Dog Days of Summer

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

August.  There's something about August.  It's hot.  It seems like everything is hurry up and wait.  The nights are starting ever so much earlier - the change that started in late June is finally faintly noticeable.  The wheel is turning, it's just... we're so close to fall and fall is my favorite.  

It's also full spider season.  When I look out at the backyard in the morning, or catch it just right in the evenings, I can see the spiderwebs everywhere.  Hanging from between trees, covering the grass/weeds like dew, everywhere.  Soon we will go from this and walking through spiderwebs any time we venture outside to European House Spider season.  The BIG ones.  They love this house.  What we get for living (kinda) in the woods!
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

Tour de Fleece is over.  I've managed to keep up with the carding and spinning.  I know, I know - that's usually the next section... but what's been working for making the monkey brain shushed has been a combo of meditation and spinning and carding.  
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

Since I'm here... yeah, spinning and carding and having fun with the black Welsh mountain sheep... Who wins bobbin chicken?  I DO!
  

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Something that sometimes needs to be done.  Take the next small step towards whatever needs to be done.  Can't eat an elephant or drink the ocean all at once. Small sips, small bites.  And a lot of them.  Sometimes you get a springboard thrown in just for kicks and giggles.  But they don't come around very often so, one small step, sip, bite and eventually everything will break free and you can make some progress again.  These are, truly, the dog days of summer...

It's Happening Again

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” -- Fred Rogers

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

Over the course of the last week, what's caught my attention has been the smell of smoke in the air.  Not attention in a benign curiosity way, but that dread of knowing that I'm smelling forest fires from both California and Washington.  It's that tinder smell, the haze, and the red red sunsets.  

It reminds me of being in college and having a roommate who was in the environmental sciences.  She came home from class one day incredibly upset.  The professor had said that basically it was too late.  The damage had reached the tipping point already back then and every now and again I remember that conversation and wonder...  
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.
This week... Sometimes you just gotta figure it out and push through and hope for the best.  This week my focus has been on taking the next small step.  There are so many things up in the air and outside of my control that the next small steps are about all that I can do. 

I hate not knowing the future.  Or rather, I hate knowing that the presumed future is not stable.  Nothing ever is for certain, *really*, but there is the illusion, temporary though it may be, that things are just rolling along like they should be.  

Things are rolling along, probably even just as they should be, and I just don't know it yet. 

Job interviews, my friends.  Nothing like job interviews to trigger existential questioning of one's entire life.  But being able to pay the mortgage, etc is good and so onward!

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

Always helpful - spinning.  I've finished up the first skein from the five pounds of wool.  It's very soothing to come to my wheel and my bag of wool at the end of each day & comb through the washed locks, then run the combed wool through the drum carder.  I usually do enough to create a nice amount to spin or the evening. I have a few batts that are ready to spin, but mostly I spin up what I card each night.  Very satisfying and soothing.  
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

In the midst of all this, there are people who have my back who I am tremendously grateful for.  Part of my interview prep was to talk about how I develop my skills.  The primary way I do this is to identify people in my life who have skills that I want to develop and watch them, ask them questions... whether they are in an official mentoring capacity or not.  I'm really lucky right now to be surrounded by wonderful people.  I think that's a significant part of arranging a life - surround yourself by people who inspire you.  Inspire you to try new things, to do the things you already do better, and generally who want the best for you.  

I hope you are all surrounded by amazing people who have your backs too. <3

Guiding Principles

“The trick has been to live in the contradictions while maintaining principles, beliefs, and purpose.”  ― Eve Ensler

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

I've been thinking about guiding principles lately.  Some people are really clear about what their guiding principles are in just a few words. I often just use my top three values as short hand to describe my principles - integrity, community, order (think knowledge organization in as many different ways as it can show up in life).  I also have a bunch of quotes that I tend to keep around as reminders.  

One of these is by Martha Graham, one of the leading mothers of the modern dance form. At a time when I really needed to hear it, this quote appeared in my life.  My bold...

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

Only *you*, only *I*, can do what you/I do the way we do it.  No one else. We can learn and grow, we can change, we can even transform, but in the end, what we bring to the world is uniquely our own expression of what we are doing.  

I'm a little resistant to learning more from other people about "how to spin" and "how to weave" because part of the joy of those activities for me are the blind experimentation and the meditative calm of allowing something to emerge that is wholly and completely entirely a pure expression of my own creation. 

