S gathers with likeminded folk * a disturbing dream memory * a lack of vision * a taste of the dark * talks about pregnancy * a message about the Divine Universal Mother * seeking Her
May 16, 2023·edited May 16, 2023Liked by Schuyler Brown
Time is flowing backwards and forwards as i try to catch up over this past day or two...
This morning's _Coming Home_ meditation was nourishing. Is dozing off another way of turning away? Maybe, but i think context is important.
I've been struggling to stay fully conscious as I've read (this is not meant as a critique; for years now i've "used" reading as a way to get to sleep -- it seems one of the rare ways i'm able to truly relax, wind down and stop "doing"). So now i think (after getting through the rest of Chapter 12 (which I started before attending your meditation session this morning), and now 13 and 14), I'll pause, and wait to continue on further. As your writing has entered and then departed from dreams the characters had/have, my own dalliances at the edges of consciousness while reading has created a multi-dimensional tableau of interwoven "states" in and around the border between sleep and wakefulness, between reality and fantasy. What is and what might be...
Charlie, thank you for your persistence and honesty. It's a lot to ask of the reader and you're stepping up to the task! What I enjoy about the multidimensional tableau of states that weave through time is that it does feel to me like life itself, which doesn't always progress linearly and also dives through time in memory and speculation and future thinking...I was listening to that song, Pastime Paradise by Stevie Wonder and enjoying how he plays with the same perspective shift in the lyrics. I'll be curious how this all winds together towards some conclusion!!
What i'm just realizing now (as i'm operating on somewhere around 2 hours of sleep this morning), and this relates fairly directly to yesterday's _Coming Home_ meditation, is that it's not so much "persistence", as it is, yet another way i "turn away" from stress.
On the other hand, reading great literature (this work of yours definitely qualifies!) is a far less dysfunctional way to "avoid being with myself, my feelings, bodily sensations, and emotions, *fully*", as is engaging with music (listening, singing, playing it, or dancing), vs. the far more problematic ways i've been dealing most of my life:
1. getting high (though not for almost 9 years now)
2. drinking alcohol to excess (this almost completely stopped well over 3 decades ago)
3. driving too fast (unfortunately i still do this, though thankfully not nearly as much (nor to such an extreme) as i used to)
4. overeating, and/or eating foods that are horrible in terms of nutrition/health (very much still a *huge* problem)
5. watching porn and/or masturbating (while i'm recently doing a little better with not following through when the desire occurs most of the time, I'm still experiencing quite intense urges to do this (which bugs the fuck out of me!) a lot more often than i'd prefer)
7. putting way way too much energy/effort into my "day" job (it'd be a lot better for me if i could manage to really limit my engagement only to 9-5 M-F as well as not get so emotionally entangled with issues about where I'm employed which really are not my responsibility to solve)
8. choosing to "give up" on getting more sleep after not lying in bed in the dark for longer, when the likelihood that if i do, i'll fall back asleep, is non-zero (on the other hand, i do manage to get a fair amount accomplished in the wee hours pretty often, so this one has an upside, which of course plays into me "rationalizing" that it's better to not continue to "waste time" lying there in the dark not sleeping)
9 & 10 do, do, do, do, do & impulsively taking risks that i'd be better served not to
and so i'm super grateful to have you writing faster than i've been able to read (i may save these next 3 chapters (or at least some of them?) as a "reserve" in case i really need to "escape" in the near future again, as was obviously necessary over these past few days)
as my (most excellent!) shrink told me well over a year ago, when i finally chose to follow her advice and read a specific book she'd recommended (_Epistemic Injustice_ by Miranda Fricker) and I discovered that it was absolutely "perfect" at putting me to sleep (most nights i'd only get through a couple pages at most before dozing off almost immediately just due to the (heavily "academic") writing style of the author (and despite the content being fabulously interesting to me, and my gaining incredibly profound insights from the book):
"Great! No side effects."
(in contrast to the sleeping medications she was prescribing me at the time, trazodone and ambien (while i still have a supply of both readily available it's been months since I've felt a need to take either/both))
i even ended up choosing to read other books instead of that one on nights when i didn't feel a need to get right to sleep (keeping it "in reserve" and stretching it out as long as i could, so that it'd be available for me either at bedtime, or when i woke up in the wee hours and felt like maybe i could get back to sleep better if i tried)
For the record, _Tenacious Magic_ is nowhere near as good at putting me to sleep :-]
Yet there's a pattern here that's important and it has to do with my explicitly choosing to ignore sleep hygiene advice which is commonly given (only lie on one's bed when one is specifically trying to get to sleep at night). I've always chosen to read in a prone position whenever possible (couches work as well as beds, as does the ground when i'm outside). When i have to (on a train for instance), i *can* read sitting up; i just really don't like to. This extends to my computer use too (i'm typing on a laptop lying on my chest/belly right now, and i actually spend at least as much time "working" prone, as i do sitting up at a desk in the "normal" fashion most people engage with computers). But it's also one of the reasons i really prefer dead trees as my reading medium (vs. laptops, desktops and other screen-reader devices); so much easier to change positions with an old-fashioned book in my hand than it is to fight with some stupid device that's unweildy and/or wants to keep "correcting" the direction the text is displayed when turned on its side.
