I Love October!

“Your opening phrase is your bridge between the world of ordinary conversation and the other-world of story. This crossing must be both magical and deliberate.” -- Margaret Read MacDonald on the art of storytelling.

Now we enter my favorite part of the year. I love September too, because it's the beginning of it all, but October, November, and December are the cherry on the ice cream cake of the year.  There's something about fall, the shedding of everything old, the creating space for new things to happen, the releasing of everything that's built up.  The weather is turning cool again.  Ever so much more bearable than the heat of summer.  I just don't do all that well with summer temperatures.  

Now that I've got that out of my system (I just had to share because that's what's on my mind tonight as I listen to the lovely rain on my roof), I've been thinking about two quotes this week.  

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. — Roald Dahl

If you aren't going to be engaged in whatever it is you're doing, why do it at all?  I think that's one of the things I appreciate about the tango classes I've been taking.  There's no one there that half-asses it.  They might be terrible, I might be terrible, but we apologize for stepping on each others' toes, talk each other through figuring out, 'now how did the teacher make that happen again!?' and we are patient as we all realize that we're trying to figure the same stuff out.  There's a real grace and kindness that happens in that class that I really appreciate.  And you know?  Sometimes it clicks and it might be terrible but it's fun!  

I think it helps that I approach it with a sense of "I'm terrible, I'm here to figure it out too, and it's all going to be alright! We'll work it out together!"  Sometimes two follows end up paired together if there aren't enough leads -- as someone who is new to the whole thing, and has enough trouble trying to follow, it's *hilarious* to try to lead!  And yet - it helps me to understand how hard it is to be a good lead.  And it helps me understand how to be a better follow.  So I dive into the mess with glee and enthusiasm because in the end, I don't really care whether I'm following or leading, only that I'm doing the best I can do regardless of which side I'm dancing.  

Tonight was back to school night for one of our daughters.  As we sat in the classes, as I tend to do, I got excited about all the things that she was going to get to learn about.  I think we were half way through physics when I realized, oh, she's going to haaaate having to learn about this, that, and the other thing. And at her age, I think I would have not really been all that into it either.  And sometimes I think I get excited about the possibility of things to be curious about more than the thing itself, so now and again it bites me in the butt in the sense that... the thing I thought I was curious about is actually more interesting to me in theory, and the details are something I'm delighted thatsomeone elseis interested in.  But maybe not so much me.

It took me a long time to figure that it was ok to be curious and also ok with the fact that my curiosity sometimes stopped before where I thought it should stop.  And that it was fine that I could be happy and excited that someone else was interested way beyond the point that my attention could be held. 

The other quote I've been thinking about this week is:

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
-- Widely attributed to Dorothy Parker

I don't think there's any end to the things that I want to learn.  I've said it before, and I'll no doubt say it again, that is why I became a librarian, at the heart of the matter.  No matter what I want to learn, I've developed the tools to go learn about anything I could possibly want to know.  That's also what I love about stories and myths - there is a whole wide world of story, myth, and metaphor that allows us to look at, filter, view, re-filter, re-view, and re-vision our lives.  And creative people coming up with new ways for us to do that every day.  

I happen to love the folklore and tales that have lost their original teller to time, but now and again a new story will cross my path and change the way I see the world, yet again. I love it.  I love that our stories are shimmering mirages that we can tell and retell and shift and repurpose and that they gleam like a dessert oasis, beckoning us towards them, only to shift and reveal something new, or old in a new way, as we close in on them.

I feel like with that, I should have a story to end this on.  Hmm.  So a story I learned just before I started taking the storytelling class in library school is a fairytale.  My teacher, Margaret Read MacDonald tells a different variation of the same tale - I wish I could find where my version came from, it all focused on the fiber arts.  In lieu of remembering my source, I can at least point to Dr. MacDonald as carrying one thread of the story for my source.  So with no further ado:

There was a woman who was tired of working every day, all day long.  As she was walking and knitting and complaining pretty soon a fairy overheard her and said, "I will come and help you, I love to knit!"  So the woman took the fairy up on it so she could do her other work.  Off the fairy went, clickity, clickity, clickity, clickity with the knitting.

