Sky

Sky
Flying soaring freedom
Home of eagle, home of hawk

Sky
Blue tranquil deep
Serene

Sky
Raindrops, teardrops.

Where does sky begin?
The air around me, invisible,
Caressing my cheek
That's not sky
But the air goes up and up forever
Until it becomes sky

When does it become sky?
When it turns from invisible to blue.
It's not really blue.
It just looks that way to us.
It's all an illusion.
It's all a matter of point of view.

We always say that the color of the sky is blue.
I look above and I don't see blue.
I see gray.
The sky is gray.
That is not sky.
That is clouds.
Clouds floating in the sky.
Clouds blocking the view of blue.
Clouds between me and the sky.

Where is the sky?
Are the clouds in the sky?
Or is the sky the blue behind the clouds?
It's all just a point of view.

Sky
Dark, forbidding.
Thunderclouds.
Lightning strikes.
Hail hammers.
Tornadoes destroy.

Sky
Stars twinkle.
Moon shines.

Sky
Golden sunlight dazzles.

Sky
The air around us
Reaches up
Touches treetops
On to mountaintops
Reaches the moon
The sun
The planets
The stars
The universe
Vast
Infinite
Eternal

Aspen, apricot, and avocado

Next in my series of comments from Lives of the Trees by Diana Wells are aspen, apricot, and avocado.

Apricot and avocado are apparently very nutritious.  Reading about them caused me to want to eat them more often.

As for aspen, they

are some of the toughtest trees on earth.  Indeed, the very trembling of their leaves is a strategy to avoid damage from gusty winds in the exposed places where aspens so often grow.  Aspens can live in barren, mountainous regions, as well as many other places.  Their heart-shaped leaves are borne at the end of long, flattened stalks so that instead of resisting breezes and breaking, they bend with them.

Wherever I find barren regions and gusty winds in my life, may I bend and tremble so as not to be broken by the storm.

Narrowing it down

So, in my earlier post "Success," I wrote about how I aspire to do too many things, and that if I want to move forward, I need to set achievable goals.  I listed all the things I wanted to do.  Now how do I narrow it down?

1. I need to find a way to escape my job.
   
   It's  not going to be an easy journey.  I don't know exactly what I want to do.  I have a number of ideas.  I need to just try things, to explore.  As I do that, I'll find that some things are promising while others are less so.  I need to not get discouraged by all the dead ends, to remember that it's an ongoing journey.  I have in a way been trying to figure this out all my life.  There were reprieves for several years, when I was doing something I enjoyed.  Even if you only count the most recent spate of it, I have been struggling with this for six years, and I'm still stuck in my job.  I need to steer clear of the people who think that the fact that I'm still stuck in my job is proof of the fact that I'm not working hard enough at it, or that I'm going about it the wrong way.  With that, plus all the jobs I've been rejected by, I feel hopeless and traumatized.  I need to keep going. I need to find ways to keep up hope.  I get infected by this idea that everyone thinks I'm not good enough, there's no skill or ability I have that anyone values.  So, finding a way to escape my job includes:
• Exploring specific types of jobs.  Volunteer work, conferences, workshops, classes, information interviews, reading, projects, applying for jobs, etc.
• I need to keep my spirits up.  I need to push away the experiences that make me feel that I'm not good at anything, that no one wants what I have to offer, and that I don't like to do anything.  Unfortunately, I can't push away my job.  While pushing away the negatives, I need to seek the positives.  I need to surround myself with people who value what I have to offer.  I've found that in the two communities I wrote about in another post today.  I think that even if it does not appear to be directly related to jobhunting, being involved in those communities is essential, because it helps restore my feeling that I have something to offer the world, and that there are people who value what I have to offer.
• Networking.  The best way to find a job is by word of mouth.  Again, this is a reason to continue to continue my involvement in communities.   Especially I need to focus on being around people I like, to counter the bad experiences which have taught me that I don't like humans, that I should avoid humans.  I do need to challenge myself, to push myself to talk to strangers, even though it's scary.  In particular, I should try to seek out ways to meet people who may be involved in careers that interest me.  I need to reach out to people even though it's risky and scary, but I also need to recognize that certain people erode my confidence, and cease reaching out to them.
2. I think it would be helpful if I took better care of myself.  Physically: eat, sleep, exercise.  Spiritually: maintain perspective by way of my druid practices of meditation, time outdoors, and ritual.
3. Try to let go of the desire to do everything.  I can't always be hiking, rollerblading, and kayaking.  I can't go to every concert, dance, fair and festival.  I can't learn every kind of dance and various musical instruments.  I can't join every group in my communities.  I'm already over-extended, and maybe shouldn't add anything else at this point, but if I were to add anything, the things that seem to be tugging at me most right now are joining the Transition group and learning to play either harp or hammered dulcimer.  Well, I guess the other two things that tug on me a bit are spending time outdoors and dancing, but it seems to me those are things I can do in a manageable way.  That is, dancing can be just dancing around the living room for 15 minutes, and spending time outdoors can be just going for a relaxing stroll.  

