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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!

First five days of new job down. Woohoo! Nice start. What I've been thinking about is how important connection and community is.  How we choose to engage with each other.  As a super introverted person (meaning - I enjoy being around people, but I also needa lotof alone-just-me time). I really adored my last team.  Not getting to see them (almost) every day feels a bit like losing family... like I'm the kid who had to go off to college and away from a close-knit family (haaaa! knitting....).  I am trying to make sure that I'm keeping connected to people, but some nights... it's lonely after seeing just my honey bruh & kiddo #2. 

This is sort of new for me - when I started this and was... under-employed to say the least... It was months before I started wanting to see or work with people again. But then, I was so miserable and burnt out that I needed the recovery time.  I'm in a different place, and coming from a different place now.

And so, even if I have to be the one to make sure I'm getting people on the calendar and time scheduled for lunches and random last second light shows and whatever else might come up, am going to be trying to keep up with this.  
  

Medusa's Garden

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

And after a few days of new job, I'm already running away to the islands to visit deeply beloved long-time friend. I love the islands, and this island in particular.  They are heart-lands to me, and this island in particular holds so much resonance and memories for me. In the past, when I have had less familial responsibilities, I used to take day trips up when I needed to literally get away. Now it's a little harder between everyone's schedules and chores and stuff that needs to be taken care of, but it's still there, and when things get to a certain point, I'll close my eyes, and picture myself standing there at the edge of the water with my arms outstretched, remembering the smell of the salty air, the breeze coming off the water, and connecting to the all-nature that was here thousands of years before people and which will be here thousands of years after us.  
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

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

The bunny is all spun up.  The black Welsh mountain sheep is all spun up.  I'm trying to go very slow with a fine merino (though I have a merino/silk blend on the way) - I need to knit and weave!  I did also start working through carding the waste wool and experimenting with making felted blocks out of it. I'm thinking of using it for under a box I slide back and forth that holds my drum carder.  Possibly figuring out if I can make it dense enough to hold up to being attached to the feet of chairs to help protect floors and whatnot.  Total experimental territory.  Kinda fun just to see what comes of it.  Am also trying to finish off the silk/baby camel blend scarf so I can get on to some more hats and gloves (honey bruh is overdue for new hat and gloves!).  And I saw a cute woven wrap... so I have some ideas. :)
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

I don't have answers to building community. I have experiments I'm trying.  Connection is important, and in the end, we're all we really have. It's not going to be the great meeting you led that you remember at the end of your life.  How do you prioritize the memories you want to have had when you look back?

Every Day a New Day

“The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. it is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists.” ― G.K. Chesterton

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 been sparking my interest this week?  Theater. Art. Community. The shock waves of our horrible government getting more horrible. Looking for mushrooms. Going for long walks.  

Big ideas - the importance of art, whether it's theater or art or writing or some other form of creative expression, is critical right now. To be able to think not only critically, but creatively, outside the boxes and constraints that a rapidly morphing,literally fascistgovernment is trying to impose in order to explore and experiment with solutions, to communicate danger and awareness in any way that might resonate and result in action. 

Big ideas alone are not enough, the 'and result in action' is necessary.  

There's a HuffPo article, and the title and line say a lot for the conflict I'm feeling these days - "I don’t know how to explain to someone why they should care about other people."  It seems that there is no good faith or common ground on which to stand.  There are big swaths of people who simply seem not to care at all and... I don't know what to do about that except to continue to care and to try to do what I can within the realm of what's in my control to reflect that caring.  And I don't know if that's even enough.
  

Medusa's Garden

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

Advice from a CIA military analyst on how to handle the seemingly never-ending deluge of depressing and disturbing news (twitter thread).
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

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

I spun up the angora bunny yarn - it's SO so so soft! <3  And my nose dripped the entire time. Noted for future reference. Am suspecting that the washed and set yarn shouldn't? cause the same problem?  I guess we'll see...

