEELING? but what is that and how do you do it?" my mind screams in a panic.)

"oh shut up," i reply to my mind. "just try it on for size... consider it like a shopping fling at an expensive dress shop. You only have to buy it if you absolutely LOVE it."

i don't know. in any case, i'm just going to leave these loose ends hanging. because love can do that, it can let me do that. no, i'm not trying to create a "blanket definition" and cop out of every difficult question by saying "love can do that, and that and that too! love can do anything, just use your feelings, watch Star Wars and 'feel the Force, Luke'" ...
but enough is enough!

i can't sit here all day and bang my head against ideas at the computer. well, i could. but i don't want to. except, i accidentally did anyway... because this took so long to write down and think through. i really am thinking about all these things... i'm not just writing to work my fingers out.

--------- ~~~~

By the way, it has taken me SIX DAYS to arrive at my FIRST ACTUAL DAY OFF - i didn't do any training this morning, I am still in my pajamas, spent well over six hours writing this blog... thinking about things and making small edits to it.... i will likely miss (i mean, ALREADY DID MISS) my scheduled time at the training gym today, i drank two cups of coffee and ate three chocolates for breakfast and now i going to have left over spagetti with mushrooms warmed up in a frying pan... all that and frankly, i don't give a damn. AH. The relaxation is finally beginning to hit me. I'm actually giving myself a day off. AMAZING.

I think it's time for a nap.

Circus life

2011-07-07T06:49:00.000-07:00

you know you're in the circus when....

you smell popcorn while performing your act. or worse, sausages and mustard.

you can't get up until 11am in the morning... or when you can't go to bed until 3am. and when being somewhere other than sleeping in bed at 9am seems like the most ridiculous joke of impossibility...

you dream about doing the contortion over-splits but wake up feeling like a cement truck crashed in your joints.

a week passes without seeing anything but:
1) the tent, the dressing room and the stage
2) the underside of your blanket, the toilet and the shower, your toothbrush
3) the inside of the fridge, the plate you eat off of and your dirty fork when you're done
4) your workout mat and your legwarmers

you know you're in the circus when you cry more often. you know you're in the circus when you laugh more often... when all you watch on youTube is other circus videos.

you know you're in the circus when all your clothes smell, no matter how or how often you wash them.

you know you're in the circus when you have to go do your act even though you missed your chance to pee at intermission - or when you have a headache - or when you're on your period - or when you're feeling homesick - or when you have a foot cramp - or when you're hungry - or when you have really uncomfortable gas - or when you're sore from the last 5 days of work - on fat days too ... when you're happy, sad, confused, frustrated, lonely... you have to take it all out on stage. the show is the show... and you have to show up.

there is a solace in the show - even though it is a repetition over and over and over... at least it is predictable. in some ways it is comforting. all you have to do is the next que... and then the next and then the next. once the show starts - there is nothing to do but follow the course. it would be crass to call it is ritual. but it is sometimes an escape. there is an alternate-ness to it.

i need to go lie down and rest a little bit before i head to the tent.

experiment

2011-07-06T06:27:00.000-07:00

1
I am living in the countryside. It is fall, the air is crisp and the apples are sweet. Each day, i spend time with Grandma Hillside. She is my companion now and my teacher. She is a very old woman and round like a dumpling. She doesn't know everything, but she has a quiet spirit and gentle hands. She has taught me how to cook simple foods from the countryside. She has shown me where various herbs grow in the woods. She has walked with me across the yard and shown me how to milk the goat. In the evenings we sit by the fireplace and sew or talk. We speak slowly and about simple things, because i am still learning to speak her language. There are no noises from cars. There is no supermarket nearby. There is no chocolate in the pantry. I can make bread now. I wear clothes that I have sewn myself. The only mirror in the house is hand sized shard that rest on the windowsill in living room. There is no indoor bathroom. We draw water from a well. My life is simple. there are no men: just me and Grandma Hillside. I have time to sit under the apple tree in the yard. I have time to read books and write. I spend time each day cooking. I spend time tending the garden. And I spend time with Grandma Hillside. She will be gone someday. Her family is off in a city somewhere, uninterested in her simple country life. But I want to have this simple life. I want all the noise and odors and foul tasting food to leave my life. I have run away to the countryside to a world that time has forgotten to heckle - to a place without internet and I will live here for a solid year or two... and then? and then what? where would my life be going then?
is that what i want?

2
i read an article about tumeric and it reminded me of the true Ayurveda that i studied. i have been living a "false" ayurveda. and in the first moments of reading this article, i begin to feel sad - i want to return to that feeling of clean purity in my body. and then i remember why i am living the way i am. i can't (or decided i couldn't) deal with the world, traveling, circus and changing residences while living a truly ayurvedic life. it was requiring too much of me - all systems on "meager" meant too lack and not enough comfort. although, maybe i can begin to return now? maybe i have adjusted enough to the wiles of traveling that i can begin to return to the health i know is right. i need an environment that fosters my beliefs. i need to be around people that believe as i believe. i need to be around people who dont smoke and drink and eat meat. perhaps it is a sign of weakness on my part: that i do better when i am in a pure environment. when i am constantly around sugars and cakes and tasty, yet badly combined foods, my moments of fear and anxiety find me falling into sampling my old way of life. **it is truly too difficult to learn to be "nice" and "gentle" with myself, while SIMULTANEOUSLY purifying my life, traveling through europe, not having a home, working hard in circus and being in proximity to things like croissants***
and then i begin to ask myself, which is more important? to be pure? to be happy? to make a career for myself in which i make money? to leave society and find a home somewhere? how does it make sense? even the answer which i USUALLY fall back on doesn't work here:
BALANCE - because there are some life directions that you can't bring into balance. some paths don't have intersections and parallels with one another. i am at a time in life when the choices i make are becoming defining - or at least that is how i feel... or at least i want to make defining choices? because i am craving definition? because i crave security? or because i am hiking happily into my 30's and decisions feel different in these hillsides than the swampland of the 20's?

but here is another aspect- do i think that i can live a pure life only by removing myself from a normal environment? is it acceptable to want my environment to support me? of course it is, but to what degree? there are always degrees to things. i am not asking myself in to be a vegan who weighs 98 pounds and performs aerial rope daily while learning 2 new languages, figuring out how to train myself in handstands and living out of my suitcase. i am allowing myself some slack. but how much is the right amount? is it okay to eat salami sometimes? how many of the details matter and how many don't? most of the world let's the details go... but the rest of the world is NOT my standard... but is my standard too high? who can know? that is what the search is all about it guess. that is what Marion meant when she said that each costume was just a representation of my current location/position/situation. i don't need to think of costumes as the "ultimate" expression of who i am.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ah, Pisces! how i do love the "ideals" and "ultimates!" how i am swayed by the shinny lure of perfection... and how impractical these perfections are in the battle trenches of life. it is a matter of grays vs. blacks and whites. i have yet to learn _where_ _when_ and _how_ to place my dreams and ideals. battle trenches are perilous places to set fairy princess dreams.

it seems i am waffling between : isolate - and - integrate ... . .. .. ...

and the idea of finding a BALANCE between those two is unappealing to me - because there doesn't seem to be anything ABSOLUTE about a subjectively concocted mixture of methodologies. yes, the Pisces Penchant for the Absolute also keeps me driving along in life... SEEKING.... always SEEKING.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3
do i want to create a school?

4
do i want to be a body worker?

5
do i want to create a performance of my own?

6
do i want to think about this anymore? does thinking about it help? do i dare dream of doing it all? my papa's wise saying comes to me again: "you can do anything, but you can't do everything."
but maybe with enough time, i COULD do everything?!??!?!

but why do i want to do everything? will doing everything make me happy? or am i simply continuing to seek - because i don't trust that i am already enough - because i don't believe that simply being is enough - because because because.... why? remind me again?
??simply because that is what life is for? to do things?
??simply because i am a Pisces seduced by ideas of perfection and dreams of absolutes?

i'm not sure. but these are great questions.

let's summarize:

1
run away and live in the country with a babushka (step A find an available babushka)

2
run away and find situation where i can be ayurvedic again - monastery? (step A find a monastery)

3
perform in the circus until i make enough money to start my own school of art and performance (in that case... i'm already doing everything i can towards this end)

4
perform in the circus until i decide i want to take the rolfing/KMI training and start a practice (which, i could actually do now if i wanted to... but WHERE would i live?? i dont even know WHERE i want to live. interesting to note this option is CURRENTLY possible, unlike the prior 3)

5
perform with the circus and continue developing my art until i create and create and create and develop art of my own - my own expressions of life. all forms - singing, music, dance, acrobatics, rope, paintings, writing etc. and then create something performance of my own -- company? solo show? show with a band of close friends? show with a someday partner? a life of expression?

6
not think about anything and let chance take over

---------------

i felt the spark of direction. as i typed these out, only ONE of the six options gave me a flicker of recognition. which one? well, i will let you guess. and i will wait a little longer in today... and in tomorrow... and in the rest of 2011, before i make any hasty decisions. i will wait to see if this spark continues to flicker on the same spot... or if it begins to wander.
this little, tiny, barely imperceptible scratch in the universal surface.... THAT is what is guiding me????

incredible.

wow - how i hang my life on a thread.

Apologies

2011-06-15T06:28:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to say sorry for the negative tones in my last blog. I wrote it in an annoyed moment... and well - it's the truth - so i won't remove the post, but i promise not to make "internet venting while tipsy" a habit on my blog. :)

i did it

2011-06-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

i did it. im done. i did it. i am a little drunk, i dont care. (typed June 12th about 2am) we loaded everything in the truck. he didn't pay us properly. i dont like this circus and i dont think i'll ever go out of my way for them. sure it's a tough world out there - but i'm a tough customer and i don't accept poo in my life. so if you're gonna treat me like poo, the pass on by!

yeah so, everyone is pretty upset. all the artists feel slighted. one was even crying. i wont say who... but the stress affects us all. me, not as much. i mean, money - well i don't want to live in a world with money. so... i try not to think about it. but really - it is a joke. the amount of life that i poured into this show and they f**#*#* director thinks i will just keep pouring my life in??? haha no. i am going to be moving on for sure. i learned some GREAT THINGS and i met some GREAT PEOPLE that i hope to keep in my life - but the director is not one of those people!

basically, this whole experience was a part of my training. i am by no means a polished or finished artist. i simply needed this experience to keep upping my experience level and gaining new abilities. well i did that. i worked my ass off. i didn't get paid very much for it. no body did. no one feels that the director is being very "up front". it's a crummy dynamic. but hey, not surprised. i knew all this going in. i knew this would be how it was. and i knew i needed to learn OTHER things about myself that would make the experience worth the costs. of course, it was more costly than i anticipated --- so the cut came very close. all in all - i am still winning. because i am aware and i know i am here because i chose this experience. no one forced me to take a low paying circus job. i see it. i don't need to be pulled down by it. i see it and i know where my life is going... sort of, anyway... sort of know. i know it is moving away from low paying experiences to experiences that are PRICELESS. well, all experiences are priceless, but some won't have money involved at all.

this was just a stop a long the way. and a wonderful stop even for a crappy stop. i mean, it wasn't crappy - it was a high time. it was crappy for a wonderful experience and pretty wonderful for a crappy time.

decisions and things

2011-06-11T19:21:00.000-07:00

i've realized the work i do is dangerous. performing on a schedule doesn't leave much room for "listening" to my body. when i have to perform - i have to perform. yes, i can make daily adjustments, i can take extra good care of myself - but now i am in a working world. "training" means something else now.

the last couple weeks i've been having a problem with anxiety. after falling and some very rough shows and a sore back, i was not enjoying myself. performing was stressful to me. i was getting nervous before every show... it was like a jinx or something. it wasn't fun. it was too much work to be nervous. my mind started psyching me out over every little detail - did i breath enough times in my warm up? did i drink just the right amount of tea?

there is just no way to appease the mind.

it was not fun. so finally - it all came to a head in my head. sunday afternoon... last show of the week and for some reason (any reason will do - because all reasons were reason enough to send me into fits of anxiety) i was backstage just SICK with dread. i didn't want to perform. i went through all sorts of convulsions in mental gymnastics and breathing techniques and yoga and blah blah. the circus contortionist was between my ears.

finally it all came down to ONE DECISION. i want to be happy. what is the point of doing anything if i am not going to be happy? i came over here and have survived incalculable, monstrous levels of challenge and struggle... and all for the sake of "following my heart". so is that why my heart was in my throat? i was sick of being anxious. i just wanted to be happy. if i couldn't be happy, then i didn't want to do anything at all.

i know what it is like to feel happy. i have felt happy before. i know that state of mind. i know the trust that is involved... the slightly stupid optimism, the insanely brilliant philosophy required, the forgetful state of existence that is happiness... so i simply decided to mimic that state of mind: after all, i am trained at passing through various emotions - i am a performer. to be really perform, i have to feel the real feeling. so i performed "happiness" in my own head. i just decided to be happy.

i was in the right circumstances to do so. my daily decisions had been logical, my warm-up thorough, my safety equipment properly set, my routine correctly modified for safety... it was all in place - only my mind was constantly freaking out. i had the RIGHT to be happy. i had DONE MY WORK. i HAD PUT IN MY TIME WITH NERVES. it was time to reap some of the benefits of my fastidious effort. so i decided to be happy. excuse me, but i said to myself, "fuck it." why bother going through the tremendous work of training and traveling and performing if it is not going to be fun??? Why have i worked so hard to adjust to changing circumstances and constantly battled uphill to strengthen my physical skills and patiently let myself by carved away into splinters and devoted myself to art... if i am not going to ENJOY THE EXPERIENCE? FORGET IT!!!!!!!!!!
I HAVE EARNED SOME FUN! SO LET THIS BE FUN.

and it was easier. it wasn't easy. but it was easier. and i am going to continue with this trend and let it settle into me a little more. it can only get better from here. i am onward.

today my mantra was, "i just don't want to be nervous today, i am not in the mood."

that doesn't mean i slight on anything else. all must occur in order at the proper time. sleeping, eating, training, warmup, set-up, make-up, costume... PERFORM.

i have done it. tomorrow is the last show in Mallorca. i have survived floods, lighting problems, sound&music problems, extra shows, costume repairs, generator failures, falling in my act, social dynamics, new languages, yucky food, changing bedrooms, aches and pains, nerves, crappy bus rides... and it was great. i mean, i was great. i can't believe i've done it all. really, i am amazed at me. not in a proud way, in an incredulous way.

-------------------------

Mallorca, i will not miss you. Mallorca, thanks for what you offered. Mallorca, you're dirty feeling and fake feeling and over-run with tourists. Mallorca- i'm sure you're a wonderful place, but I don't belong here.

------------

so what's the plan for the coming months? I have 4 days off. Then i work for a month in Germany with the same Circus. Then I have 3 days off. Then they want me to work another month in another city in Germany with three days in Italy. I am not sure I can take the whole contract. I need to go to California and clear up some stuff. I need to buy 3 new ropes. i think i need to sell my car. i need to give my family hugs and kisses... because i'll be gone another long while. i have 4 months of work in Germany from September to December. Then i want to go to the Ukraine to do some more training.... some REAL training. then i will have more work in Germany. i still don't know where home is. I feel very strongly that i must create a home space for myself. all this travel is super - but i need a place where i can leave an extra suitcase. i need an address. i need to figure out how to pay taxes and to whom... and i need to simplify my bank situation. my american bank accounts are too hard to access over here... but i am not european. i am a woman without a place. i am mobile. i am flexible. i am on the go.... i am not well categorized into the system of computerized worth. i am going to create a simple future- and ultimately, i would like to live without money. sure whatever, call me nuts. i don't care! i want a dry toilet and a life without money. i don't want large organizations tracking me with numbers. i can't be harnessed to all that. i don't want to wear shoes. i just don't want a "normal" life. i want a real life. of course, i'm not sure how it will all happen. i just need to keep focusing my attention on ALLOWING MY VISION TO GROW.... and then once i SEE MY VISION, then i can work towards creating a space for it to manifest in my life. i believe in this kind of stuff. i believe in dry toilets, barefoot and no money. yes, and i am using a computer to type this blog. i never said i would be without paradox.

but back to training in the Ukraine: My body has really only BEGUN to find its potential.
I am only beginning to develop as an artist. These things take time. It cannot be rushed or faked. i am who i am now. that is all i can be. there is no other me to be. besides, i need to go to the Ukraine to take up some of the energy there. the place has been calling me for a variety of reasons. circus is not the only one.

so the long and the short of it is that there is a lot of movement moving and i'm adrift in the middle of it all. it's late - i think around 3am. time for sleep. i am hungry. but i don't want to eat. the scheduling thing is still hard to manage. performing and what not.

tomorrow - last show in Mallorca. tomorrow - last show in Mallorca.