So, an attempt at a  narrowed down list, though perhaps it is not narrowed down enough:

1. Actively pursue finding a less loathsome way to earn a living.  This will involve a variety of activities.
2. Build my confidence and my network by being involved in my local community and the folk community.  
3. Besides just generally surrounding myself with positive communities, also build a support group of people to help specifically with my jobhunting, because it can be very demoralizing for me.
4. Ground myself by resuming druid practices of ritual, meditation, and time outdoors. Allow time for rest, reflection, and relaxation.
5. Care for my physical self by being mindful of eating, sleeping, and exercising.  
6. Find joy in music, dance, and the outdoors.  Realize that I don't have to do everything in these arenas.  Just find joy in what I do do.  

Looking for open doors

I went to a library workshop the other day.  It was kind of interesting, but I had such a feeling that the community of librarians is still closed off to me, that going to the workshop is like knocking on a door, and I'm going to have to keep knocking on a lot of doors before I find a way in.  It seems overwhelming.

In other areas of my life, it seems like I am surrounded by open doors.  There are just so many possibilities I could pursue.  It's frustrating that the limits of time and energy mean that I can only seize a small fraction of the opportunities

But you know, it wasn't always like that.  There are two communities that I'm a part of which seem to be full of open doors, beckoning me.  But when I first tried to join these two communities, I felt like I did at the library workshop: like I was knocking on doors and not finding a way in.

One community that I'm in I'll call the local community.  Most of the people in the community are in my city.  Some live in neighboring towns, but the community's focus is really in my city.  But this community that I'm part of is not everyone in my city.  It's generally people who care about things like sustainable living, organic gardening, renewable energy, building community, etc.

I think it was almost 3 years ago that I started knocking on doors for this community.  I joined one particular group.  I liked it, and yet I felt like I was looking for something more.  I wanted to get involved in something, but I didn't know what.  Then I joined another group.  It was when I joined this second group that things really opened up.  This group offered me lots of ways to get involved.  Also, it opened the doors to the rest of the community.  The way I see it, there are about a dozen organizations that make up this community.  Different people have different interests, so they participate more in one organization than another, but the people in these organizations are all so inter-connected that it seems to me that it's all one community.  And now I'm inside the walls of that community, so that I can see what's going on, I can see the many opportunities available to me.

The other community that I'm part of is the folk community.  This is more of a regional community, not focused in my city.  About 13 years ago was the first time I joined a group in that community.  As happened more recently when I joined the first group in my local community, I felt like I wasn't in the door yet.  I joined the one group, but the group did not have a good use for me, and it did not open me up to the related groups.  I moved on from there to join another group, then another, then another.  Now I finally have what I was looking for.  I'm in one group, but being in that group shows me many doors to other things.  I can think of 8 groups that make up our folk community.  As is the case with my local community, different people are more active in one or the other group, but there is a lot of overlap between the groups, and it feels like it is all one community that makes these 8 organizations happen.  As is the case with my local community, when I joined my first organization, I felt like the community was still closed to me, but now the whole community has opened up to me, and I see far more opportunities open to me than I have the time and energy to pursue.

So if the library community feels closed to me, don't despair.  It takes time.  It's like each community is a walled castle, and you walk all around the outside of the castle wall knocking on it, trying to find a way in.  But once you get in, everything inside the castle wall opens up before you.

So, that may be the case in this situation.  On the other hand, the local community and the folk community are grassroots organizing.  Librarian is a profession.  You have to get a job to be part of it.

How to earn a living

I really don't like my job.  Changing that has to be a priority.  I hate jobhunting.  I hate the pompous people who tell me I'm wrong to hate it, that I should just think of it as pursuing the things that interest me.

So, what's a better way to earn a living? There are so many things that I'm interested in, one would think it would be easy to find a better way to earn a living.  But it's not so simple.  The things that bring me joy are things that I enjoy in small doses.  Doing them at a professional level would be a completely different thing.  I love physical activities like dancing, skiing, and rollerblading, but I have limited stamina.  I don't enjoy doing them for more than an hour or two at a time.  I also don't have  professional level of skill in these areas, and would not enjoy the hard work needed to develop such skill, since the demands would exceed my stamina.