Now back to commercial roving, at least for a little bit - and limiting the spinning while I knit/weave through some of the yarn stash that's been building up! 
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

The world has been abnormal for so long that we’ve forgotten what it’s like in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own homes. -Madeleine L’Engle, A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Endings and Beginnings

“There are others. There will be others. Other heroes, other heroines. Other prophecies to fulfill, other adversaries to despise. There will be stories told and forgotten, and reinvented anew until one day, perhaps, the oldest are remembered, and the beginning may end, and the ending begin.” ― Jacqueline Carey

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!

This is the end of the latest 18 months.  A new cycle begins within the next 24 hours. I've written about this recently, and now the time has come. Y'know - I have so many mixed feelings about this. It's definitely time. So definitely time.  And yet... What I'm leaving had become, sufficed for?, community. I realized over the course of a few years that I need to be around other people regularly - at least somewhat.  I can go for months lost in my own head - with glee even!, but there are so many interesting people, interesting conversations, so many mind and heart connections to be made. 

It's taken me a long time to realize I get lonely and hungry for deep connections.  I don't particularly care much for many shallow connections. I do care about connections that leave me thinking, that resonate, that are passionate exchanges. 

A while back something crossed one of my instagrams that really resonated:

Kiss your friends' faces more
Destroy the belief that intimacy must be reserved for monogamous relationships
Be more loving
Embrace platonic intimacy
Embrace vulnerability
Use emotionality as a radical tactic against a society that teaches you that emotions are a sign of weakness
Tell more people you care about them
Hold their hands
Tell others you are proud of them
Offer support readily
Take care of the people around you
-- @dorimidnight

It is easy in this world, especially now, to be jaded and cynical.  To be paranoid and afraid.  That's not how I want to live my life.  I want to be brave enough to risk trusting.  To develop intimate (platonic) relationships (I got that other piece taken care of...).  I probably don't tell my friends enough that I love them, but I do. Those three words can be weird and hard to say outside of very narrowly constrained contexts, but those are the correct words - I love my friends. I'm learning how to be brave and say those words out loud.  And sometimes I'm not quite brave enough yet.  But that makes it no less true.

Allowing myself to love deeply means enough to me to risk being hurt.  To feel the loss of (nearly daily) connection acutely, painfully. To know that I have loved well and truly what I am doing and who I am with that at the end - even knowing it is right, that I am going somewhere else with joy in my heart - there isgrief. And that's how I know that I'm loving as deeply and authentically as I have wanted to, to have lived deeply in the moment and allowed myself that experience. And hopefully brought others into that curiosity and spinning joy of being whole, at least for a moment, or a few minutes, or some amount of time with me.
  

Medusa's Garden

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

I took M1 back to college on Monday night. It was a blissful night for a three hour drive. Quiet on the way down. I... may have been a moving noise violation on the way home but y'know, sometimes a girl needs the entire Sisters of Mercy discography on high volume at night, driving in the dark... letting the music wash over her like waves rinsing everything away.  Bliss.  BLISS.

Friday I do the whole trip again (probably). Unless I do it Saturday.  Sometimes there's nothing like open road time.  Not traffic jam time, but settling into a trip. Good music. Good thinking time.  Good not thinking time. If you're sharing the car with another person, good conversation time.  Sometimes, if you're not the driver, good napping time, lol!  There are times I get in the car and I just want to keep going. I don't have that luxury right now, but in college there were times when I was like, AYUP. Road trip time.  It's 11pm. I can be at the ocean in an hour and a half and I'ma go for a midnight walk and look over the moonlit horizon of the Pacific for a while.  And then drive home.  Sometimes it used to just mean taking a longer (sometimes much longer) route home.   

Sometimes driving is serious therapy is what I'm saying. 
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

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

I finished the black Welsh mountain sheep wool.  Carded, spun, the last skeins are setting now.  Now - what to do with them!?  On to spinning angora bunny, which, as I recalled last time, made my nose itchy and drippy, and that is confirmed. Noted for future reference.  And will probably be ignored in the future too. Because STUFF TO SPIN. 