Two weeks...

2011-05-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

Two weeks of shows. It has been amazing, disastrous, time consuming, crazy, fun, exhausting... i don't know where to begin.

Week one flew by. It's been a challenge to figure out when to eat and when to warm up and what order to do things in. my schedule is completely new again. rehearsal days and performance days are completely different. week one in Mallorca was all rehearsals, week two: rehearsals AND shows, week three: ALL SHOWS. i now go to bed at 2am and wake up at 10am. i am usually sore when i wake up. i think it is from the bed, not the work. i am learning that there are many ways to work with my body. warming up before a show - doing a show (dancing and small rope stuff) and then LATER in the show doing your REAL act is much different than the other work/shows i have done. doing that twice in one day is something else all together: altered state of existence is required... quasiZen state of mind. being in a TENT is much different than being in a theater. some days it is wet, some cool, some blasting hot.

Mallorca is a so-so place. sorta over-run by tourists in the parts i've been able to visit. i've been too disorganized and on the blink to rent a car and go anywhere. i am sorta stuck with the bus at the moment.

It is a little sickening to have so many feelings in such a short time. I am ecstatic, I am overwhelmed, i am sick of everything, i am hungry for more...

my act has been changing. i am still searching for it. some days i make mistakes, some not. i've been having issues with my skin again - the makeup is pretty harsh. there are a lot of things to figure out and learn. doesn't matter if i've worn makeup a 100 times before. NOW, in THIS SHOW, it is different. the look is different, the requirements are different, the temperatures are different... let's face it... i'm sensitive to details and so small changes make big experiences for me. how my makeup looks affects how i do my act. how i look in the mirror changes how i feel and then it changes who i am on stage. i am still searching for my face. if you know what i mean...

i've got a few photos from the show - the album is up on facebook. my costume has been changing too. as i wear it, it wears... wears out. i am learning about what is comfortable, what i like... what i like for a while and what i like over and over and over again.

there is absolutely no way in the universe to rush the process that is unfolding at the moment. there is no amount of self-study that can fast forward the slow accumulation of moments in life that will result in who i am becoming. this is learning on the go... learning under the lights... learning while the show is unrolling. i am learning how to be a performer all over again. it is so easy to get plopped down into a pothole of "now i do this" and so hard to remain constantly MYSELF and constantly REAL but to not give myself AWAY. it is hard to find the CYCLE of natural ebb and flow of energy so that i am giving... and also recharging.

my fellow cast is awesome. we don't all think or process the same, but when the lights black out and the music starts, we huddle in our positions under the parachute, and we are together. we help each other as much as we can.

this last week was ridiculous. the director asked us to make a street show on not ONE but TWO days. so, before the show we went out in the wind in our costumes and made a street show to attract attention and pass out flyers. it had me all messed up. my warm-up/training schedule was already a mess and i was already trying to figure out the right amount of warming up for maximum effect and maximum energy in the show... and then heading out into the wind from 6-7pm did not settle my focus at all.

On thursday, i made a major mistake in my act and was not able to do the twistie. i just had to skip the trick all together. the rope was tangled in my foot and so once i shook it free i just moved on to the next part of the act.

On FRIDAY - I fell. my act had been going terrible, i got tangled in the first part and then when i went to do the twistie... something was not ready inside of me... i didn't have the focus or energy that i needed. the rope slipped out of my hands and i fell to the floor. the audience GASPED horribly. i felt HORRIBLE. everything was terrible in that moment. i was embarrassed and i wanted to cry. i smiled when i got up and i wanted everyone to know i was okay... well, more or less okay. i got back on the rope and finished what i could of the act. it was a complete and total disaster. HORRIBLE. but you know, i think that it had to happen to me at some point. i think i needed that experience to be who i am going to be. who would i be if i never knew how to survive?

I am so thankful that i perform with a safety mat!

I am so thankful for my fellow aerialist in the show who places my mat under me and who i trust to be there for me.

i am so thankful that i didn't get hurt.... well - it DID HURT, but i am not injured.

after the show that night, i went back on my rope and did the twistie, to prove to my body that it still knew how to do it.
because then saturday i had two shows. and today another show. i am SO RELIEVED that i caught the trick ALL THREE TIMES. i almost CRY everytime when i catch it. the relief and joy on my face is REAL - there is no acting in that moment. i am on my rope and the audience is cheering and i am screaming inside with relief! I CAUGHT THE ROPE!!! YES!!!!!

there are mosquitoes here. they are trying to eat me while i type this blog! YARG!

i have been grocery shopping and i am getting the hang of how to eat here. it's just so dang difficult to be adapting to new situations all the time. i mean, i love it too--- it is amazing and adventurous, but DAMN it is work!!! anyone who says it isn't work, must not have the sensitivity i do. the YAMS here are so DRY! you can FEEL the arid nature of the earth in the food that comes out of it. and the CUCUMBERS TOO! they are actually firm and sometimes DRY inside.

the animals that have been coming around are crickets, mosquitos, turtles (landlady has two she lets roam in the yard) songbirds, bumble bees, ants, a RAT!, and lots of moths.

I am enjoying my balcony VERY MUCH and eat my morning/lunch there. i also do my yoga warm up out there in the (late)mornings. i have been having crazy dreams. a couple nights ago i dreampt about being visited by two bad witches and hearing what they needed or what their pains and gripes were in order to clear their energy OUT of MY life. when i heard them and listened to them, they were powerless to hurt me. they had entered my apartment maliciously, but once i called them out of their hiding places and asked them to tell me what they needed, they appeared, spoke and then vanished into nothing.
another night, i dreampt of one of my previous teachers asking me if he could stay at my house. (at some theoretical home which i don't actually have) i was slightly unsure of the idea, because this person's energy could be very dominating. we were at a grocery store and the person started buying me food. my resolve was swaying. i was tempted by the security...the food was very nice and expensive... but then my dream self said: "but Rosannah, you don't do this anymore! you don't need to live in fear, i am always here for you! you can trust life to provide for you without compromising your emotional, mental or physical health!" and so i told this person that i was NOT comfortable with the idea of him staying at my house... despite the fact that my dream self later realized i wouldn't even BE at HOME... because i would be on contract in some other country with the circus. and so this person became annoyed and started throwing food out of the basket and all over the floor. i was sorry, but glad.
i have made some new boundaries in my life. i am happy with these new peace i have.

What are some of my other memories of these last two weeks:

riding the hot, muggy bus with uncomfortable seats --

walking up the hill after the show always feels good to my tired legs. it's just enough movement to keep the blood flowing and preventing coagulation of the day's work. the tent is just yards away from the ocean... but the taxis are better found up the hill near Placa de Espana. the bus doesn't run that late, so going home by night is always by taxi. i'm glad to never be alone. one of my fellow cast lives next door to me and we always share.

hushed moments backstage with the cast - bumping into each other, forgetting a prop, last millisecond arrivals on stage, pats, hugs, smiles... gently dabbing at the drops of sweat with a cotton pad and trying not to smear my makeup...

that ONE moment in the show when i feel like: oh GOD! not THIS part again...

that ONE moment in the show when i feel like: oh, I LOVE this music! or, AT LAST!!! now i am in the HOME STRETCH... or that moment when i am backstage after my act- breathing heavily (sometimes gasping) and knowing i've made it again.... sometimes better than others.

the moist air, the dry soil, the stone streets, the convenient-store-less alleyways... the strange closures from 2pm until 5pm in the afternoon... for siesta.

the mixture of Russian, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese and English all in one tent...

hearing the director yelling at the lighting man.... sighing and knowing... well, life is complicated. things don't always go well.

having feathers stick to my eyelashes in the finale...having to pee and not wanting to fuss with my costume in the porto-potty one more time... wishing i could find coconut water to drink or that i could change beer and wine into hibiscus tea... loosing track of the days since i last washed my training pants... accidentally dropping my costume in the dirt...

having arms too tired to wave to the audience as we take our final bow and run out...

the way the clouds drift over the balcony while i sit there in the morning. the mountains in the distance still unexplored...

the way my head can listen to Konstantine for only so many hours in a day... and then bang: no more Spanish! and how I can't seem to find my German as easily... because the simplicity of Spanish is taking root again.

trying to hold my breath while i cover my head in hairspray... wondering if my skin will even look like it used to again... wondering why i feel so young even though i look older...

i drink coffee in the mornings now - a quarter cup of coffee and the rest filled with boiled milk.

I don't know how to explain it all... I don't know how to press it into a blog... it's too big... it's life and it's crazy.

Post

2011-05-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

Today I performed at 11am for the Press. Then I hung around in the tent and set up my ropes. I have three ropes hanging in the tent. I feel so good. I am in the circus. I love everything about it. Mallorca is strange - I still have not gotten a feel for where people BUY things here - after Germany it is aesthetically very different. of course they have things here to buy, but the place is oddly spread out and there are not a lot of signs. not that i am into buying things, but just some supplies for the show.

I am in the circus!

My costume worked great.

i just ate dinner. i am tired. i am happy. i can see the mountains from here. it is sunny. there is a beach. i am in the Mediterranean.

life is what you make it.

i still feel so thankful for all the support i've been given to get here. i feel like it is not me here, but a hundred other people who have helped me....

Circus

2011-04-29T02:20:00.000-07:00

One of my new favorites for breakfast is to take a dark grain German bread - usually full of pumpkin or sunflower seeds and to splash it under cold water for a sec - and then to pan cook it in sunflower oil. The oil and water soak into the bread and make a crispy soothing toast like never experienced before. Of course, My favorite topping is blackberry jam. This morning I made coffee, which is very rare - but I had some coffee here, and I felt like a change. I don't drink my coffee with sugar any more. It makes eating more fun. Sweet jam, bitter coffee... creamy cooked milk, crispy toast, oily fingers MMMMM! The more oil I eat, the better I feel. I am reducing sugar and allowing ghee or oil to increase as needed. Helps me a lot, it does.

I am about to go to rehearsal. I am very excited about today. We will be in Katakomben and running the aerial acts with the live music. That means ME. Me and Konstantine too. He does a straps act. I do a rope act. He is Ukrainian but spent a decade or more in Brazil and so speak Portuguese and Spanish. Our only language bridge is my completely forgotten Spanish. It's great. It will give me a chance to bring that part of my brain back to life. He speaks to me in Spanish... I understand and I can say absolutely nothing back. It is like I am a mute... or simply a receiver, but I cannot transmit any messages other than the most basic of, "yes, no, i understand... left, right, up, down... i don't know, i know... etc."

Language is my friend. I love speaking. I love words now. I love every sound and language that I encounter. I am helping one of the Musicians learn a little English, and he is helping me learn a little Russian. We are teaching one another through German. I LOVE that i devoted time to learning languages. That was TIME WELL SPENT. I love that i devoted time to playing piano - that investment was TIME WELL SPENT. That investment has grown my soul on a million dimensions. I love that I have found my art and found my place and found my work. I love that I am here. I am here. I am engaged and absorbed. I have a place. I am AT HOME.

My circus family is growing. I feel like I have a tribe - a clan of people to ride the waves with. We will not always have good weather. We will not always be a family that rides together, but we will have always had this adventure together. I was born for this life. I feel so well suited for this set of challenges and these rolling departures from the norm.

I am happy. I am tired. I am so happy. I am so tired. I am happy. happy. happy.

I want to explain everything - I want to tell the whole story - I don't want to leave any details out... but that is not the nature of time right now. This writing here is forcibly un-edited simply due to the constraint on time. With Languages to learn, yoga to do, ropes to climb, dance-steps to unleash, music to swoon with, people to compare ideas with, trees to climb and knives to throw or juggle or slice open apples with... how can i make time for all the other details in life? i have enough dishes in my sink to attest to the glorious days here.

I MUST get my handwritten letters done this weekend as well! My family (both blood family and circus family) have been SO GOOD TO ME. They have held me up and loved me and supported me and given me huge bursts of love that propel me towards mind-boggling peace and sense of well-being. My dream is to fly them over here... and to have a beautiful place to welcome them. at first it might just be a small apartment... but eventually, i want to have land where life can actually happen. i don't know if that land will be in the country of Germany, but MY LIFE IS HAPPENING in the country of Germany right now. Germany is a doorway for me. Germany has been sickness, heartache, struggle, confusion, self-doubt, and then... through it all, ecstatic joy, free-flying freedom, boundless happiness, self-expression, self-discovery, realization, relaxation, re-invention, astounding discovery... and it just keeps unfolding. If things are this great now... can you even imagine the twists and turns this journey will take as i continue on? i am still looking forward to decades more of life! i feel that i have just been born and that i am ready to begin the adventure of my lifetime.

Berlin has drawn me in.

2011-04-25T16:09:00.000-07:00

Ich lebe noch. In fact, I live quite well at the moment. Rehearsal week has started and things are just as disorganized as they had potential to be. I am just as organized as I have potential to be. HA!
Things are super in my part of the universe. The sun shines on me, I train under the treetops and I'm about to go on my first EU tour. I don't mind the sore muscles, confused feelings, money complications and such.
I'm just gonna ride the wave of peace that I am on until I am no longer riding it.

I love Berlin. I want to live here for a good long spell. I want to work in Europe. I want to be where I am.

I'm so happy for this month of April that I have had. It has been so fascinating and relief filled and dynamic and twisting and sunny.

My body is slowly feeling better. I am working bit by bit by bit away from the awful pains I had been having. I am beginning to feel more loose again. I am seeing my imbalances with a fractional amount of increased clarity and trying new things.

I like the people that I am meeting here.

The one thing that is missing for me in Berlin... is more TIME. There is so much here to do and try and feel and test and spend time with. I just want to be here for a while more. BuT! I'm about to go on contract. It's going to be great. I know it. I just know it. I have been going through a veritable obstacle course to get here. I have been training - I have been fighting - I have been releasing and trusting (forms of fighting... in a paradoxical way if you know what i mean) I have been suspending my need for answers and I have been letting myself fall with the universe and I have fallen into a super place. Falling like this has been harder for me than any of the hard things I have ever done. Falling and being vulnerable and open have been scarier for me than any of the "tough" challenges I have overcome. Letting down my walls has been the most gut wrenching experience I've had to date. Worse that the experiences that made me put up walls in the first place. Strange - but true.

Berlin draws me. I will live here. I don't know how or where or when... but I will live here for a time.

I am looking for my tribe - my people - my clan. It might be that they are also here in Berlin... stocking up on training between ventures forth into the playground of the world. The geographic pulses of this place are well suited for me at the moment. the latitude and longitude feel good to me. The elevation feels good. Don't ask me what the numbers are: I don't know! I just know the feeling of it being good. I also know that these things felt wrong in all the other places I've been.

I feel AT HOME HERE.

and THAT is a FEELING I have been searching for.... for a L O N G
L O N G

VERY LONG time.....

I wonder how long that feeling might last? no need to get too attached to it ya know... because that would go against all of my training and it is my training that has allowed me to GET HERE... so it is always a balance. Which is just another reason I have been enjoying handstands so much.

must sleep now. hardly enough time for that these days - too much life to be lived.
bis gleich!

Unbuilding

2011-04-02T04:19:00.000-07:00

Here I am... in the city of UN-BUILDING.

This is my word of the moment. Un-building.
The Berlin wall has been un-built.
I am un-Building the walls inside of myself.
I am un-Building the massive networks of tight scar tissue in my right knee...
un-building the bands of tension and resistance in my hips...
I want to do a lot of UN BUILDING. i want to do a lot of positive tearing down. I can only do this here and now, because I am finally somewhere safe. I have a warm lovely room. Soon I will have warm lovely food as well. (when my private kitchen is done in 2-3 days) I am feeling tired and sad today. That does not mean I am not grateful, or bursting with a deeper joy inside. It just means that I am happy enough to be able to process into the next layer of experiences and feelings inside. I am UN BUILDING MYSELF. It is the time for it to happen. It is a season of my life.