For a number of years, I've felt a desire to learn to play harp and/or hammered dulcimer.  But I haven't even begun to learn, so I don't foresee it being something I could earn a living at until I'd had years of practice.  And even if I was skilled at playing one of those instruments, a lot of people who play them have day jobs.  Even skilled people often can't earn their living at it.

I like to do some things related to organizing, like organizing nature walks or volunteering at festivals.  I think doing something like this could be some part of my paid work, but I wouldn't want it to be the whole thing.  There are so many aspects of organizing that I don't like, such as outreach and financial management.  Also, there are times when I just get tired of being around people.  Interacting with people is like physical activity -- fun only in small enough doses.

So it seems to me that where I want to earn a living is in something that involves working with information: reading, writing, compiling, making lists, working with databases, looking stuff up, analyzing data.  These are the activities that I can do for hours and not get tired of.  These are the activities where I believe I can grow, to increasingly develop skills.

This is not a new insight.  I have thought for years that this is the area to look toward in figuring out how to earn a living.  I've been looking to this area for years.  I've looked into many different kinds of jobs in this area, only to conclude that each type of job I look at isn't really right for me.  My latest thought is to be something like an archivist or librarian, maybe at a state library.  I haven't yet rejected this latest idea, but I'm not entirely excited about it either.

So, I've spent years looking into careers related to working in information, and I didn't find anything that I got excited about.  Does this mean that I am looking in the wrong direction?  It does look that way.   But on the other hand, I do see that I do have an enduring interest in working with information.  I see that for whatever activity I'm involved in, I'm drawn to things like compiling lists, looking up information, keeping records, and writing summaries.  There are things that excite me that I can only handle in small doses.  If I'm going to earn a living at something, I don't want it to be something that gives me small doses of excitement.  I want it to be something that I can focus on for hours a day.  And maybe that sort of thing just is not as flashy and exciting as the small dose things.

Working with information is  not just working with information for its own sake, it's using information toward a certain purpose.  So maybe thinking about working with information just for the sake of information is not exciting, but maybe it would be more exciting if I were thinking about doing it for a particular purpose.

I do feel a passion for getting information out to people.  I feel a passion for not telling people what to think, but for helping them become informed, and teaching them critical thinking.    The NPR story Reactions to Gay Marriage Rulings Run the Gamut includes a quote from someone who says, " What the Bible says about marriage is one man and one woman....I don't think truth changes through the years."  I am disturbed by the ignorance in the statement.  For one thing, marriage in the Bible includes polygamy.  For another thing, clearly things do change.  In the Bible, they had slavery.  We don't approve of that any more.  Freedom of religion is important in our country.  If there are people who have a religious belief in monogamous heterosexual marriage, they should have the right to practice that religious belief, just as others with different beliefs should also have the right to practice their beliefs.  My goal is not to change people's religious beliefs.  My goal is to give people the ability to draw their own conclusions in an informed manner.  The person making the above statement clearly was not informed.

So I want to do something about giving people the opportunity to learn, whether I'm a librarian, archivist, writer, journalist, educator, outing organizer, or presenter of music and dance (presenter could be musician, dancer, DJ, festival organizer, etc.).

Success

I define success as finding the life that fits you.  Lack of success is trying to be what you're not.

Also, successful people are the ones who identify the problem or issue, identify what to do about it, and carry out doing what needs to be done.

Those may seem like two different kinds of definitions of success, but I see a connection.  If you aspire to be something that you aren't, then you probably aren't able to see and carry out the steps to getting there.  

When I was in college, they told us we were too smart to be homemakers.  I knew it was wrong.  I knew that my mother was a homemaker, and that that was right for her.  My mother is a success.  She gardens.  She raised six children, and now she babysits grandchildren.  These things are exactly what she wants to do.  

They told us in college we had to go out and have a career, but my mother would detest having a career.  If she had a job, she would hate it, she would be struggling.

My friend is a success because he knows that due to his physical and psychological ailments, he can't drive a car or hold a job.  He lives with his mother.  He doesn't try to be someone he's not.

Many students drop out of PhD programs.  I saw one who realized right away that it wasn't for her, and dropped out right away.  She's a success.  

Other students don't fit the PhD program, but they keep at it.  They are determined to get a PhD because they think it's the badge of intelligence and prestige.  But the thing is, the PhD is not an award that says you are smart.  The PhD is about doing research.  If you don't like to do research, it's not for you.  But they grit their teeth, they say I've set this goal for myself, and they keep at it.  They take classes.  They flounder in research.  They blame their advisor, they blame the school.  

