Begin Again

I prefer to begin again BEFORE we reach the end.  

Let's turn around at the brink and do better.  kas

 

Doing Your Job!

 Sharing this  from Cristal Orrand.  I found it very powerful.  

"From a #painting I did in 1999...

I miss the days when speech was Czech and French and not python and corporate. Today an architect (but not the kind that built the St Charles Bridge) shouted over and over "You're not doing your job!" 

I honestly thought he was quoting someone and couldn't process that he was shouting at me. Not reacting made him angrier, so he pointed his finger in my face and shouted louder "YOU! I mean YOU! You're not doing your job!" (because I had not escalated an incident).

So I thought about it. And I thought about listing the 17 things I do every day at work that are not in fact my job and how impossible the whole situation is, but I thought about it some more and I realized he's right. He's wrong the way he meant it, but on a metaphysical level, it was actually quite profound.

I am not doing my job because my job is not to escalate. My job is not to clean up for idiot men who don't want to play nice in the sandbox. And my job sure as shit is not to battle every day to "prove my value". 

This isn't my job because it isn't my purpose. My purpose in this life is to connect, not shatter trust. My purpose is to create peace, not escalate. My purpose is to love and work and protect and grow relentlessly. My job is to amalgamate and to create possibilities where none existed. 

10 or 15 years ago I would have stewed on this for months. I'm still upset, but within hours I can take shit and turn it into something useful. Sucks, but I'm only going to say thank you for pushing me one more step closer to what I want. Thank you, for turning me away from what I don't need. This was 1999, and this was today. I still don't know where I belong. But I'm getting closer to finding it." 

Powerful Thoughts

 So easy to say...so easy to write...not so easy to do, in my experience.  kas

SpiderWeb

 

Squandering?

 

How To Be Alone By Pádraig Ó Tauma

 How to Be Alone

It all begins with knowing

nothing lasts forever.

So you might as well start packing now.

But, in the meantime,

practice being alive.

There will be a party

where you’ll feel like

nobody’s paying you attention.

And there will be a party

where attention’s all you’ll get.

What you need to do

is know how to talk to

yourself

between these parties.

And,

again,

there will be a day,

— a decade —

where you won’t

fit in with your body

even though you’re in

the only body you’re in.

You need to control

your habit of forgetting

to breathe.

Remember when you were younger

and you practiced kissing on your arm?

You were on to something then.

Sometimes harm knows its own healing

comfort its own intelligence.

Kindness too.

It needs no reason.

There is a you

telling you a story of you.

Listen to her.

Where do you feel

anxiety in your body?

The chest? The fist? The dream before waking?

The head that feels like it’s at the top of the swing

or the clutch of gut like falling

& falling & falling and falling

It knows something: you’re dying.

Try to stay alive.

For now, touch yourself.

I’m serious.

Touch your

self.

Take your hand

and place your hand

some place

upon your body.

And listen

to the community of madness

that

you are.

You are

such an

interesting conversation.

You belong

here

By Pádraig Ó Tauma

Have to share this poem which crossed my path by way of Mysterial Woman and Collective Trauma Summit.  A new favorite poet.  kas

Trust