I posted on facebook that I don't support a world that contains experiences like "Turbo Tax online File"

I really don't. I find these things symptoms of a great sickness. I am LONGING and DESPERATE for something simple in life. I DON'T WANT TO EARN MONEY! I simply want to live. I guess that means I need to keep my vision focused on true life and finding simplicity. I need to become open to learning about gardening and figuring out how I can return to nature. I don't know what that means about my circus. I don't know when and how it will all come together.
But I do know, I am angry to have a social security number! I am angry that I am "forced" to be grateful for what the country provides for me. In ways, I am a hypocrite! I use the internet to type this blog... and yet I want to run away from it all. I know there is a conflict here. Don't judge me! I see it too! I'm open to discussion... I'm working on it. I'm just saying... I feel a discord... and I want to create a better life.
I am not content with the system in the US, in Germany or elsewhere. I DO NOT fit in to their way of doing things --- and YET I DO NOT HAVE MY OWN SYSTEM. I don't know where to go to "just live" and I don't know how to "live off the land". Or maybe a part of me is afraid to really try. I am a slave of fear and circumstance. Sure. I can play along. I don't have to have a bad attitude - after all, their only numbers and bills. If the system wants me to use a social security number and money, well I suppose I can pretend I care. But, I don't care. I don't want to let these energies into my life. I want to learn how I can ACTUALLY UNBUILD this from my life. Not in a disaster, but in a smart way.
I am learning to spend money just to silence the governments and corporations. I am spending money just to buy myself some quiet. not that I owed any taxes, no. I didn't earn enough money to own taxes. But I did have to pay Turbo Tax $74.00 to file my tax returns! Think, $74!!! Last year it was $14.95! How tricky they are with their business schemes.
And yes, there were other options... but in light of TIME and IMPORTANCE... I just decided to SPEND THEIR MONEY ON THEIR SYSTEM. It was better than asking someone to fill out my returns FOR ME, and it was better than spending more of MY TIME trying to fool the Turbo Tax program into filing the returns the WAY I wanted them to... It's not worth my time to fight the system any more. I just want to leave the system... but I don't have my own system... so at the moment, I must play by their rules and keep my own inner calm. It isn't my money. I don't want money. All I want is to be able to live. I will spend their money, to buy myself quiet time to think. And with this quiet thinking time, I will learn how to leave them forever.

I don't know where I am destined to go any more. I want to be a gypsy... to be a circus girl... but most deeply, I want to be with Nature. I want to be like a tree. I want to be planted somewhere, comfortable in all weather and beautiful to behond. At the moment, my currency is MONEY. I still don't know how to use the EARTH to bring life. That is my goal.

To UNBUILD my world... to UNBUILD the world around me is a HEARTY, LONG task. As I UNBUILD the tension and binding in my own psoas, hips, legs and feet... I am shocked. I am in pain. I must be patient. I must listen. I must learn. One must UNBUILD in the right order, least the actions become a detonation. I do not want to disassemble myself. I do not want to render anything function-less or helpless. I want to RE-STRUCTURE, I want to RE-MODEL the way I work... and the way the world around me works. I want to be free of all these FAKE FACADES of food - I want to be free of my addictions to FAKE TASTES. I want to be free of the false belief that I NEED any of these FAKE THINGS to "make it" or survive. I want to UNBUILD, but I must be careful. It is delicate work to choose which beams to axe and which to keep. And while the construction is ongoing, it is a fragile area.

UNBUILDING must happen though. Cleansing, cleaning, simplifying...

How HAPPY I am that I am lucky enough to be UNBUILDING something in my life! This is the most awesome discomfort I have ever felt.

going to Berlin

2011-03-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

its unbelievable, but true. i'm on a train again. this time i am headed north, to Berlin. Finally. This visit has been a long deferred one. it seemed always something held me away from Berlin - but this time it is actually happening. I am a little bit sad to leave Munich. I have some wonderful memories here. I am fond of the city and of some of its people. I learned some deep lessons in this place - it has been one of my teachers. and so it isn't with an empty or vaccant heart that i leave, but one that is a little somber. whatever forces have conspired to expel me from the city and back onto a train, whether they feel uncomfortable or sad, i know them to be benevolent forces. discomfort is simply one of the ways goodness motivates us to move, act or change. discomfort is a friend, a sign, a lesson. so i don't regret or feel mistaken about my choices or the time i did spend here. i will never be the same woman again. in Munich, i became who i am today.

the doors of my very nice ICE trip 1208 click shut with finality and authority. it has been a very difficult decision for me to make. i am now headed towards a city in the far north east - towards a place that will be darker, even if only by a couple degrees of longitude. i am acquainted with several people who live in this city, but close to none of them. no one is expecting me in the train station. no one will be there to greet me with a hug and smile - no, only my future self will be there, welcoming me with open arms and a love so potent that i still begin crying at the slightest flutter of emotion. what i mean is, no... never mind. translate that how ever works best for you.

like earlier today, while i stood in the hauptbahnhof in munich waiting to board the train i am now on. i was watching the greetings occur. as humans flooded out of a newly arrived train, they met equally human counterparts on the cement walkways. two women smiled, laughed and held one another. there was no doubting the trueness of their emotion. two young girls linked arm in arm played a game with their parents, they had arrived together as a group, and the girls now pretended they were headed off on their own destination. "Aufwiedersehen" they cooed to their adults and veered off in their own direction. The parents chuckled and played along. The girls were so young, so innocent - maybe they were 9 years old. They were giggling and clutching each other tight. Their eyes gave everything away. They were alive, having fun, focused on little things and maybe had a favorite color or flavor of ice cream. The girls veered around again and beelined it back to their parents with a mix of emotions. Freedom was enticing, but they didn't actually want it yet. Everything was too big, too loud, too confusing, too dark. Their world was simple, bright and easy.

Just this slight impression and I started to cry. Well, I didn't actually cry outright. But i did feel tears welling up in my eyes. I had never noticed before how wonderful a little girl is before she grows up. They hold all the energy of the female, but none of the bitterness, none of the abuse and none of the wickedness. They are wrapped in both power and helpless innocence. most of them will not learn to use their power until after they have lost their innocence. such is the way of life these days.

i have just moved to a seat in the normal cabin. i had been sitting crossed legged in the breezeway. a woman with a large baby stroller had asked for a seat. i volunteered to get up. i have no idea why. i had been quite happy in my place. now i am sitting next to a nice looking man wearing a police sweater. it is quiet. the reason i moved was because air was blowing directly in my face and that was simply unacceptable.

for example, also in the train station, i saw a young man come up to a young woman and greet her. he pulled a very small suitcase behind him and his hug was weak and tentative. who knew the circumstances of their meeting? i could see his face over her shoulder. he was smiling, but it was thin and withheld. she then turned quickly and brushed her hair back from her face. it was a half hidden gesture - or a gesture done unconsciously in an attempt to hide what seemed like disappointment. her shoulders seemed to slump inwards and her legs walked stiffly forward.

it is difficult to say i actually saw this with my eyes. i do not claim that he shoulders actually slumped, or that she actually walked with stiff legs. what was i actually seeing? these were impressions of people that i received, or were they assumptions? projections? or do we humans have an ability to see the invisible energy? perhaps we just don't have a common language to talk about it in. i might be able to describe the impressions using colors, movements or feelings - but these ideas still seem to fall short of what i am seeing. as i begin to believe more and more in the energetic nature of life, i am more accutely aware of these experiences as encounters with the energy of others - with the energy that transmits freely through space and time. i know there are people who say they can see others auras. i do not doubt this. i know there are people who can "read" these complicated and detailed energy fields and respond to people's lives - give them pointed advice for what they might do next. for example, i believe Mahesh to be one of these people. I have never met him - i only need have heard what he's told Daphne and Brad to know that he knows how to read
the invisible signs.

The young couple moved away from me. i was sad for them and hoped that ths was not their love story. i was reminded of the pathetic "love" stories i experienced as a younger person - in college... even after college. college hadn't taught me how to love properly. i hoped that they were having some other kind of ordeal. maybe they were related and a relative of theirs had just passed away. even this sad story would be better than a pathetic non-love story.

so here i am. i have three heavy suitcases. it's a monsterous load to manage. one of the suitcases is missing both a wheel and a leg. it can still stand on its own, but its a little leaning tower of pisa. i also have a sholder bag and additionally, a plastic bag of food. tomorrow is sunday. the shops will be closed. besides, i didn't want to loose the money that i had spent in Munich. i went shopping the evening before i left, not knowing that i'd be packing to leave for good the next morning. oh well, it's only weight. the lighter my attitude gets, the lighter these burdens get. i've actually had a very easy time of things. i tie the large broken suitcase to the functional little suitcase and the plastic bag of food to the large broken suitcase. in this way, one hand is carrying three items. it's heavy and it drags - but i'm stronger. the other hand pulls my "super" suitcase. it contains everything i need for basic survival. One rope and workout equipment, basic clothes, basic toiletries, laptop and my sheet music. stuff like that - the necessary stuff. the suitcase is heavy: mostly because the size allows me to pack a lot in, but secondarily, because of the bungee, carabeaners and workout ball. i'm telling you - that damn red ball weighs at least 3 pounds if not more, but i wouldn't travel without it.

me and my bags have been having a surprisingly easy time of things since i pulled out of the GOP theater and decided to take on Germany by myself. after all, i know how the trams work, i know how the buses work, i know how the strassen-bahn works and i know how the Ubahn works. i know how the Fernzuege work and i know when and where i can get hot water for tea. i am running low on tea bags, by the way. i brought three boxes worth of tea bags with me from California. boy i am glad i did. i love those teas. haven't seen similar ones here. noteably, dandelion root, licorice root and raspberry leaf. my neck is stiff this morning.

i have not had a proper floor workout since our performance in saint quentin. that was on the 20th. that means it has been nearly a week since i have checked in with my body in a workout-sense. i've done my pranayama since then... i've been on long walks since then... but i haven't gone in to circus mode. not surprisingly, my pain level has gone down. i still feel the problem on the right side of my body. this morning after i did a version of abayanga, i had a sudden swoon of super nausea. i gagged a few times and had to lay down, cover myself with a blanket and close my eyes. after resting a while, i purposely let my left hand cover my right. i want to tell the right side of my body that the left side is strong, and that the right side can find a new way to be strong. i believe that it is completely okay and predictable for the right side of my body to be freaking out and falling apart. after all, i am now truly actualizing the letting go of an overly male outlook on life. i am no longer working in a male dominated environment or studying a male dominated subject. i am no longer forcing myself to be tough or independent. ironically,i am TODAY more independent than i have ever been before. i have decided to walk out of a living situation that made daily life cheaper and "easier" for me. but did it really make things easier? no. i was finding that it kept me from thinking. i had to literally remove myself from that energy bubble in order to hear myself think about what i wanted to think about to feel myself feeling. and so now, i am independent. i am free. and i arrived here not by pushing forward with an aggressive male force. i arrived here by trying to hear my female feelings. i arrived here by beginning to wear dresses and by letting myself cry at the slightest rustle of rising emotion. i arrived in a place of almost insaliable calm, by letting myself be fragile.

pretty cool, huh.

The man sitting next to me (the Police Officer) tells me that he likes Berlin. He says the people are a little more free there and do more what they please. sounds appealing to me. perhaps the conformity of Munich was beginning to bore me. he is headed to Leipzig to visit his brother. he says he would enjoy to go to the US for a month or two and work; that it would be a fun experience and a good way to improve the language. i agree with him. it would be a life changing experience for him.

out in the luggage area, there are now two crazy looking dudes. one is an older man who is decked out like you might imagine a Vietnam Vet would be. a proud ex-army man. i have no idea what forces might be motivating this coot's attire. he was recently joined by a shaven head, tan man who doesn't seem to speak German. he's been making lots of hieroglyphic arm gestures with his stuttering. something drew them together. the man without hair seemed to beeline right for the coot. the coot comes complete with a beret and some type of walking stick - which surely doubles as a weapon should anyone offend his honor. but again, i am probably reading too much of an american attitude into this fellow. he is a german and comes from the opposite side of the war background that i know. i might go get some food soon from my luggage - but then i'd encounter the oddballs. so maybe i will wait.

AH my body - i do have a bit of a headache at the moment. i am not sure why. for breakfast (after the nausea passed and i dumped out the tea from my thermos) i had two small glasses of milk and some rice. then at the train station i bought a coissant and a piece of coco-nuss torte. okay, so that doesn't sound too healthy. i know. i ate the coissant and it was too oily. the french would have never approved. i ate the coconut cake after my lunch of beet walnut salad. the ex-soldier sitting in the baggage area is really a kook. it's sort of refreshing to know you can get away with this sort of thing here... and just as i was beginning to coform. HA! just kidding. and if you believed me for a second, then you don't know me at all.

my neck is stiff. i dont want to write anymore. i don't feel ready to talk - perhaps i need a bit of a nap. i will close my eyes and see if i can find some rest. the sign language conversation is continuing in front of me. i am wondering why you would ever read this. i ask why dont you have adventures of your own, and then i realize that no everyone has the opportunities that i have. i am so lucky to have seized my moment when i did. i am so lucky that god pushed me all the way here - from the motorcycle job which ended in illegally firing me - to the unemployment timed perfectly with Obama's ridiculous spending policies to the way Andy continues to love and support me despite his horrifically conflicted feelings about my path. the way has been cleared, smoothed and paved for me. paved, of course, in a layer of rose petals - not asphalt. so here i am! i am taking this path. the path my parents and grandma and uncles and aunts have supported me on. here i am! taking this mysterious journey forward to an unknown city. i have earned all the skills i need. i have experienced the moments that have preceded this one. i have stumbled in ways i needed to stumble. i have had face rashes and fallen ill. i have taken wrong trains and lost clothing. but none of these rough spots have caused me any harm. i find it stunning! amazing! as i crossed the tram tracks this morning from the hostel to the train station, i was forced (or chose rather) to leave one one bag behind, ferry the other bag across, park it, go back for the first bag, ferry that one across, continue on with it over the next set of tracks, park it, go back for the other bag and so on. a hopscotch of travel. i imagined having to run after some idiot who might have tried to take one of my bags (like this drunk coot in front of me). i knew i could run fast. i imagined that i would be annoyed by the weight of my shoulder bag as i ran. indeed, it would be annoying because i had just had my thermos filled with hot water. trekking my water around is a burden. water is and will be a guide for me. it has been a focus of my inner vision world, and it will remain a focus in my physical world too. i imagined brutally beating someone off of my suitcase and rescuing my personal items. nothing of true worth - some sweaters and a pair of jeans... a pair of winter boots. things that mean something to me, sort of, but not to someone else. no, no one would bother arresting my suitcase. i remembered the story again of my Uncle getting jumped in an italian train station. how had that come about? what? why? why him? towering 6 foot guy of solid muscle... and yet i have not felt.... i shall stop here. plenty of cities are yet to come up. sufice it to say, i have been protected and guided so far. i trust this rose petal covered path will only continue for me. i laugh as i imagine pulling sergiy up out of the river while gently stepping on rose petals. but my angels were there too. unbedingt, meaning "unconditionally". angles helped me.

i need to stretch my neck - but i dont want to deal with those dudes. sigh. oh well.