I took guitar lessons and can (mostly, sometimes) learn there, but my guitar has "high action" (the strings are a little further from the fretboard than typical) and I use medium instead of light strings (and I used to use heavy instead of medium) which makes it further somewhat difficult to play.  In part this was incidental, I came to appreciate it as defense from the boys who'd commandeer a guitar from any girl who had one and they'd try with my guitar then whine about how hard it was to play.  To which my response, whether I verbalized it or not was, 'huh. I don't care if *you* can play *my* instrument." It was a way that I was able to re/claim my space and my right to participate. My expression, backwards and in heels, and wholly mine.

It's a lesson I'm still learning - not to ask for feedback that I don't actually want. And learning to actually ask for feedback I do want.  Evolutions of expression.

Guiding principle: 

• It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

One of the parts of Medusa's myth is that after she was slain, and Pegasus sprung forth from her, Zeus had Pegasus fetch from her, thunder - her voice, and lightening, her stare that froze men.  Thunder. The power of women to use their voice.

Which brings me to the next quote that is one of my guiding principles in quote form.  It's by Yolo Akili and it's a poem called, "A Message from the Universe."

Remember: Oppression thrives off isolation.  Connection is the only thing that can save you.

Remember: Oppression thrives on superficiality. Honesty about your struggles is the key to your liberation. 

Remember: Your story can help save someone's life. Your silence contributes to someone else's struggle.  Speak so we can all be free.  Love so we can all be liberated.  The moment is now.  We need you.

Your unique expression is needed.  Your voice is needed.  My expression is needed.  My voice is needed.  Our authentic, lived experiences, are needed.  And when we have the opportunity to connect and to witness each other's unique expressions, it is an honor and a blessing to be present enough to recognize the moment for what the moment is.

I actually have a lot of thoughts on silence and being silenced... Adrienne Rich,On Lies, Secrets, and Silenceis a brilliant book.

But my last quote on the thunderous voice of no longer being silent is this, from Audre Lorde.  This too, came at a time that I desperately needed to hear it...  My bold again...

Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.

Sit with that. Read it again. Let it sink in. Soak in that.  Every day is a work in progress on this for me. I can be chatty, but I am definitely experimenting with how and with whom I can safely express my truth - evolution towards the frightening outcome of authentically, confidently speaking my truth.  

Guiding principles:

• Speak so we can all be free.  Love so we can all be liberated.  The moment is now.  We need you.

• "And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking." 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

The Welsh black mountain wool is coming along. I'm glad I have five pounds to experiment with and I'm looking forward to seeing the evolution of my ability to effectively card and select which wool to keep and which to scrap. 

And tonight!  I finally found, stashed away where I swear I've looked many times, my Turkish spindle!  I didn't realize how heavy it is. I can spin it supported for a finer thread, so I have some experimenting to do.  I'm SO looking forward to this.

I don't have any guiding principles quotes about spinning.  I do often contemplate the creation of order as I watch the fibers draft into a thread that will support more than any of the individual fibers could support.  

So... maybe this will suffice for now - from Rumi: 

• “We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.” 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Some last thoughts.  When my hopes get too grand about when the world finally changes, how wonderful it will be... I realize now is when the world changes.  It's a variant on 'before/after enlightenment, chop wood/carry water.'   This is a quote from a small book by "Sparrow" called "The Little Red Book". 

Before a revolution, a revolutionist leads a daring and romantic life.  After a successful revolution, she must erect a distribution system for canned olives. 

What would you do after the revolution?  Do that today.  Do that now. Does your community need a distribution system for canned olives?  Build that. Do you need a new playground for the local elementary school? Do it.  Don't wait for the revolution. This *is* the revolution.

And the final guiding principle from a friend and former co-worker - she had it written on her whiteboard and I adopted it as well -"What small step can you take today to make the world better?"  That.  Do  that.