Back to working also on the baby camel/silk scarf.  And thinking about what's going to be going on the loom.  And maybe finally getting around to figuring out the card weaving thing... Because that's how computers originated and I want to play around with that process for a while. :)
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Back to where I started - I have learned along the way... I've learned that if I want connection, I need to be the one to step closer into the center of the circle and make it happen. I am not sure if it's an introvert thing? But... Ok. I don't understand how social things happen and how people get invited to things and have social lives. If I don't reach out, I would rarely, if ever, see people who are even very dear to me.  Now - is that a story I'm telling myself?  Maybe in part. It isn't entirely true... but it isn't entirely untrue either.  We went for years without having the energy to reach out because of the weight of the chore of always being the coordinators and the lack of reciprocity of effort.  And... I'm at the point where when I find a connection, I will put in the effort to be persistent until something happens. And I will step up to help friends in need. Because it's important.  

And in all this, I'm trying to remember, it's an end to the job, not an end to the friendships.  But... it's also the end to the daily connection and that's really hard.  BUT - it's not an end to  connection as regular as we make it happen.  Right?  I hope not...

In my home office, among other things I have hanging on my wall, is this poem by Yolo Akili:

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 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.

Connection is the only thing that can save you.  
And you, if I haven't told you I love you or haven't told you recently, well -I love you. 

It's Finally Really Fall!

“There’s a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.” 
― Ellen Goodman

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!

Fall is in full swing now - the leaves are changing in earnest, the temperature is more manageable for me.  Honest, I don't mind the sun, but I do love my rain and I wilt when it's warmer than the 70s.  The transitions that have been on the precipice have started to ripple through the rest of my life.  I worked from home this week a couple of days to start the process of dealing with some car stuff that needs taken care of.  I signed an offer letter this morning. I updated and set up my home office again. 

In the process of all this, what has been sparking my interest has been how sometimes when the time comes to let go how... easy it is. Like - it's hard up to the moment that it becomes clear that letting go is what needs to happen and then... freedom of release!  There's a process to figuring out how/when/what to let go.  It never seems straightforward and then the landing spot arrives and all the torment and trying to figure out falls away and... maybe it's the moment of clarity that the next thing is coming and space must be created for it?  I don't know.  But that's what has been where my attention has been at.
  

Medusa's Garden

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

In the process of letting go and clearing away, sometimes it seems like things are happening too fast.  Sometimes that's true, and sometimes things are going exactly as fast as they need to go. 

I started meditating in earnest this summer.  I am currently meditating between 20 and 40 minutes a day.  My monkey mind doesn't always settle the chatter down, but somehow something is working. Something has changed.  I've had people notice.  They say things like, 'what changed? something changed!' and 'you don't seem like you're trying to climb out of your skin anymore... you seem... comfortable...'  and 'the crease of worry between your eyebrows is gone...'  I don't know what changed, but I know meditation is helping even if I can't put my finger on exactly what has changed.  
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

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

Two hats knit, back to the scarf and I'm closing in on done with the raw wool project. I think I have one or two nights left of combing and carding the wool I bought this summer and not much more than that of spinning it up.  Then I'm going to experiment with the discard wool.  It may be that I use it around plants in my yard to retain water, but if I can use my hand cards to sort some of it out, and still be able to spin it, I'll do that... but based on an experiment the other night, I suspect I may let it go and see what I ended up with.  :)  Soon we'll know how much of the weight of five pounds converts into usable wool vs discard and lanolin and dirt! :)
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

With the changing seasons, the changing schedules, the changing everything, the last two days I tried to get out for a walk while working from home.  It was glorious to walk through the fall air - the recent rains have brought some of the cooler weather plants to life and so there was the smell of green and growing.  It's fall, of course, and so there is also the smell of the leaves changing, which has it's own unique tang that I have always loved.  And of course there are still something like 400 wild fires burning - it's not as evident, they're all smaller now, but the faintest hint of wood smoke hangs in the air still too. 

