Monday, January 26, 2015

Joy or no joy? Give it up take it back give it up again.

There it is! All around me - joyous moments of laughter, dance, song, friends and love.rz.

Talented people - everywhere! It brings me such joy. But I have trouble staying in the moment and my brain wants to latch on - to something. Anything! 

It's really a time to be riding the river, so I wonder why, since I know this, that my brain wants to drive me nuts by trying to grab onto a branch and stay there- stagnant. Like a mini whirlpool - a spin cycle. A negative feedback loop! 

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Lol? Are my references clear?

I want to rejoice in my new life, my new freedoms, the moments alone and with people that make so happy. 

Last night, Marnie,  me and the boys laughed so hard that I almost choked up the salsa that I was eating- I had SO much fun. All over burritos. It had everything to do with being hilarious and in the moment. Nothing to do with hiding from myself or my friends.

Personal Jesus is playing on the iPod now.

Violator is such a killer record. 

Im at the laundromat and the black attendant just showed me the new weed ::: Droo or something, that smells just like weed. He insists its better! 

How? It's $10/gram! Jesus. And he scored it in a matter of 5 minutes. I'm on 12th street. 

I've got 5 minutes to finish drying before this joint closes....







Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Going to War with Energy: an Empath walks into a room

I'm always amazed that the amount of people who don't know what an empath is: 

em·path
ˈempaTH/
noun
  1. (chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual.

Being an empath doesn't mean you have good intuition (though one might) or that you can read minds. It means you can read energy! The state of things, the state of a person:: you FEEL it. Even if you don't want to. 

We're not psychics, mediums or healers, though one might also have those qualities. 

It means when I walk into a room: especially a healing space, or somewhere where I feel vulnerable, I can feel the energy and, unfortunately since I'm me, I go to the negative person in the room and absorb it. I've done this incessantly at my live shows and I have had to close my eyes or look away or down. 

It hasn't happened in a long time since my band is so badass now: There's no denying it! I feel very confidant with a solid army behind me. 

Imagine how it sucks when you have a psycho (in my favorite healing space) that hates you! Seeths bad energy! Not only is it energetic, She has pushed me too: out of the way. Been nasty in front of people: It is not in my mind. 

This has been my experience about the last 5 years in my favorite recovery meeting.

I have/had done everything! Stepwork, Energy Cleansing, EMDR, meditation: and though these things have helped me, THAT BITCH STILL IS BAD NEWS! She is still giving off the same bad energy, and I'm absorbing it. I even wrote a song about it, Cat Fight. (coming out in a couple of weeks) I will post it later after its mastered. I wrote it this time last year. 

One who is not an empath might say, "just ignore her!" And trust me I have. The problem with my untrained empathy is I don't know how to remove my antenna: It's stuck on "on". I won't go into the neurosis about why It's stuck. 

It seems particularly bad when I'm upset, vulnerable, someone died, or I am in trouble. 

I am so sick of it! The other day my antenna got stuck on and I couldn't get focused on my recovery meeting. I signed my divorce papers this week, and things have been very unstable. 

This is a weird thing too:: she's gorgeous! She dresses just in the style I like! So it's a mind-fu$# because she's so visually interesting to look at. But what a sociopath inside! It confounds my brain. 

Anyway, I talked to a former roommate of hers about her, cause I knew they had had a falling out. She also goes to my meeting. She also has been upset at the way this girl gives out terrible energy to her, and acts like an emotional vampire, sucking the goodness out:: one breath at a time. 

She affirmed that this girl does this same thing to her, but just sometimes, she'll throw a curve ball and be NICE! What a psycho-biatch. Who needs it. Oh guess what? My friend has NO IDEA WHY, what she did or what happened to her to change her status from "roommate" to "Hated-bitch" They never even had an argument. (She is gorgeous too, btw)

We agreed to have a signal for each other- (she is ALSO an empath) a Peace sign. We're going to shoot each other a peace sign if we are having a hard time focusing, if the energy in the room is bad, or simply if we've had a run-in with the dreaded gorgeous psychopath. 

It's like going to WAR every time I walk into that church basement. I have to put my psychic armor on. Block myself from the ammo, and retreat.

Monday, January 12, 2015

The art of listening, synchronicity, and looking for answers within the context of collaboration and vision



Some know that my buddy Rachel Weiss and I wrote a grant for the City of Austin this year and got funded to do a performance project. 


Rachel came up with the brilliant idea of "Sacred Space"  -- so right up my alley. Because she was in Italy at the time of the deadline on an intensive teaching acting to kids, I wrote the grant. 


Sacred Space was inspired in Rachel from the notion that art in the Renaissance was housed in Sacred Spaces, and thus art and artists were deemed as sacred beings as well. That's all I remember her saying! Without referencing old emails...

In short, art is not viewed as sacred anymore as modern art has been removed largely from sacred spaces and has been totally secularized. 

That's about what we had to go on. I wrote the grant with the idea that I would like to combine my love of street art and and the surprise that goes along with that, as well as writing music for dance, which has always been my passion. Those two things were important to me. Also important to me: Rachel is a brilliant and intuitive dancer as well as Actor, Producer and Director. 

We are completely co-collaborating on this; and we are riding the wave of ideas, shapes, forms and techniques that can combine both of our visions into one. 

So it is incredible that I have found precedence! I happened upon this podcast from On Being: my favorite podcast that discusses spiritual matters with great thinkers in the area of Science, Art, Religion, and Academia. 

The podcast showcases two incredible thinkers: Courtney Martin and Parker Palmer. The podcast was on "The Inner Life of Rebellion" LOVE IT> 

I almost dropped the dishes I was doing when Parker said this: "...One thing our community is most deficient in, is safe spaces for truth telling about the condition of our souls. (or identity or integrity). 

He was talking about Secular Sacred Spaces! (while referencing his book) BOOYAH! He was talking about expression, connection, truth telling, and the human condition. 

Precisely what we are doing with Art, Music Dance, wound up all into one public art instillation and performance. 

I want to identify more what we are doing with this piece in a future post, when it's more flushed out. 

In the interim, I'm going to read and then contact Mr. Palmer and have a quick convo with him. Wouldn't that be lovely? My dream! I'm also going to read Courtney's BooK: Do It Anyway. Which states: If you care about social change but hate feel-good platitudes, Do It Anyway is the book for you. 

Perfect. Rebellion, the art of space, feminism, activism and social change within the context of Art and Performance. 

Something to live for.