Dancing with Baba Yaga

"Ask if you want," said Baba-Yaga, "but remember that not every question has a good answer."
― Russian folktale

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

What's caught my attention this week... Obviously I've been thinking about Baba Yaga!  Baba Yaga is the old woman in the woods who lives in a house with chicken feet in Russian fairy tales.  She is known for eating people who bother her... but also helping them, sometimes at a cost to them, or in helping them, she repays them in unexpectedly helpful and surprising ways.  The thing is, she's unpredictable. Sometimes she gives you the impossible tasks and you fail and get eaten, and sometimes you don't.  
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

Sometimes there is nothing to do but wait. You've added logs to the fire, carefully placed kindling, lit everything that can be lit, and then... it's time to allow the work that you've put in to take off.  Sometimes there's a lot of bright lights and hope and then the kindling doesn't catch to the larger logs and burns itself out, sometimes it all catches just as it was planned.  

It's in times like these, between the moment where the kindling has taken, and one is waiting for the rest of the fire to catch, where there's wait and see time.  It's times like these where one is like Medusa, wandering around her stone gardens of those foolish enough to mess with her.  Or Baba Yaga waiting, knowing Vasalisa or children are around the corner (for she is eternally wise as she is frightening). I am neither particularly wise, nor frightening.  Not so much a moment to catch one's breath, but maybe a moment in which one's breath catches...
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

The blue-faced Leicester is all done and hung to dry!  The black Welsh mountain wool is being carded and spun.  I made notable progress on the baby camel/silk blend scarf this past weekend.  And since the black Welsh mountain wool is raw wool that I've washed, and a relatively short (1-3 inches) staple that is somewhat rough, I'm also working, on the side, on one of my spindles, with some merino with 10% silk blended in. 

The black Welsh mountain wool will make good socks, and I'm pleased that it just dawned on me, that with the wool that's too short to spin, I can felt it and make dryer balls.  Now I don't feel quite so bad about how picky I've been with the wool, the only trick will be getting the vegetable matter sufficiently out of the rest of it to make it ok to felt.  There will still, of course, be some waste wool, and that's ok, but not as much waste as before.  Perhaps Baba Yaga will be pleased by my cleverness and not eat me tonight...
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

It is good to find ways to keep busy while one is waiting for something to happen.  And to continue to look for opportunities while one waits to see how the fire catches.  Is there nearby kindling to gather closer to the fire? Is another larger log needed in the event that it is required?  And of course, you do have water nearby just in case, for safety reasons?

Baba Yaga always has work for the people who seek her knowledge, even when it seems like one should be able to rest for a moment, when one is dancing with Baba Yaga, it's best to stay light on the feet.

Articulation and Fleece

“Linguists tell us that we actually have not had a thought until we can articulate it through in writing. Therefore, the more we put our thoughts down on paper, the more firmly they are formed in our minds.” 
― Jonathan Hayashi

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

Honestly lately - I've been really digging playing my music on random. My musical tastes are wide enough ranging that I'm hard to pin down as a "likes that kind of music". I resisted forever because how weird to listen to such wildly different formats all smooshed together and right up next to each other... but... It's kind of entertaining. Like - what's going to happen next!?  Though one morning the shuffle got stuck on playing the same Mark Lanegan song and Amanda Palmer song back to back to back to back to back to back... Maybe I just really needed to hear that message - I don't know!  

Last week I talked a little about doing/listening to things that were really just entirely me & this is sort of that. It's... It's a little less like taking a slice of me than getting a kaleidoscope view. It isn't the right thing every time, but I'm definitely coming to appreciate it.
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

WHAT'S DIFFERENT.  I've heard that twice this week.  I don't have an answer.  I've been meditating every single day for the last two weeks.  Sometimes I fall asleep during it. But. That's the only thing I can tell. Oh wait.  End of last week my raw wool arrived in the mail.  So those two things, but of the two... Well... Maybe they go together...

Let me start over.  What's different? "You're more... composed, more together, more articulate, you seem way less anxious..."  

The meditating. The pulling all the pieces of my attention back to center. Maybe it's helping.  The wool we can talk about in a moment. :)  But as for explaining what's different, I don't know - it seems like 10 minutes a day is not enough to make a difference, but maybe it is?  