Anyhow, most or all of that is likely pretty irrelevant to your endeavor.
But yeah, the way time gets shifted by our minds is fascinating. And of course dreams (both REM sleep and "daydreaming") are important contributors to this "mashing up" of linearity (the mathematical concept of "non-linearity" seems inadequate to describe what happens in my consciouisness with respect to out of order memories, as well as the "dropping" or even "changing away from what might have *really* happened" in terms of how i look "back" on certain events, "times", people, etc... so i'm not sure how exactly to language this).
i may have mentioned this in one of my 6 notes following me finishing chapter 11, but i have a great appreciation for the authors i'm currently reading (in parallel to your work here): Barbara Kingsolver and Wallace Stegner, as they really do a great job of "jumbling up" (yet in a profoundly coherent way by the time one "finishes" their books, even if one can be quite confused by it at the beginning and even in the middle of reading their works) the temporal sequences of the narratives they spin in relating their story-arcs...
The great thing about what you're doing is that a whole other "dimension" (of time shifting) is also available to both you and us, as your writing/publishing has a temporal sequence too that provides a meta-level above and beyond what exists in any "completed book".
Furthermore, as my reading lags slightly behind your writing, i get yet another additional "level" of all this time-shifting (especially because i catch glimpses of "new" chapters that i've not caught up to and so am not yet ready to read, yet i can't really avoid taking in the first sentence or two of some email announcements, which almost always have summaries in them).
i have to confess, i'm very tempted to get into chapter 15 at this point, and i might just do that sooner rather than later (much as i want to "keep it in reserve"
the eternal dilemma of never wanting the best books to end (yet being unable to keep reading them, and so finding oneself so so disappointed when one reaches the end)
probably my request to have you "solve this" conundrum for me/us by continuing to write _Tenacious Magic_ for the entire duration of however much longer you live is an impractical (and/or unreasonable?) one though :-]
hmmm, maybe this isn't a horrible idea? Do you have to end it just because you're getting so close to Katherine's death? i actually don't think so...
I thinks this might be perhaps my favorite chapter so far. There is so much going on. I love the synchronicities, with the email, the masseuse. The home baby delivery which I can vouch for as it's easier to ask for that in the Netherlands where I live.
The embrace of the cthonic powers through the snake of the devine feminine that makes me think of Hecate, the most respected and powerful goddess (Titane) in all Pantheon.
The alchemy to turn the frustrated erotic energy into Gold through the metaphor of the Body as a temple.
So obvious ofc in hindsight... So scary to step in the unknown when we're in the midst of it.
Time is flowing backwards and forwards as i try to catch up over this past day or two...
This morning's _Coming Home_ meditation was nourishing. Is dozing off another way of turning away? Maybe, but i think context is important.
I've been struggling to stay fully conscious as I've read (this is not meant as a critique; for years now i've "used" reading as a way to get to sleep -- it seems one of the rare ways i'm able to truly relax, wind down and stop "doing"). So now i think (after getting through the rest of Chapter 12 (which I started before attending your meditation session this morning), and now 13 and 14), I'll pause, and wait to continue on further. As your writing has entered and then departed from dreams the characters had/have, my own dalliances at the edges of consciousness while reading has created a multi-dimensional tableau of interwoven "states" in and around the border between sleep and wakefulness, between reality and fantasy. What is and what might be...
Charlie, thank you for your persistence and honesty. It's a lot to ask of the reader and you're stepping up to the task! What I enjoy about the multidimensional tableau of states that weave through time is that it does feel to me like life itself, which doesn't always progress linearly and also dives through time in memory and speculation and future thinking...I was listening to that song, Pastime Paradise by Stevie Wonder and enjoying how he plays with the same perspective shift in the lyrics. I'll be curious how this all winds together towards some conclusion!!
Heh,
What i'm just realizing now (as i'm operating on somewhere around 2 hours of sleep this morning), and this relates fairly directly to yesterday's _Coming Home_ meditation, is that it's not so much "persistence", as it is, yet another way i "turn away" from stress.