I'm not saying you shouldn't work hard to achieve your goals.  Just be mindful of whether your goals are right for you.  It's fine to aspire to something that you don't yet know how to do.  It's fine to aspire to something that terrifies you.  The problem comes when you aspire to the wrong thing, when you aspire to something that you admire or want to be, but that isn't who you are.  

And that's my problem.  That's what I've done all my life.  I haven't been able to figure out the right aspirations for myself.

According to the alumni magazine of the college I attended, it seems my college classmates are all doctors, lawyers, professors, or businesspeople.  That's what it looks like in the alumni magazine.  There are classmates I know of who don't get written about, who are living with chronic illness, unemployed, underemployed, in prison.  When I read about all those doctors, lawyers, professors, and businesspeople, I feel bad for not being what they are.  But I do know that that's not who I am.

I donate money to the College of the Atlantic, because I like what they are doing, so I receive their alumni magazine too.  Their stories are a bit different from those at my alma mater:

• Starting a farm and craft program at an elementary school
• Being an administrator for an association of organic farmers
• Teaching yoga
• Designing and building wooden boats

Their stories are more appealing to me, but in a way that's more dangerous.  It's easy to get sucked in to wishing I could be like them.  

When I make my own list of what I want to do, it's completely unreasonable.  Besides the fact that it doesn't really include a way to earn a living, it is also overly ambitious.  Here's what I want to do:

Outdoors: cross country skiing, skate skiing, snowshoeing, nature walks, learn about trees, rollerblading, kayaking, rowing, sailing, sit on the shore gazing at the water, sit in the sun, sit under trees and gaze up at leaves, feel breezes on my skin, and go to outdoor fairs and festivals.

Music and dance: learn to play hammered dulcimer, learn to play harp, learn to play bodhran, learn to sing (to participate in folk singalongs), learn Morris dance, learn jazz dance, learn modern dance, learn African dance, learn swing dance, do Nia, choreograph dances.

Community organizing: be involved in Transition movement, be involved in time bank, volunteer at festivals and fairs,and  organize outings including nature walks, boat trips, and ski trips.

Compiling: Compile photos, family history stories.  Make playlists of songs for different occasions, (for example, one that starts slow and gets livelier in order to cheer me up; one for doing housework to; one for dancing to, lists of songs about themes such as songs about vegetables, or songs about light emerging from darkness).  Make a slideshow of photos to accompany a song, using the photos to bring meaning out from the song.  

Home and health: keep my home clean and uncluttered so that it serves as a spiritual retreat for me.  Cook healthy meals for myself.  Exercise daily.

Druidry: For the past year, I have been taking a break from my druid practices, but now I'm trying to get back into it.  This means spending time outdoors weekly, meditating daily, practicing rituals, and various reading and reflection.  

I aspire to do all of the above, plus I have a full-time job, plus I hate my job so I aspire to spend time trying to find a different job.

I aspire to do all of this, and therefore, I do not succeed.  The steps to success are:

• Recognize that I wish to do all of the above.
• Recognize that I can't do it all.
• Make choices about what is most important to me.
• Set reasonable goals.
• Work toward those goals.

But all the things I listed that I want to do, I want to do them.  It's hard to let any of them go.  

Interfering with nature

In Lives of the Trees: An Uncommon History, next after almond is apple.  According to the book:

The Jewish religion forbade it, but the Christian church encouraged grafting because it symbolized attaching new members of the church onto the Tree of Christ.  Meddling with God's design by hybridization though was the subject of theological debate in Britain until almost the  nineteenth century....Johnny Appleseed...thought grafting "cruel" to the trees and collected leftover seeds from cider presses.

Now, the debate is over genetic engineering.  It seems to be an eternal question -- how much should we mess with nature?

Gardening is messing with nature  -- we encourage certain plants to grow, while uprooting others.  And if we weren't gardening, hunting and gathering also interferes with nature, by taking the life of animals, or taking parts of plants.

It seems every generation finds new ways to make life easier for humans, but at the same time, there are always people who object, saying nature should not be interfered with.  In time, the new ways become old ways.  We become accustomed to gardening, then to grafting.  We no longer object to those, but when someone comes up with a new way of interfering with nature, we are not comfortable with it.

How do we know what is right? How do we know where to draw the line?  It seems to me there isn't some moral law which for example says you can hybridize but not genetically engineer.  It seems to me that all life forms evolve toward preserving their species.  How do we preserve our species? By not only heaping the people alive today with wealth, but by preserving our health and habitat for generations to come.