Pretty soon she was spinning yarn for the knitting and the weaving, and she started to complain again.  The fairy, who was knitting for her said, Oh, I have a sister who loves to spin, I'm sure she'd come and spin for you so you can do something else.  The woman said, yes!  That would be lovely!  And so soon the sister joined, and the wheel as it was peddled whirred away rhythmically, and the knitting needles went clickity, clickity, clickity, clickity.  

As the woman went about with her weaving, before long she started to complain about the weaving too!  And the fairies said, We have a friend, a lovely friend who can come and help you with that!  And of course the woman said yes.  And before long the fairy sisters had their friend there, and the loom went whomp whomp whomp as the threads were beat into place, the spinning wheel was whirring rhythmically, the knitting needles were clickity, clickity, clickity, clickiting, and there was not a quiet corner of the house anywhere!  

The woman began to be weary of all the noise of these things happening all the time, though she was glad to have them taken care of.  But day after day, the noise became too much.  She said, I will give you three the day off!  They said no, we love doing this, we'd rather stay here!  So time passed.  She tried again, I will pay you to take a day off!  Oh no, we couldn't, we will stay and help you!  So more time passed.  She was at a loss for what to do and the constant noise was wearing at her.  Finally after consulting with the neighboring women, she had a plan.  

As evening fell, she rushed into the house where the fairies were still at work with the clickity clickity clickity clickity, whirra-whirra-whirra- whirra, whomp whomp whomp and shrieked, "THE HILL!  IT IS ON FIRE!"  The fairies yelped and fled to the fairy hill.  While they were gone, the woman pulled out the knitting and tangled the yarn, pulled the spun yarn from the wheel and loom and tangled it all too, put a big stone on the roving, and cut the woven fabric to pieces.  

Soon the fairies were back, banging at her door - you tricked us you terrible woman!  Let us back in to finish our work (which, of course, was never finished because there's always more to do!)!  The woman said, no! I will not - I asked you to leave twice before and you would not and now your work is done!  They said, fine!  Knitting and yarn, come to our aid and open the door, and the knitting said, I cannot come to the door - we are tied in knots!  They called for the roving, and the roving replied, I cannot!  There is a huge stone on top of me!  Fine - weaving, come to our aid!, and the weaving said I cannot I am cut into tiny pieces!

The fairies were so infuriated at this that they said, woman, all your complaining has brought you to this -- we will go and never return and you shall have no more help with your chores.  Good bye!

The poor woman was so relieved, she sat down to untangle the yarn, and refluff up the roving after it sitting under the stone, and clean up and restart the mess she had made of the weaving.  It was so peaceful and quiet, working all by herself. 

After a few days, she was sitting there, knitting and as she sat and knit she started mumbling under her breath about how much was to be done... and, catching herself, said, and I love to do all of it myself, a bit at a time. 

Snip, snap, snout, this tale's told out!

It’s a Mythtery!

What have I been thinking about this week?  I've been thinking about how we use myths and stories to help us understand patterns in our own lives, and what that means for the Mythic Librarian.

I believe stories and myths wouldn't resonate with people if they didn't recognize a piece of themselves, their desires, their hopes, their fears, in the stories.  With the understanding that no one follows a pattern, myth, or storyline exactly, I do think that sometimes it can be useful to see and use stories as metaphors, to provide insight and understanding, to help us answer the question, what is and how am I experiencing what it means to be human.

Two Stories

I know I have a lot to contribute, sometimes there's so much in my head informing my opinions, that it takes me a while to figure out what to prioritize.  In group conversations this often means I'm quiet because by the time I've prioritized what I want to say, the moment has passed.  Spur of the moment can be very difficult for me! In email, I can go back and edit to get to the executive summary - it's much harder in real time.  I also have a tendency to "lose words" - I lost "congruent" at the board meeting last Friday and it didn't come back until Monday So annoying! 

Anyway - so a story I've had about leadership has been Moses being asked by God to tell Pharaoh to release the Israelites.  Moses has all these excuses and God's like, "don't care, go do the thing."  The message I had been taking away was - it doesn't matter if you're scared, it doesn't matter if you stutter, it doesn't matter if you need to find a partner, you still have to go do the thing.  Not that that's any less true, it's still true BUT.  