OH another little story.
so i sat down in the train next to the police officer. after a few moments, i let my seat back down and set my computer on my knees. i was trying to get my neck in a comfortable position. (I see that the coot soldier is now pouring himself more liqour out of a full sized bottle. great. another drunk... how many men do this to themselves?)

as i let the seat back, i heard a massive rustling in the seat behind me. i presently became aware that the table tray on the back of my seat would not stay up. the elderly woman sitting there could not seem to arrange things to her liking and the table tray apparently kept falling in her lap. i know that it is extremely annoying. she tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to return my seat to the upright position so that the table tray would sit balanced on the chair back. what was i to do? so, i put my chair back up... but was already trying to think of another solution. those around me chuckled a little. it was cute and funny. then i had an idea! i remembered i had an extra shoulder strap in my shoulder bag. could it possibly be long enough to wrap around my chair and hold the table tray up while i lounged back in a reclined position? i hoped so and pulled it out to size up the idea. it looked long enough. so i stepped around and gently laced the table tray to my chair back with my strap. everyone chuckled again.
i confess, i felt like a macgyver and really enjoyed the moment. some time later, at the next station stop, the chairs in front of me were vacated. they were table chairs - in other words a small real table stood between two sets of chairs. (much better for laptop work) i put my seat back in the upright position and took my shoulder strap back. the old lady and i smiled at one another. i moved up one row and invited the police man to come with me. The police officer gets to ride the train for free. it serves a dual purpose. as he is on board, he is responsible for train personnel deal with people who have not properly paid their ticket (or with drunks). i feel kinda cool sitting next to him. he's not at all as lame and authority hog-high as our american cops. The bald guy, or coot's companion, kept staring at me. They were getting louder and more drunk. his stare became downright terrible. i mentioned it to the police officer. he immediately offered to trade seats with me. now, the Officer was sitting in the isle and the drunk guys couldn't see me anymore. So it was nice to have a police officer on duty right there. I noticed that he took a trip to the bathroom and purposefully slowed down while passing the drunks to make sure they noticed his presence. he gave them a hard look. they got the point. see, it's the rose petals. every where i go, it seems i find a golden lining and a bed of roses... and i think Berlin will turn out pretty cool.

I've got a hunch. but not a hunch-back! that's been going away. instead, i'm getting much better at handstands and bridges.

WHAT THE....

2011-03-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

my blog writings have been turning more into a book than a blog. i can't begin to pack everything that has happened into this dinky blog. for now, i am reserving a bulk of my writings for further compilation.
To summarize France with Bouffon:
Crazy - I pulled drunk people out of smelly rivers, found our way out of the french countryside after said drunk people (now sober but dealing with a head injury) go us lost, ate so much bread and cheese that i don't even like it any more and got invited to be in a circus. i made friends with a Russian clown, musicians and artists from Berlin, held my own, played piano when i found one, hung my rope when i found a place to do so, kept my ears clean and learned how to pack
for next time: lighter.

i saw the Alps. i loved the mountains and they loved me back. i returned to Munich and then i made some very important decisions. it was time for me to step out and move on. what i learned in France was that i could and, in fact, HAVE TO, rely more on myself. I am totally reliable and downright indispensable in catastrophic situations. it was time for me to go to a new city and take on a new attitude about myself and my friendships. i wanted to go somewhere that no one was expecting me and to generate a new type of experience from scratch. i wanted to start from step one and build something new. so i did it. ok, that is a simplification. i deliberated for HOURS and talked to my parents for HOURS... and then, FINALLY... i did it. i left.

and i am doing it. and it has been one of the most tiring and wonderful four days of my life. Yes, you read that correctly. The last four days, have been one thing - one span of time all mashed into one huge experience of magnificence in which sleep occurs but hardly seems to punctuate the moment.
i am off to encounter one of the sleep nodes now.
sheep are not required... the lions and lambs are already hitting snooze together.

wowie zowie

2011-03-23T18:04:00.000-07:00

well - I'm back in Munich. looking at the pictures I have, even though I have hardly taken any photos, I can see how much I have changed (what a surprise) in the last two weeks. From Munich and jet-lagged, depressed... to France and climbing high into a new chapter of Circus-self-Expression and then thrashed on a wild 10 day tour as a guest with Cirque Bouffon... I have come away happier, tougher and more relaxed... totally exhausted, dietary confusion reigns again and Spring has sprung!
I am so grateful for the last two weeks. They were an accelerated crash course in being myself, sticking to my guns and finding diplomatic solutions in very sour pickle jars. To have seen the mountains and soaked up sunshine and fresh air has done me a world of good. I am destined for the mountains and I am destined for nature.
I've got pages and pages of writing that I've done...trying to document this super concentrated dose of life has been no quick task! I am hoping some further details about France will surface on this blog sometime soon. In the meat time (oops mean time), here are some photos : facebook photos album

and i will now retire to bed, thanking my lucky stars and rolling on an imaginary field of flowers in the French Alps... one more time, just for good measure.

It's been wowie, zowie and owie. A little rest will do me good. Then I think I've got a contract coming up in Mallorca... so it will be time to take who I am and find my next adventure of easy effort and haste-less journeying...to go deeper into the fog of the future and let the wind and sun sweep all that mist into the past and not worry about anything - but feel everything... and
gosh, i must be tired... i think i am starting to even sound a little melodramatic.

this train is boarding all onward passagers, via inward with a final destination of outward.
finally, welcome aboard to the Europe experience 2011!

France... some disjointed writings....

2011-03-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

the steps that lead down to the residence area are pale green, triangular and arranged in such a narrow spiral shape, that i am surprised i fit down the shaft. I wind down the shaft hearing my footsteps softly clang on the metal and feel like i am a micro-particle tracing the helix of a DNA. It is nearly two full revolutions before i reach the bottom.
i open the door, painted electric blue and i am inside the common kitchen area. the floor is bright yellow, the walls a pastel reflection of this and it's everything you'd expect a common kitchen to be. circus posters cover the walls. two dingy weak looking couches sit against the wall, oddball dishes fill the drying rack next to the sink and two French circus artists are sharing some bread and cheese at the table. Welcome - you've arrived in true-France. Faeble gives me a gargantuan hug when he sees me and swings me around the room - legs narrowly missing things - squeeling like a child. it is extraordinary to see people here that i knew in san francisco. after the miles of train track, the floods of strange faces on city streets and
walls of impenetrable foreign language, it is a gush of relief to burst out with an old friend and lean back on your invisible mountain of mutual understanding. "yes, i come from that place too. i know what you've been feeling. i know what it's like to be alone in a strange country."

The school itself is a monstrous wonder of circus possibility. The ceilings are so tall - the mat selection is so expansive. i have never been in a location it's equal. everything is spacious, clean and bathed in daylight from massive, slatted windows. the floor is hard, flat and littered in possibility. this is a training space of training spaces! where is my childhood and my russian teacher? where is the rest of my dream- for clearly i have walked into a dream.

----

how can i write when i am in such a state of being and enjoying? how can i tell you what is going on? by breaking the experience up into small bits and pieces of words? Camembert and warm bread for breakfast. quiet mornings alone in the sun filled dance studio. tall trees full of
bird sounds and gentle air. the weather here is mild. i've been told it's unusual for this time of year. i wouldn't mind spending a lot longer here. perhaps i will come back.
--------------------

so funny how i can wake up the very next morning and have different feelings. i feel that a week here will be plenty enough. i feel that i must take this short time and then simply go onto the next place. there has been much good here - a training and a re-affirmation that what is mine is mine. but i am not at home. this place is not my home. i dont know where home is. i need to
spend some serious time on the internet! enjoy my adventure with Bouffon and let that be a rest time? i dont have a plan for the next time i will get up on a rope. hmmm. that is perhaps not good. should i decide when and where i will go in switzerland? if i don't know when i'm on the rope again, then doing rope here until my last shred of strength makes no sense... stretchin on the other hand, will always serve me.
my hip is still bugging me.

i dont like notepad (the only application i have on my computer to type into) and i dont like being cut off from the internet. on the other hand it has allowed me to direct my time elsewhere and has been very valuable.

ive never had breakfast cereal that tasted like satisfying american brownies...until france. do we HAVE that in the US? and i just dont know about it because i am trained to turn a blind eye to those things? maybe. it isn't food. it isn't actually nuturition. my body has been a champion of adjustment in the last year. what a dear dear body it is.

this notepad window is so not inspiring. i want my eyes to be bathed in beauty again. i like the internet for this reason - i get dosed with the beauty of the body and i get to see circus and contortion and athletes. i am so influenced by my surrounds - by that which comes in my eyes. i dont like looking at certain colors. i miss seeing ballerina postures and oversplits. this is a strange phenomenon and id like to mine a little more understanding from what is going on. i like to see beauty. it feeds me.

ah. alone. there is just nothing like it. perhaps because i let myself feel unjudged? do i constantly assume others are judging me? and why? and why should i keep doing that?

-----------------

funny how things can immediately change again. i let my body rest. i have been taking time and not rushing it. there is absolutely no schedule here. i do not need to go anywhere, follow any time plan, adjust my needs for anyone else's....it is total and complete artists free following. it is freedom. it is perfect. it is exactly what i needed. my friends here are excellent support. they dont get in my space, but they are excellent consultants. i worked extensively with Fae - me for him and him for me - it was a dream. it was a string of blissful moments of creation like i have only dreamed of. i am not reeling in bliss - that's the weird thing. i acutally still start crying when i feel happy. but i am here. i am in France. i am surrounded by a new energy. a soft energy. France is a woman. France is magical - because yesterday i learned about the French Roulette. This is the gypsy wagon. Jeannette's parents live in beautiful wooden rolling cabins drawn by HORSES and they travel the countryside giving theater circus shows. I saw photos. I could not believe it. the grass full of flowers, the big green trees stretchin over lush gullies and creeks, the bright sunshine and towering, lovable horses. The roulettes are beyond what you can imagine. they are imaculate, pristine and glorious. they are whimsical, motorcycling houses... a dream. this exposure touched the clock in me. i felt the stirring of my own dream! i now can see and understand just a fragment more of what i am looking for. Robin wants to have his own Roulette and have a GARDEN cart that comes behind. he is one of the most adorable circus-persons i have encountered. he is so free and always playing. a natural performer. a loose body and a beautiful handstand artist.

i slept last night - oh HOW i slept!! i have never slept with such a feeling of HAPPINESS! i found myself being gentle with my body. i am still learning (of course) what gentle means. what is effective? but my dreams were long and complicated and vivid - as they have been every night here. i was so HAPPY! i was so comfortable. i felt something inside so a peace. i do remember before going to sleep asking my inner self to come inside and not travel the world while i slept. i decided that i was so excited about the way my dreams are growing that i was close to tiring myself out. i decided that i need to really rest and i asked the particle of me that is ever moving to come within me and to rest also. i want to rest in a deep, inner quiet place. i will need this practice, as i guess that i will be constantly shifting the place i am in - constantly shifting the energy that is around me. i also felt some sadness. how split is my life becoming? i long to go back to Andy's house and to sit and sew and enjoy the easy comforts
of san francisco area. i long to visit my mom and dad and see my sister. but i also long to journey to the ukraine or to live in a little house in the a foreign countryside and have tea with another anastasia... and to write books. and i also long to be a gypsy with Robin and Jeannette as they travel across France visiting villages to share their adorable circus. Robin says he is going to go to the Ukraine sometime this year.... i wonder how i have tied within my own heart places and people that are so far away. at some point there will be a season of coming together or letting some things fall away. it must be so.

but back to my dream. i see grass - luscious grass! and goats! i want a goat. and i do want to have a piece of land, i believe. i do need a place that is not moving. Robin knows the english word: Nomad : and doesn't even know how say that he "forgot his other shoes" in correct english. he has his priorities set. He knows what he wants. well, he IS young. for now he wants to always be moving - to be moving across the earth.

at the circus school here, there has been discussion about environment, and meat eating. i am so glad to hear others with similar perceptions as me. oddly enough, the natural gypsy hippies of France (who i now dearly love) also eat strange things like - shredded pork in fat that comes in little plastic tubs. so with everyone and everywhere there is still away in which they are subject to the system. the fake, sugary, chocolate cereal here is another example. it comes in a cardboard box and inside a plastic bag. it is NOT natural. it is not holy and pure -- but the aesthetic they keep for their homes and their dishes - their Roulette...
IS so pure and it is a strange paradox. Jeannette has a MAC and a facebook account - but is a nature girl and had never once lived indoors until just last year. we are in such a strange cross over time.

i think it's time for me to have a little fake sugary cereal. i've been so free with myself here and i dont feel bad at all. this is part of my training. i am going somewhere. oh and one more note:
dance piece - confusion - overwhelmed - be real - clown exercises. that should remind you of what you need to remember.

--------------
love. what is love? Robin was desperate to make a hand to hand act with a message of anything bUT love. curious. in our discussion of their piece after the rehearsal showing, i found myself telling him that "love is the most powerful force in the universe." he said he knew, and that it was also what people wanted to see, and so that is why i interpreted what i saw them doing as a love story... when their intent had been to not show love. it was a very interesting tri-lingual discussion. their (Robin and Jeannette's) act is great. i really like it - love story or not.
--------

test

2011-03-06T01:53:00.001-08:00

just wondering which time zone stamp the blog gets...

positivity

2011-03-05T12:18:00.000-08:00

i've been thinking a lot about positivity lately. i've been thinking about it and seeing all the ways that i'm struggling or grumpy because i don't employ it. okay okay, now before this turns into another blue post, i am not feeling down. on the contrary, i think that i'm feeling down in order to go up. what i mean is, i think all the difficult times of february are going to lead to some brilliantly fun times and places. i've been learning about me - what i need - what i think i need that i don't need and what i do need that i don't know that i need. also, that i am not in a vacuum, to state the obvious, and that i can learn to engage softly with people. maybe not overnight, but it is coming.

i want to choose wisely, but then trust more. i want to reserve my own space, but then invite others in more often. i want to be a happy worker but not working on happiness.

i love going on walks. i love the air. i love it when the sun is out. i had a great time doing handstands with one of the artists here. i felt SO grounded afterwards. it was the best feeling! he hardly did anything, and yet my handstands got 64.89% better! then i talked a little bit with Lea, one of the other artists here. GOSH! she is a really cool girl. My German language skills are okay, but i've been pushing myself too hard with it. i just talked in english for part of the time and what a flood of relief i felt.

i'm getting ready for my journey through France. Lots of odds and ends to do - as usual.

I've been getting better training time in the theater. i've been eating well and sleep is still good.

i've had a burning horrible pain in my right medial hip socket for about 3 days. it is hard to deal with and difficult, but i think it means something amazing and wonderful is happening. energetically, something is shifting in my inner male/female balance. this re-balance has been YEARS in the making. for about two days, i felt completely SPLIT IN HALF! i could almost feel a LINE down my center dividing me into left and right halves. i have some STRONG shifts going on in my body. i have been feeling all kinds of new aches and pains in my ankles and feet. my back hurts in a whole new way. i think the next chapter is about to fall open in front of me. i think i am about to level up. i am proud of the fact that when i have a pain, i can slow down and figure out where it is coming from. with my right wrist, a couple of weeks ago, i found a place in my shoulder - and then subsequently, a way of using my pronation to open my elbow. With my hip, I found a place in my back and also the orientation of my sacrum in my pelvis. I have found the exercises that help it and it has been a little better each day.

so positivity? I think positivity doesn't mean being a cheerful syrup-head with a neon lipstick smile. i think within positivity there is room for the entire spectrum of human emotions. throughout this whole, difficult past month - i never lost faith in LIFE - that LIFE would lead me somehow to the next river crossing and the next plateau. and that is positive in its own way - whether or not i spent hours crying out my hormonal static. I still had to go through the feelings - i couldn't go around them and just "put on a chipper face." So, I had tons of horrible FEELINGS and I felt them all and it really sucked! But here i am again, where i knew i would eventually be... NOT an insane, sleep deprived, jet-lagged, disoriented, american who hates meat and cheese in germany. am i a positive person? well, not overly so. but i don't find myself particularly negative either. what i HAVE been finding is that this hard time pointed out ways that i can let my positivity bleed and soak farther into me... down into the nooks and crannies where i have some very mean, bitter and fearful false-beliefs. OUT! Old-ideas! YOUR TIME IS OVER! IT IS A WHOLE NEW ERA FOR MY LIFE! BE GONE AND ONLY LET THE POSITIVELY RIGHT REMAIN!

yes, i am finding some sad places inside myself. thanks heavens for a place to get through them and move on. this is all a part of my training. how can a dusty mirror reflect light well? who would want to drink tea from a dirty saucer? all this internal fussing about and crying and fretting and over-analyzing the fact that i over-analyze is actually my next phase of training. it is preparing me for the artist i am becoming.

i don't have a job. i don't have a contract. i hardly have a costume! but i'm on schedule, dammit! i know i am! i don't care how messy and disorganized i look - or how many times i fall apart and eat a pastry - i'm being creative over here and it's bound to be messy for a while. my hair is a mess, my one pair of jeans seems to always be dirty and it's almost bedtime again... seems like i just woke up?!?!? we must be in the workshop! not the gallery... so put on some overalls and boots (or spandex if you prefer) and come share a cup of tea with me. it will be positively delightful.

hi blog

2011-03-02T09:16:00.000-08:00

hi blog - i have been hiding from you. but things are going better now. i've been getting on the rope more often and establishing a much better daily rhythm. i've been using this cool webpage to keep me interested and inspired to cook for myself:
www.joyfulbelly.com

i've been going on walks in the morning to get sunshine, instead of my usual morning routine of yoga. i've been switching things around to make a completely different pattern work here. what worked for me in California, wasn't necessarily working here. i have to do a much shorter warm up before i do rope - i have to take a break to eat lunch - i have to finish before i feel finished so that i still have energy to take the tram through the cold city to pick up groceries... or what not.

i've got a lot to do - a lot that i want to do - and a lot of questions still. i've been having lots of pain in the right side of my body and right hip... i know something good can come of it. i'm learning lots about body movements and finding new details everyday. yesterday was elbows and pronation, today was something about my lateral line being tight - and being too externally rotated - making the medial side of my hip socket hurt. Progress is progress... and slow progress seems to be the norm.

i guess part of my doesn't want to write a blog on days when things are going good - because i don't prefer sounding "chipper" and optimistic... nor do i want the act of writing to draw me back into an over-analytical state. i want to get back into the kitchen, see if my soup is done, finish folding my laundry, get to the market before 8pm and catch up on a few important emails... then reading/studying and my night time stretch-before-bed routine. Plus, there is the trip to Switzerland & France to plan... and I haven't even started that yet.... oooo don't even get me started on the "to do list". The only thing that can exist for me right now is my soup in the kitchen.