And maybe it was a fluke?  We will be continuing with this experiment, however. 
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

It is the TOUR DE FLEEEECE!  Yaaaasssss!  The Tour de Fleece is a celebration where during the Tour de France, spinners spin every day except the days that the cyclists also get to take off. We can wear yellow any day we feel like we're the head of the pack. We can join teams. It's all very entertaining and honestly pretty inspiring to see what people are up to.  I'm pretty good at following spinners and fiber folks all over the place, but this has lit up all those networks like Bastille Day fireworks or something. I've spun every day so far & carded almost every day. Over the next few days I won't have so much opportunity to card, but I'll be taking my wee tahkli spindle on the road as it were.  And maybe some knitting too. Since I've got projects. :)

So yeah, the wool is here!  I washed it this past weekend - disgusting! Not sure, it might have scurf too (basically bad sheep dandruff), but it's possible that I packed the wool too tight in the bags and the water just didn't have enough space to really circulate and it trapped some goopy stuff... The worst of it I'm tossing - you can typically expect to lose about a third of a fleece just because it's the weird edge and legs and not great quality.  I might end up washing some of it again too - at least a cold water soak to see if I can't loosen the worst of the vegetable matter that's caught in some of it.  

There's something really soothing about the process of prepping then carding the wool too.  And I think I've talked about spinning - it's like moving meditation for me.  So it's possible that I just need more fiber in my life to keep me good and chill. We'll see. I'm only about two ounces into the five pounds that I bought!  I may well be good and sick and tired of fiber prep by the end.  And maude willing, hopefully I don't end up with clothes moths... I am really careful about trying to keep stuff protected, but... with the cats and the wool, there's always just enough food for them that I see evidence now and again which is super annoying, but mostly controlled.  
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

So yeah. I don't think I've kept it a particularly quiet secret that I have anxiety & I'm seeing a therapist (who is awesome) for it.  A friend posted this article onwhy survivors of trauma sometimes go silentthis week. It's about the physiological changes that happen in the brain in reaction to trauma and why/how it impacts speech.  

I suspect my therapist would warn me away from saying "OOH, IT ME!", in part because we're working on normalizing the fact that other people experience things and have a hard time dealing with them and that's normal and it's not just me that has things that are difficult to deal with. Although part of the mediTation deal is to see if that reduces my anxiety sufficiently to avoid trying mediCation because... I know it helps so many people and... I'm having trouble reconciling my logical brain with my feeling brain on the matter. My feeling brain is super resistant to the idea of medication and... I'm working through that, but maybe the meditation is working.  Anyhoo.  I think she'd warn me away from it at least in part because we don't actually know and it's not particularly healthy to apply a label to oneself like that.

That said - my words do regularly go away from me.  It causes me to substitute weird things in meetings which end with me explaining the storyline of Scarborough Fair/Ballad of the Cambric Shirt because I can't remember the words for the concept of 'scope creep.'  Or just generally either not being able to get quite the right words in order or... yeah. just losing my words entirely.  It's frustrating and embarrassing when it happens - I'm smarter than that.  And it's the spoken word part of my brain - I think because the written word part of my brain can pause, backspace, rewrite, take the space to think and reframe and clarify and when speaking there are faces looking at you and taking in the information with an immediacy that makes it hard to backtrack, clean up... and when I pause, then all the words go away.  It's not uncommon for me to throw my hands in the air and finish lamely with 'ugh, words are hard.' 

My job is organizing information, and lately actually doing editorial review work, so... way to inspire confidence there. But what can I do but keep going and hoping that I'm not the only person this happens to and that others will treat me with the grace that I try to allow for others? I know words go away from other people too.  It's not as bad when I'm relaxed and comfortable.  Which is a little harder to pull off when I'm surrounded by super smart *and* articulate people.  Meditation. Maybe medication. Maybe more fleeces and spinning. 

Shift

“Terror is a powerful means of policy and one would have to be a hypocrite not to understand this.” 
― Leon Trotsky

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

Oh man.  Just a growing sense of horror and dread at the state of this country.  It's been hard to escape the sense of wrongness...

When I get past my mind's valid preoccupation with current events, I've been thinking a lot about community and specifically how isolated we all are from each other due to the nature of the work environment of today, specifically situational friendships.  You work with a bunch of people you like, you move on, they move on, and suddenly the day to day friendships become once or maybe twice a year at best.  I miss my friends I used to have an excuse to see almost every day. I'm also rather enjoying my current team and thinking about how things change and trying to just enjoy each day for what it brings.  
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

Current word from my therapist - meditate Every Single Day. I agree. And. I also fell asleep for two hours today while trying to do a ten minute meditation.  Oops.  She also says rest is important but... I'm thinking this may not quite be what she meant! We will try again in a bit to not fall asleep this time.  The benefit is in the repetition of practice, rather than the success/failure of any one instance of the practice.  Onward!
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

My wool has shipped.  My drum carder sits at the ready.  I need to find a small table for it - it's currently living on the dining room table and sooner or later that's not going to be the best place for it.  

