random

check out this neat publication i found on the internet regarding depression, written by some folks at the university of coimbra, portugal. they worked with ninety people, "patients suffering from depressive symptoms and/or that find compassion difficult or scary." i love it. compassion can be terrifying. 


"For people suffering from depressive symptoms, having been shamed by an attachment figure may be a major block to develop self-compassion and receive compassion from others and may constitute an important obstacle to recovery."


amen. 

strange winds

the weather has been really wild here lately. i fucking love weather; how we cannot predict it, how quickly it changes in alberta and how fabulous it makes me feel. last night's thunderstorm was so loud i actually worried about trees falling on our house. the windstorm earlier in the week was also epic (how do the clouds fall into those shapes?), and now that the wind has blown away the mist from this morning (the dumpling and i were out foraging in the tall dandelions - so cute how they get her wet up to her waist!) i'm watching the trees get whipped around some more.

i'm having really weird maternal urges; daydreaming about more babies, adoptions, being foster parents... it's really freaky. i don't know what to do with myself. maybe there's some kind of herbs i can take? non-breeder medicinal capsules or something? :(

must remember morning sickness...

other than the weather and my barking ovaries, not much is happening. the dumpling says "teeth" and "sock" now. she has amazing tempo and is slowly gaining in mobility. her escape attempts from being diapered and pottied indicate that she has the skills. i think she just likes where she's at most of the time. still, we are about varied activities that inspire her to climb and hike and all that good stuff.

we are heading into town this weekend to go to a three-year-old's birthday bash and for me to help fieldinbloom on his album. i'm really enjoying coming up with some compassionate lyrics. a link to a completely different song by his completely different band can be found here.

posting!

june! hammocks, dandelions, bees, long sunsets, longer days, lousy albertan beaches.

my to-do list today included:
lay in hammock;
go to playground;
get eggs from liquor store;
have awesome bath;
wax legs;
mow lawn.

so far, i've done the legs, the eggs and the playground. that's how mellow it is.

i'm probably not even going to finish this blog entry.

tough times, still sweet

spent the weekend out at the bus in the woods. even though it was kind of crappy in a way, it still rocked. camping is like that.

the dumpling is cracking out yet another tooth, which makes her very sad and prone to cold or crispy foods. the queen put up the solar panels to charge hank's extra battery, which when we live full-time in hank will power our computers, coffee grinder, etc. yay solar power.

i ate too much watermelon and got indigestion so harsh i vomited several times. eventually, the queen's parents donated some antacids, and fifty minutes later i felt sweet relief. but it parked me for the night, so the queen and chaos had to continue the fire-side party. who knew watermelon could be so perilous?

yeah, chaos came out both nights and slept on the old car seat/bench that is parked out by the fire. he claims the comforts of hank are too strong for his taste; he prefers frost and ash.

i'm hoping my anxiety levels drop somewhat, though i am impressed with my anxious accomplishments: depression is way less productive than anxiety. when i worked for someone else, i was indifferent, but now that i work for the three bees, being too anxious to sit down means i get more sewing done, in a cleaner house, with food cooking - that i don't eat because i feel too stressed out :(

in direct correlation to more stress, i spent the dumpling's nap on saturday reading two thirds of a terrifying book about cougars, which means i spent two hours saturday night being unable to sleep, re-thinking all the stories about dead children. i was hoping the book would be informative, and it was, but the information is terrifying. basically, there is very little preparation one can make. and they are probably in your urban area anyway, especially if you live near a river or some forest. they love your children, and the only thing you can do is be a bigger, meaner cat. good luck with that.

anyway. north country fair is coming up, and i intend to shake it all loose. 

abiding

i'm enjoying the first rush of dudeism.

my favourite quote so far is from an article called "dudeism for chicks":


this is the great lesson of the big lebowski;
all of us have parts that are broken
and some of us are sociopaths.


awesome. that kind of sums it up right there. 

merlot and the rain

we did our weekend at the farm: in the woods, with hank and the awesomes and chaos (who only broke his own banjo this time). chaos' sister was there too, and i finally have a name for her. she is the river. she calls me the rock, so it really works.

a few other people came through, and there were only minor burns and bruises. the dumpling evolved her techniques of eating and being cute. we saw tiny frogs and one deer. looking all pristine and unsuicidal (this is in relation to deer being large, suicidal rabbits when seen from the road, not about the suicide of my friend a couple of weeks ago). gaia was out in force.

we are planning to be out with hank most weekends this sumer. this coming weekend, we are going to bring the cat! adventure is everywhere! it's important to acclimatize the cat to bus-living for eventual extremist hippie plans. chaos was wishing for a tribal lifestyle; he would be good at it too. flamenco, hatchets and a large beard can take you places.

other than that, it seems there are tiny sprouts in the garden, and another plot is severely overdue to capture all the herbs n stuff i sprouted indoors. i have littered sunflower seeds all over the bare patches of the yard, and hopefully they take pity on us and glow the place up :)

fieldinbloom is working on an album and wants me to throw down some spoken word about liberation and rising from the ashes of tragic consumerism and earth-destruction. it's been a while since i opened that door, but for this friend, it's an opportunity, not a chore. i can embody this phoenix. 

anger, yours and mine

i need to figure out my stuff around holding onto other people's emotions.

specifically, anger and frustration. for some reason, these emotions were taboo in the household growing up. so when people raised their voices, it was a seriously bad deal.

now that i think of it, i wonder if actually, i made it a bad deal. maybe other people in my household just raised their voices, felt frustrated and angry, and then worked it out. maybe they didn't carry it around like i did. like i still do.

other people's moods are just that. but then, emotions can be so... easily absorbed? so... fluid. they can just wash right over me, and get in my ears and up my nose.

i think my problem is actually that i take their anger personally. when someone is sad i don't look for a cause in myself. why do i blame myself for other people's bitchiness? that is complete and utter crap (trying to swear less). taking other people's bad moods personally makes living with people who are easily frustrated rather traumatizing. i remember this from experiences in cloud nine, and at the speakeasy (that's what was going on in that post).

so, now that i have identified the problem, let us stare blankly at the wall for some time.

ugh. okay, first, try to notice when this is happening. what do i do? try and appease. okay, first step, don't appease. need to do something else instead. opposite of appease is incite, which i'm not sure is wise for anyone, but might provide comic relief in my head.

"yeah, you're feeling pissed off? well fuck you!"

so much for less swearing.

okay, so what is a neutral action? on a side note, since i think a neutral action is no action at all except some kind of non-violent communication like "i see that you are swearing and hitting this inanimate object," did you know that one of the synonyms for appease is to 'be enough'? there is some deep shit stuff in there, which i am going to just cruise on by for now.

you know, i should probably just cop to my own anger. then maybe other people's anger might not scare me so much.

i am not sure how to own my anger. i can feel it. is that it? sometimes it helps motivate me to accomplish things. in a bit of a fury, sure.

i think other people's anger bothers me because of the loss of control. i fear what they can and will do to me. i am not a very good judge of when someone is going to, say, strike out physically. so i live in fear when other people are angry. do i take it personally, or do i simply seek to appease out of fear?

perhaps the question is 'how do i deal with being afraid of other people's anger?'

take up martial arts? ha, i just misspelled that 'marital arts'. maybe it is a hint.