February is my Month

2011-02-25T09:51:00.000-08:00

The following paragraph is just honest - I realize I could correct my attitude to be more positive and to better manifest or see the positive, but I am too tired right now. These are my honest feelings.

I am not looking forward to having my birthday in a foreign country. In fact, I am terrified of it. When I was deliberating whether I should buy a ticket, I thought about whether I would want to have my birthday in Germany or not. At that time, I decided, YES - it would be my present to myself - to be glamorously world traveling while fabulously looking for circus work. I couldn't wait to leave California. I think I have learned something: Never make decisions while jet-lagged. I think being jet-lagged is somewhat like being on drugs. So anyway, that vision of twirling around in Europe on my birthday is not feeling plausible.

I don't want to have my birthday alone. I don't want to have my birthday on facebook, or skype, or in Germany. I want my birthday to wait. I want to be somewhere happy. I want to be happy again. I have been so desperately unhappy lately. I don't think it is so much where I am - or what I have and have not accomplished, as much as it is some extremely strong feelings that are coming up. I think I am having a chemical and hormonal shift (necessary and accepted) that is creating a tumult of feelings. I was writing an email to a very dear friend of mine, and this is part of what came out:

---------------
"i have just been completely tanked with the experiences over here - as in ... my tank gets full and i can't seem to digest everything fast enough and process and re-express and do the next thing and uh uh uh."

**literally and figuratively - the food digestion has been difficult and the experience digestion has been difficult. I've been trying to go easy on myself and just love myself, but it seems I am a bottomless pit of need? How come I can seem to get back to a rhythm? I just have be easy on being easy on being easy until... when? Just keep taking MORE days off? It's downright uncomfortable to feel so fragile. I wanna feel tough.**

"my body is rapidly changing - food changes, workout changes, workout progress, sleep changes. etc. etc. etc. it all adds up to this whirlwind of "WHO AM I!?" that is totally understandable to be experiencing, very stressful and hard for those around me.
i feel SO misunderstood over here. my skills in German are fine for regular talk - for taking directions about which isle the beets are on... but i am beginning to run into that painful territory where any type of actual conversation with a person is quickly slaughtered by a flurry of misunderstandings. i listen to myself struggling with the language - and have to just try and keep loving myself patiently through hearing my own mistakes and loosing my patience... yet AGAIN with someone... usually Sergiy. it is actually rather brutal.

i am trying to see all the good things about what i might learn from the experience. at the moment, i simply have another headache (again!) and i am trying to figure out why i can't seem to feel normal for more than 2 days in a row. how inept at taking care of myself could i possibly be? how come other people dont seem to be suffering like i am? am i bringing this on myself? and the storm of questions begins and then i realize i need to simply exit that whole cycle and breath and be simple and just be in a moment. and so i make it through that moment... and then a day later i am faced with the whole cycle over again... and it feels a little like i can't seem to pass this level of the video game.

at the moment, i think i am trying to reconcile some hormonal forces that are tearing me apart with some logical forces. the hormonal forces are saying: you are a women in your early thirties - DOMESTICATE! create a HOME - BAKE things - DECORATE! and the logical forces are saying: PACK YOUR BAGS! take the train to Switzerland and take only one pair of pants so that all your ropes will fit in one suitcase!
difficult urges to rectify. maybe that is why i have a headache again."
------------------

So yeah - I am finding it difficult to rectify --WHAT I FEEl-- with --WHERE I AM--

and that's my update for today. Three more days until my birthday... I don't know what I am going to do. I don't even mind getting older.

Park

2011-02-25T00:23:00.001-08:00

I sat on a bench in the park listening. I tried to listen to the birds. And then i tried to listen to the trees. my mind was busy thinking of things and wondering what exercises to do in order to hear the trees. And then my mind spent some time trying to think about itself and how to get away from itself. and then i tried to just be there and let all that stuff pass. i don’t know if it worked. finally, i lay back on the bench and looked straight up into the sky. the tree trunks rose up away from me and the branches and twigs reached out like the veins in my body. i had the feeling that i was looking down my femoral artery at the path of blood in my leg. I let this image continue to grow. i saw the canopy of twigs homogenize and blend into one great network of twigs, like lace over the sky, and i let my eyes refocus and the trees self-identified again, seeing which twigs belonged to which trunk. i visualized feet at the top of these “leg veins” and imagined running through the sky. With legs as long as tree trunks, each step would launch me field lengths. I wondered what it would feel like to walk on the underside of clouds with my hair hanging down towards the earth. I started to cry. It happens frequently when I let myself feel or get quiet. It’s not necessary sadness, or a bad thing - but it is potent. I suppose it has the overcoat of sadness, but I know other things are at work. Its just something I must do to continue delving into my energetic topography. it was all silent crying. the tears just dripped into my ears.

at some point, i noticed a well dressed old man with a white beard in on the other side of the playground. He was wearing a mid length black wool coat, slacks and a somewhat old-fashioned brimmed hat. i wanted to run over to him and hug him and say, “grandpa!” but, of course, i did not. he meticulously brushed off a bench with a yellow cloth, sat down and arranged his feet, his pant legs and the corners of his coat to all rest comfortably without getting dirty. i wondered what he thought of me in my outfit: muddy Keens, blue hiking socks, black leggings, grey sweatpants rolled up to the knee, two sweatshirts and a little knit cap... iPod wires danging out of my sweatshit... and sunglasses. i dont dress very old-world traditionally. i started silent crying again. and enjoyed the sun as it warmed me all over. i wondered if it was possible to get a sunburn or if i now knew what newts feel like when they suddenly find themselves in the light.

i am making lunch right now. i plan on completing my workout later - stretching, back-bends, leg lifts, handstands... maybe that’s it. the theater has been so full, there hasn’t really been room for me lately.

Seeing the seemingly hundreds of women pushing baby strollers through the park made me ask Sergiy what the deal was. He said the state started a program just recently where you can earn almost your same wage to have a baby as you would at your job. They also give you money to buy the child’s food. So, couples everywhere started having babies and now these packs of women march the parks decked out in extravagant winter clothing, pushing state-of-the-art German baby strollers. I guess business is good. They are efficiently and with crisp organization producing additional human beings. There is a strange feeling around it. I don’t have many actual facts about the situation, they are just my impressions. I think its totally depressing. I can’t see having a child in this world. First of all, I don't know anyone that inspires me to co-create this child. Second of all, I would never want money to prompt me to have a child (not saying that’s the sole motivator here, but it seems to be a factor in at least SOME of these women’s lives) and Thirdly, then what -- the next 20 years (or more) are devoted to the act of state-motivated parenting? The state had to pay you to motivate you to create a human? The system here is strong. People are very tightly managed and channeled. This is also just an impression. It feels like the brain-washing system is quiet, effective and pleasant. After all, who would mind being a little controlled when it alleviates so many of the aches and pains in this uncertain life? And most women wind up wanting to have children anyway, so it seems to work for the better of everyone. The Germans are so good at organizing systems and they have blended a certain amount of comfort and security into their life system. It’s appealing at first, but quickly there after, appalling. It’s tempting, but also terrifying. I’m seeing what a free spirit I am. And again, these are just impressions, not necessarily facts. So if you’re interested in the German social system, best research it for yourself.

Vienna

2011-02-22T04:13:00.000-08:00

So I was in the Vienna (Wien) the last few days to teach an aerial rope workshop. It went well - much better than my last experience in Wien. Upon arriving in the city, several things helped me out. 1) my German is much better now. 2) I was not under-slept as I was last time and 3) I knew I wasn't going to stay in Wien... I knew I was only going to be there briefly.

The workshop went well. I was organized and ready. I knew my material, I had a good warm-up planned, the exercises built on one another, the students were well matched for the challenge, they were attentive... and so the only challenge was that same one I always encounter when I am teaching: I get tired! My voice gets tired, my external energy deliverers get tired and I long for quiet, stillness and solitude. In the future, I will enjoy teaching - or being a teacher of some sort for some subject or another - but for now, I can feel it is still a strong drain on me. It is a type of energy I am meant to expend later in life - and not so much now, while I am still learning about myself.

Nina made EXCELLENT food while I was there. It is such a nice relief to stay with people who have similar eating preferences. I know that there will always be vegetables - I know there will never be piles of cheese fried in meat or mounds of preserved chemical-ized post-food-like substances, i know there will not be cold, mystery globs of something called "salad" (more on this later)... anyhow - it's the same feeling I have when I visit my mom and dad - I can just eat what's there because I know it is going to be healthy and edible.

Wien has more hills than I remember it having. So, there was an upside (get it! ha) - but I still think it is not where I belong. Of course, I don't actually belong in a city at all - and here I am staying in Munich... but this is still the investigatory phase anyhow. So I made my small bit of money teaching and took the train ride back to Munich. I chose the RailJet because it can make the trip in just over 4 hours. The train goes about 220kph - 136mph. (acceptably fast) The other trains take over 5 hours. Lucky for me, I stumbled upon a book in the train station book store that looked worth buying. It helped pass the time. It's a pretty good book with some ridiculous typos -- or just awkward sentences. I wish I could find an example for you. I remember one sentence that had three "had" - two of them right next to each other and the other next to several extra flowery verbs, a couple pronouns to confuse who the subject was, plenty of direct objects, indirect objects and extra parenthetical objects and finally sprinkled liberally with adjectives served with a side dish of dangling adverbs. If I had had to read it once more, I would have had to have read it one too many times. haha! Well, if you can read this blog - then you could read the book as well. Free-style-writing-rebel!

My neck, jaw and lateral skull are skill becoming EXTREMELY tight after I do a lot of rope. I need to continue working on this. I have the feeling that something large is coming soon. A large physical change that will allow me to be more myself, express myself more clearly and do what I am here to do.

In contrast to that - I have taken the last two days off. Well, almost. I haven't take today off yet, because it hasn't happened yet. This is a landmark moment in this trip. Now with that workshop finished, I am "free". I have no further obligations to any place or any time. The first three objectives of the trip have been met (Paris, Munich, Wien) and now the sky is wide open. I feel good. I am good at an un-schedule. It allows my petulant side to run rampant. I wonder how that will work if/when I have a contract. hmmmmm. Eh - I keep telling myself that "right place at the right time" will allow me to settle into whatever I'm doing in that moment. Of course, the wrong contact would feel wrong - and the right one will feel good. For now, I am glad to have the window open again and to allow myself to entertain any and ALL notions that come to my mind. Brussels? Switzerland? Freiburg? Ukraine? or... stay put? or... go to America?
Guess what, the Circus Center keeps having more and more trouble -(they are closed completely at the moment) so there is less and less to go home too... just the people (my people) and the sun. I think that's all that's in California.

When I arrived back in Munich, as soon as I stepped off the train I could see the micro crystalline flecks of snow swirling down from the sky. It snowed all that night and next morning was magically white. Snow is nice, I think. It is water - and yet arrives in a little package. I thought again about all the snow that I saw falling and realized it wasn't landing on the earth... it was landing on cars, roads, buildings... and me... and I was already headed inside again. All those little particles looking for the earth - and finding something artificial instead. If I really want to work in the circus - then why do I only ever think about living with nature? After all - I will need time to learn HOW to live with nature. My training and education have not quite prepared my physical, mental and hibernating abilities to be "one" with snow flurries and wild bears - much less find clean drinking water in a polluted world. OH well. Everything will come with time. For today - no pressure on myself. No Pressure at all. I've had enough for the time being and I need a mini-moment to re-set.

Emotionally: what a difficult time for me!!! I don't think this blog is really the place to write about what's been going on. But writing definitely has been helping me. My birthday is coming up - I'm in my thirties and I'm a wandering gypsy... it is not the typical path women take these days. no, not typical at all.

So this blog - what had started off (as a place where I was going to document and honestly share the events of my journey) an acceptably public place, already feels too public again. I sometimes feel like removing it completely... but a part of me says, "NO! leave it up! Someone should be able to say what you are saying! It should be okay to have the feelings you are having! It shouldn't make you weaker to be who you are and for people to be able to see it!" Understandably, there is a time and a place for sharing. You generally don't want to hear a medical report from the grocery clerk at Safeway. But I am not sure where my boundaries lie. It has been good for me to be more openly honest about my feelings - writing them down in a place where other people could read them. I think I'll leave it at that. I'm feeling some boundaries.

Except one last thing: Russian Salad. I had occasion to visit Sergiy's parents' (<--- is that really correct apostrophe use?) the other day. (We were out in the car and he needed to pick up his mail.) The place reminded me of Ida and Jake's. It's almost like being reality transported - such a massive sense of **familiarity with something that is foreign** (an odd but cool feeling) - but anyway - there are a lot of differences too. For example, an apartment complex on the West side of Munich is much different than an old farm house surrounded by trees in Cotati. Sergiy is half Jewish - from his mother's side. Since we were there around lunch time, he asked me if I wanted some Russian Salad. "Okay" I said... wondering if this meant the cucumber, tomato salad that I often read about in my Russian books, "The Ringing Cedar Series". What came instead? well. Sergiy tells me I should not judge all Russians salads by what appeared - so I will try. But these memories will surely haunt me for a time! And how lucky I am that the worst thing haunting me is a SALAD! hahhaaaa.Dish #1) It was pressed into a casserole dish and looked to be layers of shredded things - separated by layers of mayonnaise. Okay - I carefully sniffed the bit that was spooned onto my plate - and then almost fell off my chair. Cold, shredded F I S H salad. Sergiy looked at me, waiting for me to try it. I looked at him and gave a slightly sea-sick smile. My fork probed into the gooey mass of odoriferous homogeny. "Just try it!" I told myself and raised the micro sample to my mouth. For the poor salad, it's landing on my sensitive tongue must have been like landing on Mars. There was no welcoming party... just a quiet terrain having no concept of this visiting alien-fish-salad. Or perhaps I was the visitor - vacuuming the sea floor into the cockpit of my under-water exploration pod.Upon food-to-tongue contact, my head was suddenly reeling and it seemed I had briny water, barnacles and wrecked pirate ships floating through my eyeballs. The inside of my head felt like an aquarium : sea snails lumbered through my ear canals, octopus swished gracefully past my visual cortex, crab skittered through my sinuses holding bits of dead fish in their pointed claws and a stinky blue whale made a squealing sound to it's calf as it floated on the foamy oceans waves of my brain. Actually, I think it was me that squealed. I quickly swallowed and took a swig of tea. Thank God there was a layed of shredded beets on the top. I was able to carefully divide two morsels of beet from the rest of the ->blobogeonous<- mass. "The beet part is very good!" I said, trying not to gag. Sergiy was laughing so hard he had to push his chair back from the table to make room for the laughter. As an eater, I don't have a poker face.