At this point, I need to weave in a related but different story - in 6th grade, our back to school writing assignment was "who are you?"  I had *no* idea what to do with that question. Like - who am I in context of what (mirroring?  Who I am *in context* changes depending on my context. In true form, It was like Alice being asked by the caterpillar - WHO ARE YOU? I think I finally came up with something to turn in, but I wasn't satisfied with the answer and I've come back to it time and time again, never entirely happy with the results. It wasn't until really the last year or so that I've realized that I was trying to answer a 6th grade question with philosophy way outside the range of a 6th grader's reach. 

The shift in the Moses metaphor that happened on Monday after working with one of my amazing coaches actually tells me my desired answer to the sixth grade question was correct.  And the shift was this - Moses also asks God when he sees the burning bush - who are you?  And God answers I AM.  Then God tells Moses to do some stuff for him.  Under whose authority?  I AM. 

Arachne is another story with some resonance in my life for various reasons, so it is with some trepidation being aware that hubris of comparing oneself to a god can be treacherous territory; however, it is possible to interpret God's answer to Moses in terms of who gives him the authority to go to Pharaoh of "I AM" as intrinsic worth.  

Just as God was I AM, Moses IS.  There is no need to rely on external authority to do the right thing.  I AM (intrinsically worthy of being visible, of being heard, etc) is the only authority one needs.  You don't even need to be 2% more knowledgeable than anyone else in the room (though it can be helpful, if they respect expertise which they don't always) for *visibility*.  Moses doesn't need to rely on an external figure at all.  MOSES  IS. That is enough.  And then he still has to feel the fear and do it anyway, but he's doing it from a different place.  He needs to own the right thing authentically, as intrinsically worthy of doing the right thing, to pull it off rather than, 'uh, God told me to do it.' 

So that's been bopping around in my brain. And of course, when one is thinking about I AM, it can be hard not to think of Sylvia Plath saying, "I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am."

Like "No," "I AM" is a complete sentence. 

What does this mean for Mythic Librarian? 
I've been thinking about this. Mythic Librarian is a pretty epic thing to be creating.  Who I want to serve with Mythic Librarian are people who are interested in playing with, using, recognizing stories in their own lives to better understand the patterns in their lives and the stories that run through them.  Enrichment is a word that comes to mind that needs to fit into this. I don't have all the words yet, I'm still working on them.

The buying audience for what I sell here, would tap into things that connect to the mythic stories that run through our lives.  That act as reminders of the values we hold, the people we want to be, and the beautiful and rich metaphors that come from our history as a species.

I have sub-theme (that if you look on my facebook page is maybe actually the primary theme) of librarian as activist and library as life changing well of stories and information.  So, that's another thread that I need to weave in some how... The more clear I get on all this, the more it makes sense how we all fit into it. 

The Prehistoric Fairy Tale
Back to the thinking about myths and stories, it's been in my media feeds a bunch lately that fairytales are old as dirt.  This amazing article in Scientific American actually talks about the science behind tracing myth through time and across geography.

And then there is this fierce librarian:

“Nobody, be it an individual or an agent of the state, should be able to take it upon themselves to silence a point of view simply because they disagree,” Woolfolk informed the Dissent NewsWire. Yet, it would appear that not only is that exactly what happened, but a librarian who tried to make sure that a public library remained a public forum was arrested, as well. (Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Library Worker Heroically Defends Patron’s Free Speech, Is Brutally Arrested in Library Where He Works)

We're not particularly meek or mild people, when you get down to brass tacks. 

Librarians and Community

Day late, but better now than never!  I've been thinking a lot about libraries, librarians, and community this week.  

As someone with an MLIS working outside the library and information community at the moment, I'm feeling a little adrift.  I'm also enough of an introvert that this doesn't bother me much, but it has given me some things to think about on the topic.

I was all excited about Dr. Carla Hayden accepting the role of Librarian of Congress last week, and I'm no less excited about that this week.  In 2003, as I was entering library school, she told Ms. Magazine who named her one of their Women of the Year:

We serve the underserved. When libraries fight against the PATRIOT Act, or against [mandatory Internet filters], we’re fighting for the public. Most of the people who use public libraries don’t have the opportunity to buy books at a bookstore or on Amazon.com. What the library does is protect the rights of all people to fully and freely access information and to pursue knowledge, without fear of repercussion.

