Downtime Disaster Kit and Procedures

I love my job. We have a well defined process for everything. There is a certain amount of comfort in knowing that there is a plan.  In class today I was reminded of the process around what happens when our servers fail and where to locate the things we would need to still continue to function.  One my my biggest frustrations with my health at the moment is that there really is no Disaster Kit.

Insurance is a beautiful luxury. Having folks to call on and physically be there is also a luxury. What happens when despite all the planning and having the luxuries of insurance, people, and the ability to execute the plan fail? Bouncing back from failure is not something we are really trained to do in our culture. We talk about it in grand terms like resiliency and efficacy but at the end of the day what does that really mean?

When I was in training to be a chemical dependency counselor we discussed efficacy as the ability to bounce back from negative situations and those talks were usually attached to a process called brief therapy.  Essentially beginning problem solving starting with If your life was suddenly perfect what would like look like? Followed by additional questions of what are the steps you can take now to move in that direction.

We get so bogged down into manifesting the big picture we forget that it happens in incremental stages that only a snail or glaciers can appreciate.  What I find most frustrating is that while I have asked myself those questions I am not even sure my vision of a perfect outcome would ever be possible. A body free from physical pain and other unspoken heart fantasies. However, the reality is I would like a couple of long discussions with my healthcare team and support group on what realistic outcomes are of our current course and what can be done to stay as healthy as I can for as long as I can and to be loved for as long as I can. Is that really too much to ask?

Dancing With Fear

My own health issues are very much reminding me of the paradox of this existence. Fragile yet paradoxically strong. Weak yet amazingly resilient. The opposite is also true. One minute you can be going on course and the next the rug gets pulled out from under you.

My challenge right now is finding that resiliency not just daily but moment to moment as well. Each hour has its challenges as does each doctors visit. My suspicion is that most of us go through this even though we choose not to talk about it. 

At the depths of my bewilderment I wonder at the wisdom of the 

 for keeping me alive. A middle aged, not fertile woman who has lost her ability to take care of others physically and can barely take care of her self. But I think. I think a lot. Sometime about my cat sometimes about more seriously things like tonight's insomnia and trying to get through it. While it is temting to go on a poor me bent this has more to do with reminding me of what has helped in the past and hopefully helping someone else out there too. 

1. Be okay with knowing you are not always going to have all the W's answered of Who, What, When,Where, Who< How and especially Why.

2. Meditate on the Heart Sutra.  I realize its a Buddhist text but it is timeless truth.  Form is Emptimess and Emptiness is form.  Its not that the confusion and pain I am feeling isn't real its more that in the long run it doesn't matter.  Its core is illusion. 

3. Mindfulness meditation will reground you and can save your life. In Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better Pema Chodon recounts a meeting with her teacher where she felt her world was falling apart. They were meditating and he was about to leave without her being able to get the advice she needed. Long story short her guru told her that life is like the waves of the water. It ebbs and flows. It is our job to learn to walk in it and accept that we will get knocked down by those waves sometimes but we will also get back up again. 

So I encourage myself and any of you needing it that like the ebb and flow of the water there will be good moments and there will be not so good moments but they are only moments. This too will pass. 

Sacred Sexuality and the Culture of Rape

And it harm none, do as thou wil.

- Wuccan Reed

Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. 

Love under law, Love under will. 

Aliester Crowley

We are all connected. We are connected to each other. We are connected to the very earth we walk and live on. We are connected through every fiber of the universe. 

My various readings of the new year have indicated that opportunity for heaing and abundance comes through good character and discipline. One of the issues that I struggle with both on the giving and receiving end is feeling dehumanized and just a number or just a paycheck or just another vagina. I fall into the temptation of looking at other humans as the same just another means to an end. I witnessed a behavior last night that reminded me this has to stop if we expect to build positive relationships with each other and promote compassion. Instead of focusing on being offended at what the other person did, I have been using it as a personal inventory tool and felt a very strong desire to publish my musings mainly for myself. 

We bitch frequently about the culture of rape in America especially in the feminist camps.  I think it is time to really look at the over all dehumanization of people especially when it comes to our sexual relationships and sexual experiences. 

Sex is many things.  I think it is fun. I think it should be an expression of love between two people. I do not think that sex should every be used as a weapon or a tool of cohersion nor should people be manipulated into having sex. 

The problem with manipulation and coercion is that we turn something that should be for the multal enjoyment of the parties involved into an obligation. You owe me sex because of xyz, Bullshit. Sex is a privilege not a right. 

If we are truly practicing compassion we are seeing the other person as real an honoring what they enjoy. Forcing things for our own enjoyment is not love, its greed.  Just some food for thought.