Dish #2) Mostly brown - small pieces of canned corn are visible - I believe it was made with tuna - honestly I have no memory of tasting it... though I am fairly sure the moment occurred, I can now no longer remember what happened. If I close my eyes and try to replay that moment, the only file retrieved is the thought "maybe if I focused on the KNOWN taste of the canned corn, I won't notice any of the other tastes." Maybe that's an indication of why I can't remember anything else.

Dish #3) This dish seemed more German than Russian. It was like a egg or potato salad with little pieces of pickle and chopped sausage, "Weiß Wurst". I was able to eat double the amount of this "salad" as the last - so that meant TWO insignificantly sized bites. By then, I believe my stomach and esophagus had entered into a mode of unconditional repulsion. Not even the cookie covered in cheese frosting with sliced strawberries on top was able to enter.

Perhaps on another day? Maybe cold fish salad would appeal to me if it weren't snowing outside? Or, like Sergiy said, maybe it was not a good example of cold fish salad. Or perhaps it was simply the element of surprise that prevented me from understanding how any living human could enjoy such a goo in their mouth. Sergiy seemed to like it. "Here," I said, pushing my plate over to him, "can you finish mine please?"
"Sure." he said -- and down it went.

I made mung beans with carrots and parsnips when I got back home. :)

All in all, it was a fun food adventure. Now I know... the next time someone offers me a Russian Salad - I can carefully stick to the top layer where the beets are hiding - safely insulated by a layer of mayonnaise from the deep sea sharks, rabid sardines and encrusted hermit crab. Land HO! If I ever am ship-wrecked and need to eat limpets to survive, I think I will spend my time looking for a coconut tree instead!

Notes on Thursday

2011-02-17T11:54:00.000-08:00

1) never underestimate the powerful awesomeness of sleeping in the dark! Do -*WHATEVER*- it takes to get it 90% of the time.

2) asparagras, no matter how expensive... and no matter what country it has been flown in from, will make you feel better.

3) cubes of aloe plant soaked in sugary water will make you reel with happiness - especially after eating food that is crazy high in salt.

4) schnitzel for breakfast is not necessarily a bad thing... or ... ?

5) the new motto "a little bit" has been working. i've done a little bit of everything and am getting a lot more done. shortly after i wrote my last blog, i went downstairs to do my training and as i flung my leg up onto the bar to start stretching - the first thing i saw was a slogan on a plastic bag - "Ein bisschen besser jeden Tag." -- guess what that means!?!??!?! "A little better every day."
THANK YOU, UNIVERSE, I HEAR YOU!

6) everyone here says i train too much. maybe it is time to take that into consideration. hmmm.

7) today i am STILL feeling better - up to about 70% of myself again - so just gonna keep taking it easy and being more relaxed.

but not TOO relaxed! HA!

8) one more thing:
I feel like I need to apologize to Germany and Germans for having some negative feelings about their language and country. I'm SORRY! It's just because of the difficulty in making a transition!! Really, i admire you all in MANY ways let me list a few:
*Organization: EXCELLENT
*Cleanliness: EXCELLENT
*Engineering in aspects of daily life-trains-homes-etc.: EXCELLENT
*The fact that your hardware, materials & textiles stores sell tools and resources that were made in your OWN country: OUTSTANDING!!!
*Vibrant Arts Culture: EXCELLENT
*Shoe Shopping Selection: AMAZING
*** I promise to continue this list of positives and not always LAMENT the difficulties of switching languages and adjusting to a different latitude and culture.

Well well well...

2011-02-16T04:39:00.000-08:00

I survived yesterday. I was crying most of the day - I had a headache.... which had been fairly constant for a week or so and just couldn't bear the thought of doing anything. I could hardly cry without making myself feel like crying. Know what I mean? I was so miserable. I was never in any physical danger or anything - no nothing so dramatic. I am simply choosing to be a **sensitive being** - and so all the processes that I am going through are intense, emotional and visible. Well, yesterday I spilled and sprouted and schmutzed and sniggled all over the place. It was SO uncomfortable.

Here are some of the notes I want to take for myself to document what happened:

1) When people say something to me, I can assume it is well-meant. This "german" way of talking to one another does NOT fit at all into my normal mode. I am very "ernst" - serious. I don't like constant "Witze" - jokes. I don't often say joking little jabs at people or dangle annoying comments in front of people's psyche. "OO eating something sweet again?", "Your hat is weird.", "You could be from the IRA." I mean, I don't THINK that I say things like this to people. Seems like I just can't get away from all these little comments I keep hearing...they cling to me and bother me... and I feel like I always need to EXPLAIN MYSELF - "NO WAIT! I can explain! Please, understand me for once! No really! BUT! BUT! BUT!" But it doesn't work. When people are just "having fun" they don't understand a SERIOUS attempt to discuss the "hat" or the "sweet food" or the whatever. It's not actually about me, or understanding me or being REAL at all - it is just German-talk. When you try to converse with them about it, or express ANY defensive energy, they look at you even WEIRDER! and then say - "Do Americans have a sense of humor?"

This is not cool with me.

Finally my MEGA-crisis moment came and I realized it was not the comments, it was ME. I am existing in a state of __negative interpretation__ Someone could walk through the room I am training in and pause to look at me, and it would send me into a fit of anxiety. "I know, I know, my foot wasn't pointed enough! I didn't actually GRADUATE from a Circus school! I know I am mostly self-taught and have cobbed together my knowledge from NON-Circus sources and even still, i DO KNOW A LOT and it can't hurt to TRY to be in the circus... and... and... wait! let me explain! really, I can explain my path - and how I got here and how... I do make sense... and how I am trying to get better and to point my feet all the time. I promise! I'm not a fake! I promise!!!!" <---- scary stuff to hear inside yourself!!
Not to mention that I've spent the last few days trying to make a video for Cirque du Soleil and constantly feeling like it isn't good enough because it isn't like so-n-so's or who-ze-what's-it's... and I still can't do the over-splits.
Anyway, finally I had to just stop and say, "My name is Rosannah Star Riess and I am a good person." about 50 times. And of course that was all between buckets of tears and piles of used tissues.
And that is just the summary version.

So, the German sense of fun? Doesn't fun me at all. Nope. Not one bit. But it is pushing me to learn more about this thing that I wanted to learn about - loving myself. This cold, strange place has been a PERFECT PLACE for me to learn what I want to learn. Have all my experiences been fun? No. Am I getting what I asked for? Yes, I think so. It is a deep part of ME that is willing and wanting to do this learning. This has little to do with finding "circus work". This is a life journey. That is what this blog is for - to document my life journey - because I always have such intense chunks of it break off the glacier when I am away from the normalcy of California.

2) Food: a major crisis. Another thing I'm now aware of, is that i don't know how to do a little bit of anything. I can't try a little bit of candy or a little bit of pastry. I've been locked into this wildly bucking cycle of rigorous abstinence or (what I have mentally termed) as "trying to relax a little bit". <--- clever trick: now revealed for it's fallacy!!!

So it's clear that I need to "loosen up", but to date, my version of loosening up has only been a chaotic bounce between too much tension and complete abandon. Not Good!
My body is SOOOOO confused between 1) my mind 2) my lack of good sleep and 3) my diet convolutions -- it is no wonder I have been reduced to a bucket of tears hiding from the world in my room. Not to mention the 13 other tasks I have been undertaking simultaneously.

"A little bit goes a long way"
"Moderation in all things - including moderation itself"
Two things for me to keep in mind - and for me to FEEL - as I begin to change how I'm approaching this adventure. Less of this THINKING stuff and more of the FEELINGS!

3) Sleep: WOW. Well I finally decided to ask Sergiy to put up some curtains for me. It was really hard for me to ask... but eventually, the agony overwhelmed my embarrassment of needing something - needing HELP - and I asked. SO - now there are not one, not TWO, but THREE sets of barriers between the outside world and my bed. The blinds, the first set of curtains AND the second set of curtains. Of course, I was cringing the whole time he was boring holes into the concrete ceiling and making trips to BauMarkt for supplies... and deciding to put up the THIRD set of curtains despite my nervous whinny of "butbutbut" ... cringing because I still could hardly allow myself to have a need... but it is, after all, theater housing... and now it is better for everyone. And if I needed more proof of it being "okay" I needed only last night to prove it.

I can now sleep. I had actually forgotten what that was somehow. I don't know how.

It is DARK and it is also MUCH quieter. The street noise is considerable and I wasn't consciously aware of how much it was affecting me. I was not consciously aware, because I think I have been more or less UNCONSCIOUS for a whole WEEK! Today is the first day I woke up and did not have a headache. All along I made some other excuse (jet lag, food changes, too much training, too much pressure on myself, wrong pillow, went to bed too late, got up to late, not enough training, left over jet lag, wrong sleep position, fighting off a virus, didn't eat enough, ate too much, ate the wrong thing, need to wash the sheets, should vacuum the room, just need time to adjust etc. etc. etc.)
I tried to pretend that I was fine for at least the first week.... then I spent days feeling bad that I felt bad and trying to hide it and THEN I spent days just feeling bad and not knowing what to do anymore. I guess it just took me a while to think that I would need curtains. I didn't need them last time I was here - so - ?????? oh well. see! I am STILL embarrassed about it!!!!! and just using the blog to try and EXPLAIN MYSELF. HUMPH!

Feeling bad that I felt bad didn't help either. It's this pattern I have and I don't know how I'm going to get out of it - but I know that it not only NEEDS to HAPPEN but WILL HAPPEN... because I continue trying.

So I needed curtains and I didn't figure it out right away. Okay. That's okay!!

Here is the upshot: I am still feeling very fragile. I don't know how much longer I want to be in Germany. I don't really know where I belong - I don't know what I am doing here. I feel very very fragile. So moment by moment I am going to enjoy a LITTLE BIT of whatever I am doing. I am going to forget all my goals for the moment - and just do SMALL GOOD THINGS. After all - if I am happy and never have a job, then I will consider myself more of a success than if I have a job and I am unhappy. Now, how to convince my MIND of this truth?

This blog is not an ONWARD blog. THis blog is a STILLNESS blog. I am going to stay right here in this (internal) spot as long as I need to. I will not push forward. I will not look backwards. I will stay right f$&&#*@(! here until I feel the DESIRE to be somewhere (internal) else. I just wish I had my stuffed lion that my sister gave me... to cuddle.

Oh - and final note: I bought two PLANTS to sit in my room. THEY ARE GREEN! I will type that wondrous statement again: THEY ARE GREEN!
I collected rocks from the River ISAR <---- I think I had the name wrong before -- washed the rocks and put them in the bottom of the pot that my two plants are now in. I'll take a picture at some point - right now my camera battery is charging. The point was: As completely irrational as it is to buy plants for a room that I will inhabit for only weeks or days -- I was in desperate need and found it none the less necessary to have a living creature near me.

Hope. I finally feel a seed of hope. Hurray.

Dance Class

2011-02-16T03:33:00.000-08:00

"gypsy, neck, left side numb, think to much, so trapped in regime and thought, feel feel feel, confidence, beauty, step forward, chest voice chest, sing, grounding vibrations, feet, new, looking for new, sending the energy out, hearing their message, sending the energy out, a stage, lights, a vast expanse, a water well!?!, a fire - a log fire around the fire, gypsy, trees, plants, the studio, an expanse, nature, held, listening, speaking."

the dance class was great. i felt much better after wards. i spent a lot of the time beating my chest, tapping my head or face. i have SO much tension through my neck and face and head. i have been trying to open up my chest and neck -- but with speaking all this German and hating it: i don't think it's working.

i am still unhappy to be here and this morning i am totally grumpy. i am going to begin considering listening to that feeling and after i have taught the workshop i will think about going somewhere else or just going back to america. i am not happy.

Report for yesterday: played piano all morning. Studied in the afternoon. Dance class in the evening.

truth or dare?

2011-02-13T07:45:00.000-08:00

The books I mentioned, The Ringing Cedar Series are highly focused on the truth and how one can develop practice discerning truth on their own. It is tough to "get" the truth from anywhere else... books, videos... conversation - anything. i know: I just recommended a book that suggests how to get closer to the truth and then said that you can't find truth in books. When I write a book - somewhere within the first chapter I am going to have to include this line:
"This sentence is a lie." and then, "This book contains no true statements." Below is my analysis.
(you'll have to click on it to be able to see it)

No matter how nice, anyone who is selling/sharing an idea is, by definition, not selling truth. i define truth to be something that is *universally true* (there ARE absolutes) AND that has come from within a person - therefore personally defined and understood within one's self. Of course, it is necessary and wonderful for other's truths to inspire people and prompt people forward - but each person still has to make their own journey.

Truth must come from within one's own critical thinking and intuitive knowing of truth - otherwise it is simply a belief...
***and belief in truth is weaker than the truth itself.***

So, that is something I love about these particular books: they are an encouragement and inspiration towards truth.

one thing that really bothers me is when "good guys" make brainwashing videos blaming the "bad guys" about the brainwashing the "good guys" ... when the result is really the "good guys" using "bad guys" tactics to create a twice brainwashed and ineffective viewer. nice work, people!

i've struggled with how or if to share what i believe with people - somehow - i still haven't found my "voice" with sharing. i think i tend to be bossy and aggressive. i'm better at hiking mountains or climbing ropes with aggression than talking to people about important stuff. it never helps to start a conversation off with, "well, #1 you're wrong and #2 i'm right and #3 here is what you should do..." i do hope to continue developing my performance art as a potential outlet for my voice.

stuff n things

2011-02-13T02:11:00.000-08:00

well today what is my update? gosh. i had a pretty nice day. i am beginning to feel adjusted. i still get sleepy at really strange times, but am pushing past it. i took a long walk today along the river. There are ample walking paths and "gardens" along the river very close to the theater here. of course, they aren't really gardens by my standards (not like the magical gardens my parents cultivate at their workplace), but the trees here are gorgeous... and it is winter, after all. so, how much can i expect things to be growing in an icy place? it was cold - but i was wearing nice warm sweatshirts and jackets and wasn't cold at all. weather report said it was going to snow again soon.

the dudes were surfing on the river again. and i also found some KAYAKERS on the river - people man - HUNGRY for outdoor adventure and trying to get it even in the city. they want to be 'hardcore' i guess. i would never subject myself to such cold just for sport. i might do it for lifestyle or expedition, but not on a saturday morning because i had enough of the office M-F.

did some laundry today... some studying...ate some cabbage... and some beets and some other cabbage... i did some training too... i guess i'm still not feeling 100%. my enthusiasm is not inspiring any additional enthusiasm.

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Sunday Morning:

Spent too much time last night thinking about circus as I tried to fall asleep - and now I am awake on Sunday morning feeling completely sick of circus. I know, I feel horrible admitting this, but it is better to admit it and be out with it than to try pressing myself harder and harder into some mold of perfection. I'd rather let the jam squish out of the sandwich and be messy.

I don't exactly know what I will do today. The shops are always closed on Sunday. My body doesn't really need a day off, nor does it feel at all like training. Maybe I need to find a dance class or yoga class here - something that would be fun and totally different for me to do. I can only do so many days of training and walks in the park by myself before I start to feel a little batty.

Huh - I just found a dance studio that holds classes all day on Sunday. Well! That is now my mission for the day. Oh that - and I can go practice piano for a few hours too.

Here are some pics of the last few weeks:

yep - that's pretty much the routine. music, training and computer. repeat. where is my excitement? maybe there is too much orange and dim red light going on in my life or something. looking at those pictures it looks like i live in a pumpkin. eh maybe i needed some vitamin A.

moving along....