Arranging a new schedule to go out daily whether it's walking through falling leaves, dancing through the rain (it sounds good now, but we'll see if I do that or decide maybe I'll stay in and do yoga on rainy days!?).  I love this time of year. The release of all the things that have served us well but must now be released for much needed rest, lying fallow for a bit, and then the emergence of what comes next.  <3

Necessitas

“Whatever awakens you to your alchemist is the elixir you need.” 
― Iva Kenaz

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 sparking my interest right now? So many things!  As always!  I've just started a class for women entrepreneurs - I'm so looking forward to everything I'm going to learn.  It's entirely possible - likely maybe even? - that this and everything will get a complete rework.  Though honestly... I'm kind of attached to this.  It will be good to do some heart exploration though and some fun brain candy exploration as well and stretch to some of the edges of the unknown and see what I find there.  :)
  

Medusa's Garden

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

I'm also exploring all the edges of a cycle coming to a close and a new cycle starting up, which brings with it the joy and beauty of something new as well as all the grief and deep sorrow of losing something well-loved.  In so many ways, I'm ready for the next thing - I have grown a tremendous amount in the last couple years and I could not have done it without this cycle to help refine.  And I will miss the content  problems and many of the people, both who I worked closely with on this project as well as more occasionally. 

I have learned, though, the morning after the world ends, the sun still rises, and there are friends - and even strangers who have become friends as the world tumbles down around you, and there is good bourbon.  It is a matter of fact - I have experienced it my very own self. You release everything into the fire and walk away free, and the sun also rises again the next morning.
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

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

The sun rises and the spinning of the universe keeps drafting the strands of existence into the threads of lives, intertwined, sometimes tangled momentarily & released, sometimes plied together as friends and lovers until Atropos comes along with her shears.

I'm still working on the five pound bag of black Welsh mountain sheep wool - it's closing in on done.  I've knit one and a half hats as well.  One teal with mottled grey & white Blue-faced Leicester, and one that is blue merino-silk with red tencel highlights around the outer edges.  Soon I will be back to spinning.

The loom sits cold as the fall comes - I can hear her whispering to me.  "I'm cold! Put something on me!"  And so I will, sooner rather than later.  I certainly have enough to fiber to weave with!  And knit with.  So many options, the only questions are where to start and with what?
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

And so as one thing ends, another begins - the endless organization and reorganization of life.  As I move on, I will be going back deep into the world of taxonomy, thesauri, and ontologies.  Home, sweet home, for a bit.  My heart breaks for a few that I'm leaving behind, and yet, how can my heart not be overflowing with joy as I look forward to both coming home and getting to explore new facets of my own self through a new lens?  I hope that some of the friendships I have developed in this ending cycle carry through to the new world that arises with the waking of the sun the morning after.  So may it be, from my heart strings to the heart strings of Ananke/Necessitas herself.

An Open Letter to My Daughters

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!

The Divine Feminine is not what you think it is.  The world will tell you that the Divine Feminine is gentle, soft, kind, pliable, generous...  And while she can be, the Divine Feminine is also sharp, brilliant, direct, holds her boundaries, knows when to be generous and when generosity is not called for.
  

Medusa's Garden

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

The Divine Feminine can say 'No.  That's not what I meant,' and clarify her position.  The Divine Feminine can say simply, "No."  "No" is a complete sentence.  As is, "I'm sorry, that isn't possible at this time."  People will expect graceful excuses. There are times when this is acceptable and appropriate.  There are times when you need not concern yourself with obliging a "discussion" where none needs to happen.
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

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

The Divine Feminine is not a door mat.  Nor is she a princess in need of rescue - which isn't to say that even the most powerful queen doesn't need her trusted advisors, but to observe carefully the difference between the discerning acceptance of information with which to make decisions from trusted advisors, and some Jack of Hearts "rescuing" you from ??? yourself ??? some situation that you can navigate without his assistance ???  

(Guess what - still working on my five pound bag of wool!  But making some progress! Knitting a hat, still knitting a scarf... I may or may not have caved and bought some merino-silk to spin in a blue that I particularly love just for a bit of a break...).
 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Arrange your lives around this - the Divine Feminine who is strategic, tactical, wise, and strong.  Who can take aim and land her targeted goals.  Who walks with confidence, head held high.  Who is not afraid to fight and win.  Who is not afraid to feel the great depths of grieving for loss and love.  Who prioritizes what is important and holds to those commitments.  Who is an ally to the marginalized.  Who is compassionate and holds accountability as a critical factor in that compassion.  

The Divine Feminine is fierce, powerful, discerning, and sharp.  She is strong, dear ones.  
<3

Questions

“I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.” 
― Anaïs Nin

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!