I have gotten a little further on my silk/baby camel scarf. Not enough to show yet, but defnitely has reached 'work in progress' status. :)

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Something I read as Trump was taking office was an article in the New York Review of Books, called "Autocracy: Rules for Survival."  It's linked here & well worth re-reading as the intervening months have started to show the true, obvious, colors of this administration.  Also worth reading is thefollow up article, one year later in the New Yorker... Summarizing (but you should still go read the article) the rules are as follows:

1. Believe the autocrat.

2. Do not be taken in by small signs of normality.

3. Institutions will not save you.

4. Be outraged.

5. Don't make compromises.

6. Remember the future.

Somewhere I can't find now was someone talking about how... *normal* life continued on under authoritarian rule - there were still movies, people still went to work, etc.

This is all relevant right now. It's the little things and the not so little things.  They're shifting. 

Mushrooms, Loss, and Wool

“Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom...is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go." - Anthony Bourdain

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

I have more things in my world that I'm curious about, want to do, dig into, etc, than I have hours in the day to do... I started oyster mushrooms again, and they're doing their thing (MUSHROOMMUSHROOM!).  I have fiber things that I will wait until later to address.  I have various fun projects at work. 
 

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

Content Warning: suicide. If you don't want to read this section, skip to Ariadne's Yarn. <3 It's totally OK, I get it.  But I'm still gonna write about it.

So. Kate Spade.  Anthony Bourdain. Same week.  I'm not much of a fashion plate, but I know that a lot of people really liked Kate and her stuff.  It made me sad, for various reasons...  And then there's Anthony.  His death was a lot more difficult.  Where Kate made me sad, Anthony's passing felt like a shock wave, and another one, and another one, opening up layers of previous losses.  It was really hard. 

It's a reminder to me that grief never actually really goes away.  There's just a new normal, and that sense of normalcy can slip at any given moment.  And it's ok.  It's ok to be tender, it's ok to feel all the open spaces loved ones have left, it's ok to just let all the feels wash over and take a day or two days or three days or more, it's ok.

An early initial thought I had was that I'd start a business with bath bombs and bubble baths and other nice "self care" things.  As it turned out, the more I thought and read about self care, the more it dawned on me that self care can only happen in a community that creates space for someone to *do* self care.  Self care doesn't just happen.  If you have no one to take care of the other stuff while you take a break, that means that adding self care into that routine is just one more thing on the list... 

Anthony Bourdain traveled all over the world, and in his own backyard, and wherever he went, he seemed to make friends and have conversations, and created a comfortable sense of small world community.  Sometimes you need the world to stop coming at you, and it's your community - if you can reach out to them for help - who can help hold it at bay while you do what you need to do to recover. To take a shower or bath, to sit and stare out the window with a cup of tea, to cross those errands that you need to do *for you* off your list, whatever it is that in your moment of need that you need to do.  Your community can help you create your healing space.

The other thing I am reminded of - and I learned this the hard way through significant burnout a few years back - is... check on your strong friends, who are doing all the things, rocking their worlds, who seem to have their acts together, ducks in a row, and cats herded & all going the same direction.  Everything can look amazing on the surface, but as I wandered the work halls way too late at night, making sure everything looked amazing, putting out fires for people, making sure everyone else was taken care of... I wasn't doing that great at all.  I wouldn't have told you either.  Because I was invested in maintaining the image of everything being amazing.  But I'd have been relieved to have someone make time for lunch, or even just notice that I was carrying a lot of weight.  

Reach out, check in, connect, get a great handbag, and eat good food with old and new friends. 

And if you need it - National Suicide Prevention Hotline - Call 1-800-273-8255. Text HOME to 741741 in the US.
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

Y'all.  Not only am I knitting a silk & baby camel scarf that is the softest thing in the entire world, yes, even softer than kittens, but my drum carder arrived in the mail today!  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I will probably not regret the drum carder.  I *may* regret that I just bought five pounds of unwashed Black Welsh Mountain sheep wool. Time will tell... But... for $8/lb... When usually it's $2-3/ounce... well... what's a girl to do?