Can I repeat that last sentence again?  Because that's one of the things that keeps me coming back to information access as a profession and a calling - "What the library does is protect the rights of all people to fully and freely access information and to pursue knowledge, without fear of repercussion."

When I start to despair about what I'm doing, that's what I come back to.  Am I helping people get access to information they need to make decisions?  Yes?  Good.  Am I helping people get access to content that enriches their lives by their definition (outside a very few ethical issues)?  Yes?  Good.  One of the reasons I pursued this profession was because of the focus on progressive social justice, social awareness, social good aspect of literacy & access to information.  Not everyone goes into this profession for that reason, but there's a significant percentage of people who do care very much about these issues.

I've been thinking about my professional community and this week culminated this morning in the first MLIS advisory board meeting of the year.  I'm on the advisory board as an independent at the moment, carrying on from the last place I worked.  I find it really satisfying to contribute back to my school, and my profession... and develop my own professional thoughts with exposure to other really smart and experienced information professionals.  I love sitting at the table and hear what these, honestly, mostly women, are talking about.  

This week we were treated to a meeting with the Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, whose goal in the iSchool community is to bring wisdom from the field into the school.  She wanted to know from us what, besides her own thoughts on the matter, we wanted her to bring to students.  After that we discussed ideas for some changes to some one credit classes - there were so many ideas!  I was not alone in wishing that all of the ideas we had for one credit classes were open to already graduated professionals to take.  

Always curious. Life long learning. Five retired women who had worked for their adult lives providing information to people they have such insight, and so much to contribute.  It's hard, sometimes, not to get a little intimidated by them!  Not that anyone else is a slouch.  But they did not shy away from bringing up social justice, serving disadvantaged populations, adult literacy, and #blacklivesmatter while balancing these with practical knowledge from the field about how to target these programs for different locations - from urban inner city to suburban and rural libraries, from special libraries to enterprise content organizations.  I often walk away wishing I contributed more, but I am always walking away glad I went.  

Which is a lot of stuff about librarians and community, and not so much about myth (though the title should have been a giveaway)... And yet it sort of is - this is the essence of the library through out history.  Storage of and access to knowledge and information. Which leads me to how I decided on the names of Phix's Curiosity (that was the original name I had for what this endeavor has turned into) and Mythic Librarian.

It has long been theorized that there is a great library in an underground chamber between the paws of the Sphinx in Egypt.  Per Wikipedia, "The Hall of Records is a (mythical) ancient library rumoured to be deposited at the time of King Imhotep at Giza in Egypt. One suggestion has been that it is under one of the paws of the Great Sphinx of Giza, which is in the Giza pyramid complex."  Most of the popular media about this right now falls largely into conspiracy theory territory, but the fact that there are stories of it from Herodotus who described it as a giant labyrinth with paintings and hieroglyphs on the walls, and other philosophers.  In 2008, archaeologists discovered a network of tunnels beneath the Sphinx. For more on that, here is the associated site: Labyrinth of Egypt. 

Phix? Was that a typo?  No, that's the pronunciation of sphinx in the Greek dialect used near the location where Oedipus revealed the answer to the Greek sphinx's riddle to pass into the city.  

There are, of course, other mythic libraries - the great Alexandrian library that perished in flames.  The last known member of this library was Theon, the father of the renowned classic scholar, philosopher, mathematician (and woman), Hypatia. It's probably not right to call her a librarian, but she embodies the curiosity of mind and pursuit of information that runs through the heart of a librarian. :)  Here's an overview of Hypatia from the Smithsonian, if more is of interest to you.  

A common thread between these mythic libraries would have been the communities of knowledge preservation and access that would have sprung up around them. Libraries and communities.  Information and knowledge serving humanity.  I don't always feel right calling myself a librarian, and yet... I can't quite let it go either - these intertwining values, wending their way through the ages... One of the board members said today - this is what is in our genes, in our DNA.  When I think of what it would mean for me to be worthy of the name ancestor after my bones have turned to dust - it is these values that I would hope to leave as part of my legacy.

Big Week for Us (and U.S.) Librarians!

Big news first and then some thoughts on self care, tango, and a story.