On the other hand, reading great literature (this work of yours definitely qualifies!) is a far less dysfunctional way to "avoid being with myself, my feelings, bodily sensations, and emotions, *fully*", as is engaging with music (listening, singing, playing it, or dancing), vs. the far more problematic ways i've been dealing most of my life:
1. getting high (though not for almost 9 years now)
2. drinking alcohol to excess (this almost completely stopped well over 3 decades ago)
3. driving too fast (unfortunately i still do this, though thankfully not nearly as much (nor to such an extreme) as i used to)
4. overeating, and/or eating foods that are horrible in terms of nutrition/health (very much still a *huge* problem)
5. watching porn and/or masturbating (while i'm recently doing a little better with not following through when the desire occurs most of the time, I'm still experiencing quite intense urges to do this (which bugs the fuck out of me!) a lot more often than i'd prefer)
6. "retail therapy" (i.e. wastefully purchasing things/services i really don't need)
7. putting way way too much energy/effort into my "day" job (it'd be a lot better for me if i could manage to really limit my engagement only to 9-5 M-F as well as not get so emotionally entangled with issues about where I'm employed which really are not my responsibility to solve)
8. choosing to "give up" on getting more sleep after not lying in bed in the dark for longer, when the likelihood that if i do, i'll fall back asleep, is non-zero (on the other hand, i do manage to get a fair amount accomplished in the wee hours pretty often, so this one has an upside, which of course plays into me "rationalizing" that it's better to not continue to "waste time" lying there in the dark not sleeping)
9 & 10 do, do, do, do, do & impulsively taking risks that i'd be better served not to
and so i'm super grateful to have you writing faster than i've been able to read (i may save these next 3 chapters (or at least some of them?) as a "reserve" in case i really need to "escape" in the near future again, as was obviously necessary over these past few days)
as my (most excellent!) shrink told me well over a year ago, when i finally chose to follow her advice and read a specific book she'd recommended (_Epistemic Injustice_ by Miranda Fricker) and I discovered that it was absolutely "perfect" at putting me to sleep (most nights i'd only get through a couple pages at most before dozing off almost immediately just due to the (heavily "academic") writing style of the author (and despite the content being fabulously interesting to me, and my gaining incredibly profound insights from the book):
"Great! No side effects."
(in contrast to the sleeping medications she was prescribing me at the time, trazodone and ambien (while i still have a supply of both readily available it's been months since I've felt a need to take either/both))
i even ended up choosing to read other books instead of that one on nights when i didn't feel a need to get right to sleep (keeping it "in reserve" and stretching it out as long as i could, so that it'd be available for me either at bedtime, or when i woke up in the wee hours and felt like maybe i could get back to sleep better if i tried)
For the record, _Tenacious Magic_ is nowhere near as good at putting me to sleep :-]
Yet there's a pattern here that's important and it has to do with my explicitly choosing to ignore sleep hygiene advice which is commonly given (only lie on one's bed when one is specifically trying to get to sleep at night). I've always chosen to read in a prone position whenever possible (couches work as well as beds, as does the ground when i'm outside). When i have to (on a train for instance), i *can* read sitting up; i just really don't like to. This extends to my computer use too (i'm typing on a laptop lying on my chest/belly right now, and i actually spend at least as much time "working" prone, as i do sitting up at a desk in the "normal" fashion most people engage with computers). But it's also one of the reasons i really prefer dead trees as my reading medium (vs. laptops, desktops and other screen-reader devices); so much easier to change positions with an old-fashioned book in my hand than it is to fight with some stupid device that's unweildy and/or wants to keep "correcting" the direction the text is displayed when turned on its side.
Anyhow, most or all of that is likely pretty irrelevant to your endeavor.
But yeah, the way time gets shifted by our minds is fascinating. And of course dreams (both REM sleep and "daydreaming") are important contributors to this "mashing up" of linearity (the mathematical concept of "non-linearity" seems inadequate to describe what happens in my consciouisness with respect to out of order memories, as well as the "dropping" or even "changing away from what might have *really* happened" in terms of how i look "back" on certain events, "times", people, etc... so i'm not sure how exactly to language this).
i may have mentioned this in one of my 6 notes following me finishing chapter 11, but i have a great appreciation for the authors i'm currently reading (in parallel to your work here): Barbara Kingsolver and Wallace Stegner, as they really do a great job of "jumbling up" (yet in a profoundly coherent way by the time one "finishes" their books, even if one can be quite confused by it at the beginning and even in the middle of reading their works) the temporal sequences of the narratives they spin in relating their story-arcs...
The great thing about what you're doing is that a whole other "dimension" (of time shifting) is also available to both you and us, as your writing/publishing has a temporal sequence too that provides a meta-level above and beyond what exists in any "completed book".
Furthermore, as my reading lags slightly behind your writing, i get yet another additional "level" of all this time-shifting (especially because i catch glimpses of "new" chapters that i've not caught up to and so am not yet ready to read, yet i can't really avoid taking in the first sentence or two of some email announcements, which almost always have summaries in them).
i have to confess, i'm very tempted to get into chapter 15 at this point, and i might just do that sooner rather than later (much as i want to "keep it in reserve"
the eternal dilemma of never wanting the best books to end (yet being unable to keep reading them, and so finding oneself so so disappointed when one reaches the end)
probably my request to have you "solve this" conundrum for me/us by continuing to write _Tenacious Magic_ for the entire duration of however much longer you live is an impractical (and/or unreasonable?) one though :-]
hmmm, maybe this isn't a horrible idea? Do you have to end it just because you're getting so close to Katherine's death? i actually don't think so...
I thinks this might be perhaps my favorite chapter so far. There is so much going on. I love the synchronicities, with the email, the masseuse. The home baby delivery which I can vouch for as it's easier to ask for that in the Netherlands where I live.
The embrace of the cthonic powers through the snake of the devine feminine that makes me think of Hecate, the most respected and powerful goddess (Titane) in all Pantheon.
The alchemy to turn the frustrated erotic energy into Gold through the metaphor of the Body as a temple.
So obvious ofc in hindsight... So scary to step in the unknown when we're in the midst of it.