Lots of things on my mind this week.  I can feel the end of summer nearing, and fall coming.  A few trees' leaves are starting to change and school is starting soon.  I am going back to learn some new things too, I'm taking a class for women entrepreneurs.  Something to keep me occupied besides a job search since my current contract is wrapping up, it seems.  

Fall is a time of transitions - from the light half of the year to the dark half.  From the lazy, hazy summer days back into full busy swing.  Also: mushroom season!  
  

Medusa's Garden

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

With so many transitions, I've been trying to create space to just allow things to be.  To be sad.  To look forward with hope and anticipation.  But the fact of the matter is, there is no hurrying any of it and the exact time will be when it is and not a moment before. 
 

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

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

Lately, just playing bobbin chicken as I work through my raw wool. Combing, carding, spinning.  I always aim for about a half bobbin of spun wool so that when I ply, it is a full bobbin.  Somehow, I always end up over.  I've really been cutting it close lately.  When a bobbin gets too full, the flyer can no longer wind the yarn onto the bobbin. 

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

Transitions.  How do you organize around the unknown?  My current strategy is to create placeholders.  Applying for jobs and interviewing is sort of a placeholder until the right connections come through with an opportunity (granted, the placeholders done properly can also aid in the outcome, but not always).  Taking the opportunity to learn something new in the opening space.  Asking good questions - what would I do if I could do anything?  What would I need in place to just do that now?  

What do you do in times of transition?

Poetry in Motion

“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.” 
― Plato

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!
 

And Then It Was Less Bleak Because We Said So

ByWENDY XU

Today there has been so much talk of things exploding
into other things, so much that we all become curious, that we
all run outside into the hot streets
and hug. Romance is a grotto of eager stones
anticipating light, or a girl whose teeth
you can always see. With more sparkle and pop
is the only way to live. Your confetti tongue explodes
into acid jazz. Small typewriters
that other people keep in their eyes
click away at all our farewell parties. It is hard
to pack for the rest of your life. Someone is always
eating cold cucumber noodles. Someone will drop by later
to help dismantle some furniture. A lot can go wrong
if you sleep or think, but the trees go on waving
their broken little hands.

Wendy Xu, "And Then It Was Less Bleak Because We Said So" from You Are Not Dead. Copyright © 2013 by Wendy Xu. 
Source: You Are Not Dead (Cleveland State University Press Poetry Center, 2013)
  

Medusa's Garden

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

Medusa

Frieda Hughes, 1960

She is the gypsy
Whose young have rooted
In the very flesh of her scalp.

Her eyes are drill-holes where
Your senses spin, and you are stone
Even as you stand before her.

She opens her lips to speak,
And have you believe.
She has more tongues to deceive

Than you can deafen your ears to.
If you could look away, the voices
From the heads of her vipers

Would be hard to argue.
If you could look away,
The pedestals of your feet might move.

If you could look away,
The song from the cathedral of her mouth
Would fall to the floor like a lie.
 

From Waxworks by Frieda Hughes. Copyright © 2003 by Frieda Hughes.

Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads

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

Excerpt from Catullus, Poem 64
The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis

Translation copyright 1997 by Thomas Banks.

Then came swooping from somewhere Bacchus in his prime

with his cult of Satyrs, with his mountain-born Sileni,

seeking you, Ariadne, aflame with love for you.

Then too came raving, quick and everywhere, molten of mind,

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with a "Bacchus!" the Bacchantes, with a "Bacchus!" convulsing

their heads. Some brandished ivy spears with leafy points.

Some tossed pieces of a ripped-apart bullock.

Some wreathed themselves with coiled snakes.

Some with deep baskets were celebrating mysterious rites,

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rites that the uninitiate desire in vain to hear.

Others were striking drums, their palms raised high

or were stirring shrill chimes with polished brass cymbals.

Horns were blowing hoarse blasts from many mouths

and primitive flutes squealed a bristling tune.     

265

     The cloth, decorated richly with images like these,

embraced the wedding couch, veiled it like a garment.

Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life 

Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.

The Fascination of What’s Difficult

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day's war with every knave and dolt,
Theatre business, management of men.
I swear before the dawn comes round again
I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.

Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)