Why is it a big week for librarians?  President Obama nominated, and his nomination was accepted, a new Librarian of Congress!  And she is FIERCE!  She is the first woman and first black Librarian of Congress.  She was the Baltimore City Librarian who made the decision to keep library doors open during the unrest a few years ago after Freddie Gray's death, when most other public services were closing their doors.

I knew that the libraries are community resources. I knew that they are anchors in so many communities. In a lot of communities in Baltimore, especially challenged ones, we are the only resource. If we close, we’re sending a signal that we’re afraid or that we aren’t going to be available when times are tough. We should be open especially when times are tough. (American Libraries Magazine, 2015/5/1)

That in and of itself is huge.  Her dedication to libraries and librarianship is outstanding.  I legit got weepy when she was sworn in.  She asked her mama to hold an Abraham Lincoln Bible, and has noted a number of times what an honor it is to hold this position.  From her swearing in ceremony -

To be the head of an institution that’s associated with knowledge and reading and scholarship when slaves were forbidden to learn how to read on punishment of losing limbs, that’s kind of something." (NYT, 2016/9/15). 

In the event you'd like to watch her swearing in ceremony, the Library of Congress streamed it live on youtube, and then posted this handy video!  The actual ceremony starts at about an hour in.  So excited to have someone from the library profession, and someone who advocates for libraries, and someone representing the 85% of women who work as librarians, and someone who represents the diversity of our country in this position.  I cannot wait to see what she does.

Other stuff I've been thinking about this week...

On Self Care
Earlier this week, I ran across Audre Lorde's quote that self care, "is not self-indulgence—it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."  When I started thinking about what I wanted to do before this existed, I thought I wanted to focus on self care.  Medusa's Garden - when you need every one and every thing tostop coming at you.  Right?  But the more I thought about it, the less well it sat with me, as I reflected on serious burnout (from which I'm still trying to recover and find my feet again), the more I realized that there is no product I could sell that would help women, in particular, to alleviate the effects of burnout.  We don't need another bath that smells nice. We don't need a pretty candle.  So instead, I thought I could combine the lovely things that do make me feel good (but without focusing so much on "self care") and the fact that I became a librarian to support my eternal curiosity.  

I'm currently also doing some stuff with HiveQuest, an online learning platform and combining Medusa's Garden with Phix's Curiosity Camp (another precursor idea), I came up with the Mythic Librarian.  I'm always a little apprehensive about claiming the title 'librarian' as I haven't worked in a library or doing traditional library work in a long time, but in my heart of hearts, I love the library and I am fiercely dedicated to the ideals that libraries stand for.  I hope I do my chosen profession right with this endeavor.  In any case, Phix's Curiosity & Medusa's Garden will be represented on my site as courses and curiosities. Which to bring this all back to the majestic Audre is... self-preservation & political warfare.  Making use of my ability to learn, and then share my learning, to find and share my curious finds.  In a way that lets my candle/s burn bright rather than the hot, painful flame of burnout.  Thank you for showing your support in this venture so far as I am early in this process! I am so appreciative!

My ending thought for the moment is the other quote in the article that brought Audre Lorde to mind again:

The harder, duller work of self-care is about the everyday, impossible effort of getting up and getting through your life in a world that would prefer you cowed and compliant. A world whose abusive logic wants you to see no structural problems, but only problems with yourself, or with those more marginalized and vulnerable than you are. Real love, the kind that soothes and lasts, is not a feeling, but a verb, an action. It’s about what you do for another person over the course of days and weeks and years, the work put in to care and cathexis. (Laurie Penny, The Baffler, 2016/7/8).

Or, as Kurt Vonnegut might say, "There's only one rule that I know of, babies - God damn it, you've got to be kind."

On Tango
I'm in the process of developing a HiveQuest course on Tango Life Lessons.  I started tango in August and as a systems and process and patterns thinker, I drew some really immediate life lessons from it.  It's a beautiful analogy in some ways.  These have been slowly building and as I document them, I thought they might be worth sharing with you. Here is the blog post from prior to my idea of creating something for HiveQuest on what sorts of thoughts I've been having Messages from the Universe: Tango - possibly a part 1. I've since had thoughts on leadership, followership, and some other things too... Definitely in early stages of development, so I'll keep you posted on when it is likely to be released.  