2011-02-12T01:40:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite acts from Cirque de Demain...

a cool picture...

living buildings

2011-02-09T07:23:00.000-08:00

that which is built quickly is destroyed quickly. the faster it is driven, the faster you'll need to repair it. whatever is invested in the birth cycle, returns in the death cycle. you reap what you sow... sometimes you rip what you sew... or weep when you know that you sow what you reap.

that which is quickly built, is quickly torn down.

honestly, today: i have no idea why i am here. i feel completely homeless, stranded and directionless. of course, that isn't true at all. i have many warm places to call home, i am extremely safe in my present location and i've got all sorts of angles, directions and trajectories. i'm not referring to the outer view of me - i'm talking about the inside. i came back over here to this peculiar country... this older land, because this place forces me to go into a hard, cold place inside of me where i don't yet have answers. when i ask the question, "what am i doing here?" i am also asking the question, "what is important to me?". i am not in this location by default - and so i must either answer "random, statistical chance - thus implying that nothing in life has any meaning" (and this is not a line of thought i support) so alternatively, i must begin to understand the reasons why i am here and how being here will affect where i am next.

i spent money to come here in order to "develop a career network and find a circus contract." well, okay. that is the surface... just like my skin is the surface of my body and that is what you recognize me by. the surface is a recognizable exterior - it helps streamline interactions with other exteriors. like the blinker on your car : you're going left? okay, i'm going straight - one of us better wait or there will be a collision. i can see what you're up to. you can see that i'm up to aerial rope.

people have told me my surface is sensible and interesting. the surface of the sea may seem calm. super. but i've got something else going on. this something doesn't seem to care much about a circus job - or a job at all. this something else doesn't care about money, or stability or economies... it doesn't care about normalcy or cognition... it doesn't care about my savings account, my hair style or the shoes i own. this something else keeps surging. i've got shifting tectonic plates and i think it's about to create a tsunami. warning: surface dwellers may be disturbed.

any of you actually reading this blog are those that have some connection below the surface...so ironically, those that need the warning will never see it coming.

what are my actual dreams? i don't care at all about money. i don't care at all about working. i keep dreaming of a small place called "home". somewhere in nature... with very few people around...just the important people. it would be somewhere extremely quiet - where i could hear nature. that's all i'm really looking for - looking for a job is only the "thing" to do because having a "home" requires "money". and looking for a circus job? well circus just suits my personality - vibrantly physical, fantasy performance, international possibility... it seems to be a tool to support my ACTUAL hunt. my hunt for home. and so circus must work for me - it must support my actual goal in life, not detract from my ability to be healthy, happy and at home.

so at the moment I am so completely gosh darn confused because i don't feel at all closer to my home. if i have a 70% guarantee of getting work in 2012 with GOP, then should i shift focus for the rest of 2011? is my "job hunt" now in the back seat? do i need to fervishly continue to pursue immediate work? no. i do not. whether i have conflicting feelings about that or not (AND BOY HOWDY DO I!!!!!!!), the winning answer has still been no. i do not. it is time to keep the long term goal in mind.

build slowly with peace and the end will also come slowly and with peace. build for eternity and your building will last forever.

so what am i doing with my time? i'm not sure. i don't know. i am at a very strange cross-roads. journeys are never what you except them to be - conquests don't often play out as anticipated. i am remembering moments of severe doubt and confusion that i endured on my first circus-trip to Germany... and they were not moments of foreshadowing or omens of doom... they were just a reflection of the discord between my [mind's control perceptions] and the -greaterness (not a typo) of reality-
so here too, that must be happening. i must be exactly where i should be in Event River and it is only my mind that believes i belong back on Control WaterLogged Stump. Well, too bad, Miss Mind, the river has you now.

merrily merrily merrily merrily, gently down the stream...

and my home - i want it to be build from living things... i want a home that opens like a flower when the sun is shining and that falls into hibernation when the winter comes and that get's washed off when it rains and holds me like the mountains hold a valley and is surrounded by trees that bend over to talk to me. i want a home made from living things.

The Story of Bottled Water (2010)

2011-02-06T23:50:00.000-08:00

The German Sun

2011-02-06T22:58:00.000-08:00

The snow has melted here in Munich. It was warm yesterday - I was wearing only a long sleeve shirt and a cotton sweater with normal pants and normal socks. It was beautiful to see and feel the sun. The trees and earth are still cold and withdrawn, but they ARE here. Of course, Germany as I have felt so far, is a somewhat sterile feeling landscape. People have been here for so long and the hunting has been so drawn out that the ecosystems here feel like they contain only humans and crows. Even in Freiburg, in the beauty of the black forest, it felt unhappily quiet. Of course, I'm sure there still exist some small pockets somewhere... where a dear or a fox might live. Hang on dear little creatures! Hang on!!

On the up side - the trees here seem larger than I'm used to. Is it because of the type of tree? Or because the trees have been standing here longer? But then I think about it again and that doesn't make sense - because trees in North America have been standing there as long as trees here in Europe... trees stand around before people come to see them..so they ought to be the same size - but they aren't. I am comparing to a park that is near Andy's house in Sunnyvale - the hillsides are covered in trees, scrubby undergrowth, brush and etc. The tree trucks average girth seems to be no bigger than me - if I were a tree trunk. (which, I think, is a very helpful analogy for finding one's alignment and roots - the ground at your hips, roots are the legs and feet... trunk is your trunk and arms and neck are your branches...head is your foliage crown... hands are your flowers and fruits) The average height of the trees there at Rancho San Antonio Park seems to be between 'not tall enough to hang my rope' and 'tall enough'.
Here in Munich, the average tree trunk girth is about 3-4x my own girth. Many of the trees are too big to wrap my arms around. The average height here is 'way too tall to hang my rope from', unless you happen to have a low protruding branch - which many of them do and are perfect rope trees... and I mean PERFECT! I always think about Ents when I am here - and wish to the heavens that the trees would all come alive and run around the city eating pastries with me and re-invigorating the energy here. What an army the trees here would make! But as it is, they are Sooooooo quiet.

Outside my window this morning was a city worker using a real - honest - to - goodness broom made of brush. about 100 wickery sticks were gathered and trimmed at the base and attached to a broom handle. The long whisper twig ends all curved in a hook like shape together at the tip. He could use the convex part of the curving branches to swipe at bigger items and the wispy twig end to clear the stubble and crumbs. the whole broom was working fabulously. He was meticulously sweeping the sidewalk and curb area where a mechanized device would not easily reach - between the bicycle racks and tree trunks. The place went from being littered with newspapers and cigarette butts to looking down-right tidy and appealing. There was such a nice energy about it - to watch a human being use a hand tool at a relaxed pace to clean a public place; not to mention he was using what looked to be a witches broom right from a fairy tale and it seemed to have a functionality far surpassing some plastic junk item.

I don't know if it is the water here - the air here - the geographical location or what - or all - but I have some same strange feeling in my body again. I suspect the different water has a strong effect on me. I seem to loose a sense of liveliness in my guts. I instantly miss things like green kale, chard and places like Whole Foods. (i know Whole Foods is not just as bad as Safeway shipping things from Chile to California, but I admit I still like to stand in the vegetable section and absorb all the vegetable cooties!) i am drawn to eating things with more vinegar - like pickled beets and sauerkraut.... but they don't seem to quite do the trick. I know it's not what I r e a l l y need. Of course, I am drinking the teas I brought and always have my eyes out for a better market place - but there is simply something different here. This is Germany, not California. There are good and bad things about each place. I don't feel a strong pull in either direction at the moment. Honestly, Germany just seems like a place to work. I don't believe I would find a long term castle-garden-of-happiness here. Maybe, but I don't know.

I can sound out the Russian alphabet again. I read about 5 lines from my favorite books (favorite tied with Lord of the Rings) in their Original language. "The Ringing Cedar Series". I could understand the words: Medical Doctor, Physiology and History. Other than that I had no idea. Just imagine though, if I learned how to read Russian, I could read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in the original language. Being here in Germany impresses the strength of language on me. I am definitely going through my phase of "hating" German. This last week I have not preferred it at all. The more I am able to hear people and the more I understand, the more foreign the descriptions and daily phrases feel to me. The women's voices all have a similar trained tune to them. It almost reminds me of an perhaps past-Asian aesthetic, where women are trained to be docile, subservient and pretty. The German culture is just as important and precious as any other - and unfortunately the same consumerist technology driven underpinnings as any other - and at the moment it feels icky... it is a phase i went through on my last trip too. My whole being is reeling with the change and before I get into the groove here, i think i have to be aware of how out of the groove i am. I don't come from this place. And with all the similarities between this place and my own, imagine the sort of adjustment I'd be going through in a place like Thailand or Nepal....talk about culture shock. So I'll start here in white-bread Germany and see where I wind up exploring next... maybe once my Russian skills are better.

Rest Days

2011-02-06T10:58:00.000-08:00

While I'm in Germany, I miss nature.

Changing is, by definition, trying to do or feel what you cannot. If you understood, felt or did it... at all... it wouldn't be anything new - so you wouldn't be changing. And by this I mean transformational change, not being able to do 20 push-ups and then training to do 25 push-ups. I mean trans-mution! trans-form-ation. nueva-forma. alles neu. To transform is to voluntarily put yourself in the dark and then try to see light.

When I do the splits stretch with my right leg front, I often feel weird. I might almost say a metallic taste in my mouth, or I think about my knee surgery and how I was under anaethesia for about 6 hours. The more I work my body, the less properly re-assembled I feel on that side - but no worries - it's nothing that will disallow my work. My work is, after all, to work on these things. That's my job.

and then i saw myself running through the desert madly - rapidly - at full speed - bursting all my energy into my breath and my legs - wanting to continue somehow beyond what i could... to reach the mountains - to reach the places where water flowed and where i could smell the life of trees and grasses. I want my garden to be vibrant and lush - full of creatures and comfortable places. This sterile place of a desert is no home. Where is my home? I must build my home. Where am I to go to find my next rock - my next stone - my next tree - the next blade of grass that is a clue to my direction?

So, in terms of PROPER circus training, I didn't do much the last two days. my wrist is bugging me and my sleep pattern is so off i can hardly believe it. yesterday i went on a long walk (at least an hour) and then i did a "home" workout. today i did a little stretching and went on a shorter walk - maybe 40 minutes. so tomorrow will be back to regular training. i'd like to get that Cirque du Soleil video done tomorrow. so today i finished up my dance demo video to share wtih them. i'd actually also like to have a piano video - but that will have to wait.

ok well - enough blogging for now.

quick update

2011-02-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

1) OMG. i am tired. getting on the right circadian rhythm is a pain!!!!! besides i so LOVE what i am doing that i am doing it all the time. i weird people out - i simply can't seem to talk about anything but circus/art/music/performing related topics ... and still fuss about needing to take time away from what i am doing to do basic things like eat and go to the bathroom. believe me though, i am remembering also that i need to rest and have a "chillaxed" time also. HA! yeah right. i mean, the thought IS bouncing around in my head, but hasn't really super manifested.

i've found that i can get stressed out really quickly, and then magically make that illusion of stress disappear... the stress state can come and go repeatedly throughout the day - my state is becoming more of a choice.

2) Werner Bus of GOP Theater has told me that "it is only a matter of choosing WHICH show I will put you in. Of course, this won't be until 2012." so while it is SUPER - it doesn't do much for the present. well, actually it does a lot, but you know what i mean.

3) i have an idea for a new prop that i want to build. other than that, it's TOP SECRET! WHOO!

4) Weather was nice today - sun

5) my body hurts like the dickens because i am really going for it - "good hurts" not bad ones.

6) i want to get some time to write everyone back their emails, but haven't quite done that yet... working on my Videos for Cirque du Soleil....

7) everything takes time - being happy, being sad, being employed, being unemployed.... even being takes time. so i am taking some time, i guess.

HA!

friends are awesome!

2011-02-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

I wrote this email to a friend this evening. I love how writing to my friends helps me out too! Not only does it help me feel less alone, it forces me to face the truths a little more clearly.

... "As for the negative feelings/ positive feelings - YES! I know what you mean. At the moment I too am being overwhelmed by negative feelings even though I am casting all my effort towards being positive. I know I am still jet lagged and that all transitions take time and that I won't be able to INSTANTLY find a contract... but still, I continue feeling down on myself... like I have failed or that I am not "doing it" right. WHAT? I just got here! I am telling myself to RELAX and yet that sadness and worry just creeps in like a fog. AH!
So eh!

What else can we both do but just be in that moment and then keep walking or crawling or stumbling through a desert towards what looks like our next oasis? I love your analogy. I also felt that way when I was in college for my math degree. My walk of pain was 3 YEARS long. I vividly remember being SHOCKED the day it was over. I had NO CONCEPT that my life would continue beyond the imprisonment i was in... i simply could not believe that i was still alive... and that i was now free! while i had been plodding forward through what felt like an eternity of death, i could not feel my life outside of this prison... all i could see was my prison... nothing beyond it. it seemed i would die sitting at my desk and doing math... i was only 25 years old but i felt like life was over. now i'm 32 and trying to join the circus - RIDICULOUS! but i made it through math somehow - i don't know how... so maybe i can do this too. life itself -not just circus- contains magic tricks sometimes.
my sense of wonderment and freedom (once i graduated) still lasts. i look back on that experience and know i can trust life to return to me.... if i should ever feel it leaving me again.

i think it is okay to feel how you feel. don't feel bad for feeling bad. just do what you gotta do, my friend! :) " ...

sometimes

2011-02-02T12:43:00.000-08:00

sometimes i wish a teacher or coach would tell me exactly the next right move, like today

sometimes i feel pretty flexible, like today

sometimes i do an okay handstand, like today

sometimes i deal with feeling like a failure even when i know i am nOT, like today

sometimes i can't hang my rope any where, like today

sometimes i feel like i have to see signs of success today, like today

sometimes i rush myself and sometimes i cook vegetables

sometimes i get frustrated and confused by my path, like today

sometimes there is more to a puzzle then i'm aware of

sometimes things are going so well, that i'm able to address details, like today

sometimes i forget something i really like in a hotel room and can't explain it to the french speaking receptionist over the phone, like today

and all the times, always, i'm here. so who cares what the sometimeses are. i've got alwayses too.

München

2011-02-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

Wow, I am totally surprised with how happy I am to be here. I instantly had the feeling that my life momentum spooled back up and that I am now in the location to continue with what I started here. So many feelings compressed into such a short evening. Sergiy had saved all the things I left here - including mung beans, rice and my three favorite cooking spices; tumeric, cumin and coriander... so I was immediately able to make one of my favorite dishes to eat for dinner.

It is completely snowy here. it's not just a dusting, the whole countryside is knee deep in the stuff... makes it look clean. Even though I don't speak fluently, I am still so much more comfortable. Much of the time I CAN complete whole conversations (mini or otherwise) in German. I find myself pretending I can't speak English and making crazy pictionary-game movements when I don't know a word... I'd rather not call up the English part of my brain at the moment (as I write in English: hilarious). I love how simple I become when I only have a 532 word vocabulary.

-----------------

I'm stretching my quads while I write this. This afternoon, Sergiy took me to his mother's house to pick up a sewing machine for me to use. Apparently it is Sergiy's sewing machine! Well, he bought it - and his ex-wife used it. So it was just sitting at his mom's. I haven't tried it out yet, but it is an awesome looking Singer.