 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.
 

“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life - and travel - leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks - on your body or on your heart - are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.” 

- Anthony Bourdain.

With love, and structure, and organization, and curiosity - may Ariadne's ball of yarn guide you through the labyrinth safely until next time!

Super Meta!

Hello! I'm back!  Kids & computers & homework sometimes... take over my preferred access point.  As is the way of these things...

Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest

Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week.  A random grab bag of delights!

So, in the midst of a bit of sanctioned overtime, something that I've been thinking about in my lol "spare time" lol, has been the conflation of 'making a living' and 'working for a living.'  When you decouple the need to make money in order to make decisions about how you choose to live, the choices become very different. Medieval peasants got *waaaay* more time off than most workers (Congress aside - no really, I'm not kidding!). The industrial & information revolutions have been brutal on the work/life balance.

I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that my brain's counterpoint to ridiculous hours is "Yeah... but I'm SO glad to have indoor plumbing!" Dear brain... one of these things is not like the other...

I think somewhere I feel like I get stuck is with the 'not good enough's'.  Not that I'm not *good* at what I do, but for everything I do, there's always someone *better.*  And my logical brain knows... there will always be people better at, more interested in, more eloquent about anything I might find a joy or curiosity in and that's fine, and it doesn't mean that I'm not also still good enough, but some times it feels overwhelming. 

My lovely therapist said the other week, 'it's hard to be inclined to medicate people who are really high performing but... sometimes also you think about what they are accomplishing despite the things holding them back (anxiety/depression) and... what could they be capable of if that was treated?'  It's really less a question of what if you could be more productive, and more the question of... what could you do if you weren't afraid/worried/anxious All The Time.  What could you do if you could turn off that internal self critic that's so involved in keeping you down?  It has not lead to one outcome or another, but... things to continue to consider. Happy belated mental health month.

Anyway.  Redistribute the wealth, take care of the poor, from each as they can provide and to each as they need, universal healthcare (not "insurance"), and... yep. I'm apparently *that* lady, these days.
  

Medusa's Garden

When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.

The girls have decided they want to learn guitar this summer.  I guess I'm going to pick up my guitars as well.  And probably M2's violin, and maybe M1's cellos. Maybe. We'll see.  Good intentions are sometimes outweighed by the time/space continuum addressed above.  But there's something satisfying about creating space to make beautiful sounds.  Or beautiful shapes (yoga/gyrokinesis), or art.  Or spinning & associated follow up projects...

Create and protect your space, my lovelies!  You not only *deserve* it, but it is your inherent right.
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.

I FINISHED MY SCARF!  It's really more a scarf than a wrap... but mostly, it's *DONE.*
So pleased about this. And so, now... I'm (spinning stuff, of course, AND) also knitting up the silk & baby camel into a scarf.  Just a trad rectangular scarf-y scarf. It's SO soft.  SO SO soft.  It's hard not to just sit and pet it.  So soft.
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Part of the joy of my work is getting to discuss, in gory detail, the granularity of aboutness.  There is a reason ontology is a whole branch of philosophy.  So this week it has been about:

• using the correct term to describe the thing, and not one broader that *might* encompass potential future things but doesn't generally describe the actual thing itself very well; and

• in actually identifying when you are trying to understand a collective grouping of individuals with shared experience, *what specifically* are you trying to understand (the answer is segmentation, but we'll see if that gets legs...). 

Part of what organizing a life entails is, sometimes, understanding the frameworks upon which they operate. Further, understanding that those frameworks are (often) optional and how you can make adjustments to the optional/chosen frameworks. You can't change gravity - that's going to just be a thing, but you can make changes to other things (hello-goodbye, self-limiting beliefs).  

I love climbing around on the jungle gyms of frameworks and identifying things really specifically.  Sometimes it can be frustrating when I can't get to a shared point of view with someone, but by and large, getting a chance to look at and poke around in the under-pinings of our shared, mostly overlooked assumptions is something that I love almost irrationally.

I feel like this "should have" something I end it on, and I don't know what that is, so for now I'm going to leave it dangling in the wind as a thought that I've been to before, and will no doubt return, gifted as I am with Ariadne's ball of yarn in this labyrinth of life... <3
 
With love, and structure, and organization, and curiosity - may Ariadne's ball of yarn guide you through the labyrinth safely until next time!