A Story 
And finally because I've been meaning to do this for days now - a story inspired by@MythologyBot - D1385.19 Clothing protects from evil spirit.

There once was a small girl.  She was out collecting pears in the orchard when a wisp of smoke appeared and said to her "little girl, little girl, what are you doing here all alone?"  The only reasonable response she could think of was the truth.  "My mama sent me to collect pears for breakfast later this week. Now be gone and let me attend to my task."  And the wisp of smoke disappeared in a twist of the wind.  The girl went back to collecting her pears.

After a while, a larger plume of smoke appeared and said to her, "Little girl, little girl, who's permission do you have to collect pears from this land?" The smoke spiraled and spun in the soft breeze, faintly mesmerizing her.  Still it had asked a question, and the only response she could think of was to answer with the truth. "My grandmother owns this land, as was given to her by her grandmother, since time immemorial. She has given me permission to gather the fruits here."  She watched the smoke shift and the changing blues and greys, then remembered, "Now be gone and let me attend to my task!"  She had almost forgotten what she had come to do.

She went back to gathering pears.  A little further into the orchard, she was startled to find a boy lazing about eating pears.  He said to her, "Little girl, little girl, what are you doing here?"  His eyes were grey, and blue flickered in them like the light catching the spirals and twists of the smoke. She replied, "I am here collecting pears. Who are you, and why are you here?"  He said, "Oh, nevermind that, come and look further into the orchard with me!" As he said this he gently reached his hand out to take her arm, and drew back suddenly as his hand sizzled as if water had been thrown on a fire.

She snapped to attention. He quickly hid his hand behind his back, but she saw it appeared to be steaming.  "No.  I don't know who you are, but be gone and let me attend to my task."  His face clouded over & he twisted up into a puff of smoke.

Running all the way home, she found her mama and related the story.  "Mama, mama, why did his hand steam when he touched my sleeve?"  "My dear one, my mama taught me, as her mama taught her, as I will teach you,  that to finish all fine woven clothes we would wear with an iron mordant not only protects the dye from fading from the cloth, but also protects us from fairies who would take us away with them."  

Snip, snap, snout, this tale's told out.

First Newsletter Ever!

Hi all!  I'm doing something new and trying out the newsletter thing!  Let's see how this goes here, shall we?  From the archives. <3

So much dust here!

As I work through and figure things out, I anticipate there will be a learning curve.  Thanks for being here from the beginning!

What I've written this week 

Not a lot. It did occur to me that an awesome product would be Ex Bibliotheca Curiosa (from the magical library of) bookplates.  I have some ideas on how I want to approach that, but first things first, I have been in the process of getting all the appropriate business licensing in place that will allow me to sell things.  I have had very good intentions indeed to pull my Tango Life Lessons course together to share with one and all via HiveQuest, but again with setting up business licenses taking time to figure out and apply for.  I am very excited to see what comes of all of this though!  

What I've been curious about this week?  

The Standing Rock Sioux vs Dakota Pipeline protests looms heavy in my mind.  Ganesh's birthday - Ganesh Chaturthi.  Tara Phagmo Norter Drolma - the Saffron Tara, Distributor of Wealth.  Library advocacy and why libraries are important. And what exactly am I doing here anyway?  

The Standing Rock Sioux vs Dakota Pipeline protests are starting to disintegrate.  It looks as though the US is going to side with corporate interests instead of with the people's interests and welfare, again.  Private mercenaries have set dogs on the protesters/protectors, and tear gassed them.  They have razed sacred burial and prayer grounds.  And now the governor of North Dakota has called in the National Guard - no one can apparently get out, nor can much needed supplies get in.  If you're sitting there shaking your head thinking 'gosh, I wish there was something I could do,' here are ten things to help you take action.  Probably the most important thing you could do right now is to contact North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple - http://www.governor.nd.gov/contact-us about his calling in of the National Guard.  By the time this is published, it's likely more will have happened. 

As I start working on this project and making it real, it dawned on me that it is auspiciously Ganesh Chaturthi - the ten day birthday celebration of Ganesh! What kind of mythic librarian would I be, if I were not to catch the mythological themes surfacing in the patterns of life!?  I asked a beloved friend what I could do both to mark the beginning of this new project and celebrate Ganesh's birthday, and advice I received was - DANCE!  On my way home from a delightful tango class taught by another friend, I saw the biggest, fattest rat I've ever seen, surely good luck and offering accepted, given that Ganesh rides a mouse.