I am feeling the eye-dropping weirdness of jet lag- wanting to sleep all day and waking up at 4am everyday. Can't wait for this to pass. I will take it into consideration when figuring out how many times I really want to go back and forth. Speaking of which, I got my first "no" today. Someone I gave my video to at the Festival replied to the "follow up" email I had written them. They said they were already booked for the coming months. ('THEN WHY WERE YOU AT THE FESTIVAL ASKING THE PERFORMERS ABOUT THEIR AVAILABILITY????' my inner voice yelled back) 'Fine. I can take a "no"',I told myself...'right? I mean it could have been the best "no" ever! What if the job sucked or the bosses sucked or if the accommodations sucked or what if there is a better opportunity I will get in 2 months or or or or... Now is the moment to remind myself how good and valuable you are!' I told myself. 'I know', I answered. Instead i felt like giving up. It would be so much easier than doing my workout right after reading that email. Unfortunately, it was time to do my workout. Training sometimes feels like creating a life size sculpture from granite using a pair of tweezers and a sugar spoon. In fact, training really is about creating a life size sculpture - me - and then moving it around in space while synchronizing to music and projecting an invisible energy story. I think I have more than a pair of tweezers to work with, even hands wielding a hammer and chisel get tired and have feelings sometimes. To top it off, imagine sculpting yourself - in other words, feeling the physical pain of each chisel mark. That's what it is. Of course, I love it. And naturally, I hate it. So therefore, I'm doing it and simultaneously writing a blog about it (and completely literally in this moment, much less generally in life)... trying to sort out these inner conflicts...
Woah, I am so disoriented - I spent a little too much time thinking about myself in third person. Somewhat of a relief actually. I don't feel so upset about myself now.
So yeah, this "no" bounced around in my head while I did my workout until I got to the stretching portion and decided to do a little venting while I knelt with my leg propped up on the bed behind me. So here I am blogging. I feel so trendy. I just looked up and saw that I started this section with "eye-dropping jet-lag". Now perhaps I should just ride these feelings out and not get too wrapped up in them. After all, part of my brain thinks this is a dream, because it is 4am... and the other part keeps pushing me to workout, because it is 1pm. So let's just finish this workout (stage at the theater was holding special event today, so I am working out in my room) and then... well, we'll see. I've still got that video to make for Cirque du Soleil that they asked for. So I've still got chances ahead of me. And if they say "no" too, well I'll keep looking for the director that wants a NON-Ukrainian, NON-gumby bodied, NON-$3000 costume wardrobe wearing, NON-Contract experienced Rope Artist... and if I don't find them, then I will ask Candace to be that person and then she can hire us both.
The point I REALLY want to make is: No matter how deeply I DO believe that I am a valuable artist, I will still HAVE those moments of FEELING crappy and feeling NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Having those feelings pass through me does not make it so. Those are feelings - worth acknowledging (hey, maybe I really do need to be able to do the over-splits or have a costume in the video or do a double twist instead of a single?) but they are not feelings that I have to believe simply because they were driving by. Do you believe everything you hear screamed out of car windows? If you do, i hope you live in a nice neighborhood.

So from this morning, to this evening I have surfed from feeling that my life momentum is picking up and that I am excited about how bright my future is... to doubting myself and wondering if I'll make it. Quite a wave. Well, that IS what it means to pick up the pace. Everyone has to go through the excitement, application, disappointment, re-evaluation, re-application, excitement, application, disappointment... cycle. So maybe it is a good thing to be whipping through a couple phases per day. Hey, at least the disappointment phase only lasted about 1 workout. I do actually feel better now.

I've got some vegetable to cook and a sewing machine to check out. In case this whole circus dream does NOT work out, I'm going to make sure that I still have fun with whatever I'm doing (including taking chisel shots to the chest)so that when I look back on this time, I have good memories. That is, if I look back...
ONWARD!!! ... ONCE MORE TO THE BEACH!
oh wait, we aren't in California anymore - can't go to the beach here.
ONCE MORE TO THE BREACH!

or as Sergiy told me, "Sei brav!" which actually, I like better - since I don't want this to be a battle with the French anyway. After all, I'm in Germany now-

notes on Festivals

2011-01-30T09:10:00.000-08:00

i was going to try to write this last night while the moment was still fresh - but considering that i had been up since 4am and it was now 3am... and i was monstrously jet-lagged, i decided on the more practical option of going to bed. Ah yes, the Festival Cirque de Demain - what a glorious place it is. The facility, Cirque Phenix, is astounding and big. I kept imagining my own act happening in the tantalizingly high celings! OH that means I'll have to get my "tall" act prepared! SO MUCH TO DO! and I had more ideas for my rope costume after seeing some of the other performer's choices. So that means more sewing... and training... and hunting for tall ceilings will rig points. The show hadn't even started and I was already overwhelming myself.

Ok, breath, calm down - you are on track - everything in time - your energy will take you to the right places - create success through peace, not angst...
thus went my inner voice.

i settled in for the first show. by the second act (i think it was the second one) i was crying. i whipped my hanky out of my purse and dabbed my eyes. two Romanian acrobats were doing a hand to hand act to the most beautiful music... it was the music. the acts continued - i loved them all - and all i wanted to do was go train and stretch. at intermission i saw Terry Crane (rope hero of mine) and then was accidentally rude to two of his friends (i forgot to say, "nice to meet you before i walked away" because i was so distracted and excited and etc. and then i felt so bad! i hope they were also distracted and excited and didn't notice) Terry is working at Cirque Monti in Switzerland, a place I want to also apply.

I was looking for people I knew - and people I didn't yet know... I didn't know how to look for them exactly. For some time I stood prominently waiting - and other times I walked around looking. I felt weird... but I've got to perform even before I'm getting paid to do it. I was silently saying to the universe: I am here, let the right persons find me!!

So then the last act was a Swedish team of teeter-boarders that totally knocked my socks off. I wanted to scream until my eyes popped out, but I realized I had to save some air for the second show. Fast forward to the second show: it's a good thing I saved some air because the Ukrainian hand to hand boys were BEYOND FABULOUSNESS. It seems that I am in love with Duo Acrobatic acts. I want to be in one i think. of course, i want to be in everything and i already have so much to do even with only ONE piece of equipment, much less my dance work. but i do ask myself, do i want to ALWAYS perform alone? wouldn't it be a dream to perform WITH SOMEONE and multiply that fantastic outward energy of a show by a simultaneous swirling mutual energy between my performing partner???? any volunteers?

So I was trying not to scream every word of Russian I know as the Ukrainian team ran off stage... like YA TEBA LUBLU!!!! and was fussing in my chair like a two year old that needs to pee. I just wanted them to perform again! DO IT AGAIN! The entire audience was in a roar - you could FEEL that ENERGY! LIVE PERFORMANCE MAGIC! IT WAS THAT THING! I FELT IT! Performance is a venue in which even the "normal" people must admit that there IS SUCH A THING as the INVISIBLE ENERGY! It was surging through the crowd as the boys did simultaneous standing backs as their bow. We were all screaming madly. One arm - hand to hand pirouettes and full twists from hands to hands and it was not just the technique - it was the ENERGY of the boys - their calm, nonchalant and humorous confidence. OH UKRAINE! you produce the greatest acts ever! and the greatest athletes! ...and at the same time I was studying everyone... what did they have that I could also have? how could I learn from them???

OKOK so I should quickly finished this and proceed with my work for the day. There is obviously more to tell than I can fit in here. I did meet some agents and pass my video out. I did meet some very friendly dancers and circus artists from Belgium and the Netherlands... I did feel a little panic - HOW CAN I BECOME THE BEST????? and then i reminded myself,
i don't need to be the best in the world - i simply need to keep following my own truth! I need to work as hard as it is right for me to work (and that is a LOT of work i tell you!) and i need to become the best that i can be considering everything about who i am... everything that has made me and is making me. i need to use ALL of who i am to be my own kind of performer. sure - there is a RIGHT way to do an act... there is a "right" or common way to train and to become a star in a show... but i may not have that option! i may be "too old" by the world's standards to fit into their schools and work by their methods. my task is to find MY WAY and my way is not going to look anything like anyone else's way. i need my way to work hard and be consistent and to make me into a STRONG and FLEXIBLE and FRAGILE and OPEN and UNSTOPPABLE force! that's right i need to be FRAGILE AND UNSTOPPABLE!!!! at the same time!!! because i want to span the gap. i want to bridge the contradictions. i always have.... ever since i showed up to ballet class on my Honda CX650 Silver Wing....i have wanted to knit the halves together and create a WHOLE ME. i am closer than i have ever been.

that is why after staying up for nearly 24 hours, i decided to go to bed, sleep... not do anything tomorrow but the needful. i woke up, did a hotel room work out and found some food - which on Sunday in Paris is not easy. Even at the hotel one must enter the correct elevator (without explanation, not all of them go to all of the floors) slowly explain to the reception clerk that i need food, wait for the staff to show up at the restaurant, order something, have them warm it up again so there aren't ice chunks in it... and etc. etc. it's a long story... but i definitely ain't in the countryside.

ok. onward. it is time for the next step.

Day 2 Paris

2011-01-29T01:26:00.000-08:00

Well - how did today start? at 4am. Yes it is the same pattern that I noticed last time I came over here. I wake up very early on the first few days. I like this. I did a little hotel room warm-up & yoga. I dressed warmly and headed out. My plan was to find some breakfast, check the location of the Festival and change my USD for Euro. It was about 5:30am. It was cold. A lot more cold than California. Thank heavens for my down coat. It is the kind of coat I can't even imagine wearing in California - I would feel completely silly - but am instantly grateful for every single puffy inch of fluff within. I am wearing leggings, jeans, wool leg warmers, 2 long sleeve shirts, a sweatshirt with a hood and my down jacket with a hood... and gloves... and I am still cold. I wish I had a face mask! You can't believe how distracting it is to be in freezing cold weather. I will get used to it quickly, I am sure.

As I walked, I warmed up. Of course, immediately, roads on the maps were not roads in reality and I wandered my way in the general direction of my destination. How could google maps satellite view be sooo very wrong? How quickly can you build massive apartment complexes over what the map shows to be a green looking garden walkway? Confusing! I am bummed out by the complete lack of green and growing things. The foliage quotient here is dismal. Well, let's not be hasty - Paris deserves more a of chance. I do find the Cirque Phenix where the Festival will be held. It is in a green-ish park like area with trees. I am relieved - so things can live here after all. I then continue on to find the subway entrance I mapped out earlier and success. 1,70E takes me downtown where I hope to change my money. It is now around 6:30am. The sky is still completely dark - dark as night. I eat breakfast in an expensive cafe and I forget that Europeans add meat to everything.

I wander outside again waiting for the "Change" to open so that I can turn in my weak dollars. It is still completely dark. It is 7:30am. I begin to think that I have somehow set my clock wrong and that it is the middle of the night. I wander around looking for a clock or someone to ask about the time. The streets are quiet. I am thinking back in my mind - organizing my thoughts... where... when... how.... I begin to wonder how jet-lagged I actually am. Or maybe I am so much farther NORTH that the sky doesn't get light until later?

I walk to the Louvre - again following a map that shows a green garden area. Again, very little signs of life. The buildings are towering, the trees are shriveling. There is a huge open expanse of space surrounded by the typical castle-building-type thingie. There are some drab, old, dusty, sick, greying hedges and a bit of green lawn - but most of the yard is covered in stone or crushed granite. It seemed fit to stampede a herd of cattle through or maybe fill with an armed calvary... but it is not a garden!! It is a wonder that we have hearts and souls at all anymore, if our aesthetic taste of a garden turned toward a sterile-control-state so long ago (as in centuries ago when wars and big buildings and kings were all the rage - oh wait, we are still the same way). I pity the sterile-state of things. I am not feeling inspired or moved by this place at all. I suppose if I went IN to the Louvre, I could be surrounded by majestic things of beauty that represent the energy of the human spirit. I looked down through the glass sides of the "great Pyramid" into the museum - underground. I've spent almost as much time underground in Paris as above ground. It was too early for the museum to be open and I didn't want to go down in another hole anyway. I looked up and there - a gorgeous sliver of silver moon hung in the sky. It was so crisp, clean and beautiful that I literally dropped to my knees! I felt a surge of happiness! Beauty! Natural divine nature! I watched the moon for a bit and then checked my clock. 8am and still dark. Bizarre!!

I finally found a "Change" shop that opened before 9am. The exchange rate was awful, but I was ready to go back to my hotel and prepare for the rest of the day... so back down in the subway tunnels I went. These tunnels writhe and twist all under the city. I feel like we humans are emulating rats. It is dirty, full food rappers, blinding with florescent lights. A chilling breeze whooshes from the dark tunnels and I wonder why do we makes such places??? Why are we creating ugly places? Are there people who enjoy the subway? Do people mostly believe that the subway is just a "necessary" place? and that cars are "necessary" and that the airplane that brought me here is "necessary"? And I am stuck in a strange place: I use cars and airplans and computers, but I don't like them. I hope to only use them to look for a place in which they do not exist... sure, I am here to find WORK in an urban area - but the only reason I have desire to WORK is to procure a natural place for myself. Does that justify use of the technology that I don't ultimately support? Or am I simply being tricked into supporting the system by my continued used of all these devices? And is it fair to leave filthy, nasty places on the earth and retreat to the woods so that I can erase (deny) those human actions? I don't know, but for now - I'm still going to pursue it. Work in this world of crap while searching for a place of beauty. As long as I do my best to promote beauty and nature along the way.... ?

I decided to try and walk from the subway station to my hotel instead of taking the bus. I watched the sun rise - finally around 9am. I walked along the river - looked at all the garbage and the massive factories and slate colored buildings. I had to struggle to find a way for pedestrians to cross all the whizzing auto-routes. There was no clear path - in other words, it was designed for CARS, not for people. I had to jay walk and jump over barriers and backtrack in order to make it. But I'm here now in my room again and appreciating Germany. I believe Paris still deserves another chance, but so far she isn't very pretty.

Europe Trip #2

2011-01-28T10:47:00.000-08:00

Last time I visited Europe, I had wished I kept better notes on my experiences... or had written memoirs when I came home - so this time, I'll keep some blog notes to document my journey. I'm back again. I just arrived today to Paris from San Jose. I'm in my hotel and I'm pretty darn tired. I enjoyed flying on Iceland Air because it exposed me a little bit to their language and culture - interesting stuff. Belief in elves? Cornball movies where adults play children? Sparse population and a language that dates back to the ORIGINAL Viking settlers? In fact, I read that each Icelander can trace their linage back to the first settlers. Now that is the kind of line that I wish I could trace. That is why I came to Germany the first first time, in 2004. (So technically this will be my third trip) I was curious about my heritage. Well, turns out, I've lost most of my German aesthetic. Though, I still enjoy the language for how it is breaking me out of my old self and thought patterns. It is not easy to have a habitual negative inner dialog with yourself when you're doing it in a second language.

So here I am in Paris - where they speak French. I was slightly harassed by some Turkish boys on the train, I was helped multiple times with my luggage by black men and once by a white girl who was accompanied by a seemingly Turkish guy. There are a lot of black and Turkish people here. The black people have a much more appealing energy than in the U.S. Also, their blood is not as mixed with white's - so there is a strong line connecting them to who they are.
But I'm no longer interested in Germany as a connection to who I am. I now see that I am completely freed of both my European heritage and my American upbringing. It is now time for me to dig even DEEPER back into my past - back to a time that was not tarnished by illogical thinking, mis-beliefs about God and a life focused on the physical. I want to connect with my TRUE ancestors.
I've found a few simple things that do actually inspire that attitude in me: listening to music by Sami singers (right now Sofia Jannok), listening to certain Russian singers (Yulia Savicheva), learning Russian, and being in Europe. Being IN Germany puts me in an energetic range that enables me to pick up the next invisible message. It is probable that THIS is not my next home, but that it is here I will find and hear the clues to where my search should next go. I may go to the Ukraine - I may return to California... who knows. It's so up in the air - like me. I'm up in the air.
It's been too many days since I've been on the rope. I'm starting to get that cranky feeling of 'not having worked out enough.'
What else can I share about today before I close this entry? nothing. I'm tired. It's time for some rest so that I can be guns 'a blazin tomorrow. I love my hotel room. I love the shower in my hotel room and even if I need to sleep in my down coat because the blankets are so thin - it totally beats being on someone else's couch. This room is mine. For the next three days, I have my OWN SPACE... and though my "spring water" still comes from plastic bottles in the vending machine downstairs... and though the roar out the window is traffic, not wind in trees... and though I can't see a living plant out the window at all... it is still a start. I am on a quest to find the RIGHT space in the right PLACE that... at the right time.... i can call M I N E.

Oh wait - one more thing! I just remembered. When I opened my suitcase (the one which arrived missed a wheel) I found a friendly little note inside from the TSA. They decided to open my bag and look through it. The note included this statement: "If the TSA officer was unable to open your bag for inspection because it was locked, the officer may have been forced to break the locks on your bag. TSA sincerely regrets having to do this, however TSA is not liable for the damage to your locks resulting from the necessary security precaution."

Here is my response:
"pffffffffffffffffftttttttttttttttttttttttttt! cshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh kkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!
oka....a...a...ay"

The Costume

2009-08-19T22:06:00.001-07:00

I learned alot the hard way constructing this costume - but hey, now the next one will be easier right?

Testing Testing 1 2 3

2009-07-09T13:32:00.001-07:00

It seems to be working.