I have also been pondering the lessons of Tara Phagmo Norter Drolma - the Saffron Tara, Distributor of Wealth.  I am working on a different project where each of us are bringing the wisdom and stories of a different aspect of the Tibetan Tara.  As I contemplated which Tara, I was really resisting this one.  I finally realized, as is so often the case, that which I'm resisting is probably the thing I need the most.  In retrospect, it makes sense and I made several connections.  

The first is that it's not that I believe I don't deserve to have my needs for resources met.  I do.  What I have trouble with is the asking.  Like I shouldn't ask when so many others are in more desperate need.  However, I know that when I have what I need, I am better able to share my own gifts to provide resources to others.  Where we see blockages around the flow of resources in our world tends to be where people are hoarding and otherwise not putting to use their resources rather than sharing their resources. Money - profit - to shareholders who invest but do not do the work while the workers are increasingly finding their jobs automated, cost of living raises eaten away, bonuses taxed at higher rates, and being seen and treated as expensive resources rather than valuable contributors to enterprise. Really, is it any wonder that employee morale is often terrible?  I could pick at this for a long time, there's so much wrong with how we treat workers (including management).  But that's rant territory and not curiosity territory, and so a story for another time.  

Another connection I made was that despite myself, I do look for ways to provide benefits to others as a result of my having resources.  Whether it's the fundamental basics of providing hearth & home (and access to health care, etc) for my family, or whether I'm using my librarian skills that guide my personal mission of providing information to people (which takes many forms), etc, I'm very quick to look for ways that I'm sharing the benefit of my having resources with others. Sitting a bit with this and the asking - it's ok for me to ask for things just for myself too. Being cognizant of the well that never replenishes itself will run out of water, and having been burnt out from not taking time and resources to take care of myself, it's worth pausing and reflecting on this aspect as well.  I am thankful for these reflections at this time as I step into the new roles I have, setting up the Mythic Librarian, and other roles that may come my way in the future.

Library Advocacy seems to be something I come back to time and time again. No surprise, with a Masters in Library & Info Science that it would be something I feel strongly about.  Libraries aren't just about the books (as much as we love them). They're about the third place information collaboration spaces of our world.  They house not only the thoughts of those who have considered things before us, but they provide us the spaces, physical, mental, and emotional, to find, gather, serendipitously trip over, consider, research, dig deeper, and even collaborate with others in order not only to store and retrieve information, but to find ways to put it to use.  Information literacy need is at an all time high with the volume of information that is pushed at us every day.  And stories - stories!  Mythologies, fairy tales, literature (canon and pulp fiction alike) that help us to understand all the ways we can imagine to be sentient beings, all the patterns we could inhabit, plus some yet to be written.  Who could not love a library!? Seriously.

And then finally, what crazy thing am I doing here? Though I started this project before this article came out, I think it does a pretty good job of summing things up - I Was Afraid I Couldn't Be Myself by Melissa Jo Hill.  In particular this:

I’m not creating a brand, I’m creating a body of work. I can even let go of the idea of a successful website, because there’s no agenda here. No conversion needed. I’m not a product I’m selling.

I know - I am setting up to sell things here.  In the end, I hope the things I end up selling help people to find ways to explore their curiosity, and enjoy exploring my curiosities along with me, whether that's taking a course I've created as I explore ideas that catch my attention, or buying a tea that I am selling to enjoy as you dig into whatever your favorite reading of the moment is, or extremely limited edition yarns that I've handspun, or book plates for your home library or whatever other amazing thing I come up with -- it's all part of an evolving body of work.  My evolving body of work. And along the way there will be things I don't sell too -- I want to use this space to explore the patterns I see.  To maybe share stories I love. To explore some things that will require work and overcoming fear (video maybe?  podcasts maybe? other unknown things maybe?) but that I'll learn some great things about along the way!  So, as all mythic beings are, so too the Mythic Librarian is a work in progress.  

With fierce curiosity and love, I dedicate any merit arising from this offering to all who put information into action benefiting all sentient beings.