The Year 2018 (Or: I hope you like clouds )
I greatly appreciate the responses my essays have been getting over the last couple months.
Needless to say, my readers are awesome. I’m working through your thoughtful replies with the detail that they deserve. Thanks for your patience!
In the meantime, I’ve been working on some projects in 2018 that I’m pretty excited about. This post is a way to summarize and reflect on what’s been happening.
Some of these pieces are in the publication process elsewhere so I’m sharing the earlier drafts in google docs format. (Hence the cloud reference in the title.)
Without further ado, I’ll start with a series of pieces that came out of a workshop I participated in at the Creative Non-Fiction Magazine.
How to Open Your Hips
During the total lunar eclipse on January 31st, 2018 I had a vivid and detailed lucid dream where I met a lion-headed moon Goddess who made quite the impression on me.
She prompted me to ask “the question I’d been seeking to answer” and after cycling through a few moments of utter panic I finally realized she came to help with some tricky yoga related blockages I’m working on in the hips.
We went on quite a journey, and I compiled my recollections into a how-to manual that’s a homage to some medieval grimoires that I like.
You can read a draft of this piece by clicking here.
I was really fortunate to perform selections of How to Open Your Hips at a reading of creative non-fiction that was organized at the wonderful METTĀ
A Heavy Shadow
I also developed a piece that compares the lives of four generations of women in my family with the metaphysics and mythology behind the Sola Busca tarot deck.
You can read this one by clicking here.
I was again very honored and grateful to recieve an invitation to read selections from this piece. This time, it took place at Creative Non-Fiction itself in front of a full house.
It was an exhilarating experience.
Freud was Wrong
This one is an experiment in micro memoir. Not sure where it will ultimately live, but I think it has some potential so sharing here.
Check it out!
Poems
Some of the wonderful writers I’ve been workshopping with are brilliant poets and they’ve inspired me to explore the form.
Fate is Now
it’s simple,
simple,
simple, Love
make it simple
simple
we’re not as rigid as we seem
It was taking me weeks to get something I liked until I got frustrated and gave myself 15 minutes to finish something. The poem Fate is Now is what I came up with and it’s one of my favorite creations ever.
Sublime Modernity
You were born in a dark deep freeze
And died encircled, white,
in my hair
like a coiled Snake
entwined through the
Air and hardening
in my hands
When I see your words
A hand reaches inside
My skull and a butterfly
Starts flapping in my
Throat and my pineal
gland is now a sea of jelly
And I think twelve thousand birds
Will sing at the sunrise
In early 2018 I finished up Sense and Sensibility and was a bit sad because it was the only Austen novel I hadn’t ever completed. I wrote this poem as a homage to her the morning after.
Free indirect speech
Tell your god
The sky is hemmed
In thin grey bands
Like a vinyl blouse
And the sea undresses
In lacey waves
And the thing she was
when the world was seventeen
is not who she has to be
nor
the person we should be
or
the Goddess she was
yesterday
is not
the human you are
in this moment
an oak
grown from a seed
every year
The leaves
Mature and die
and every year
she grows
brand new skin
This is another one inspired by some of the literary techniques Austen pioneered.
The Praxis Blog
This is where I explore my intense interest in personal growth, self development, and applied philosophy.
I’m extremely interested in experimenting further with new forms and styles to engage this audience with.
Most of what I read in this genre is glib and cliche. Worse, it can lead to what I’ve been calling procrastination by self development.
I can assure you that I’m both guilty of indulging in cliches and procrastination by self improvement so I’m excited to continue investigating these subjects.
Here’s what I’ve written on the subject in 2018 thus far:
Why you Should be an Anti-Reader
What is Willpower and How Should You Use It?
3 Productive Alternatives to Embarrassment
Speaking and Workshops
If you’re reading my blog you’ve probably come across some of my ideas on dreaming. I’ve had the great privilege of spreading these ideas through public workshops in 2018.
Pittsburgh Jung Group
The first workshop was at the January meeting of the Pittsburgh Jung Group.
Above is a video overview of the content we covered. You can check out the doc I’m reviewing by clicking here.
Late Capitalist Dream Magic in the Desert of the Real
It was absolutely thrilling to present at Golden Thread especially since my journey with dreams has been deeply influenced by the work of Aleister Crowley.
It felt incredibly significant to speak at a body of the O.T.O
Here’s the description I wrote for the event:
After a powerful personal experience with lucid dreaming, I became fascinated by the many theories of the ontology of dreams. In this presentation I’ll teach dream analysis and lucid dreaming strategies. I’ll also dive deep into the interpretation of dreams held by the Runa — indigenous people living in the forests of Peru. I’ll also do a survey of the history of major theories of the ontology of dreams — from the pre-Socratics all the way through to Nietzsche.
Lastly, I’ll lead a series of visualization and imaginal techniques to use throughout the day and before sleep to explore some of the settings and landscapes that emerge during sleep.
You can check out the outline I used for the event by clicking here.
I think this workshop exposed my biggest flaw as a speaker. It was an incredibly dense talk and I tend to present with great animation and plenty of digressions.
This can be engaging, but also risks losing the thread.
I’ve been regrouping since this event and am excited to present again at a large gathering of alternative healers in June of 2018.
Non-Writing Creative Experiments
My theme for 2018 is spontaneity so I wanted to stretch my comfort zone and experiment with some things I’ve never tried before.
The first thing I came across was acting.
Improv
In January, I signed up for a class at Steel City Improv and found myself on team Resting Bitch Fern.
My writing has improved immeasurably since I began this experiment. I’m feeling more creative, less rigid, more skeptical about labels, and less insecure.
Steel City’s motto “You are enough” is something I’ll always remember.
We did a class show in front of a sold out house of ~70.
Here’s me playing a stalker at a middle-school dance:
Here’s me playing an overbearing boss:
Improvisational Dance
A great thing about pushing your comfort zone is that you have to go further and further to keep getting benefits.
The idea of participating in a dance workshop was so far out of my previous consciousness before embarking on the spontaneity project that I would have been bewlidrhed if you told me it was in the future.
Nevertheless, I came across the wonderful dance group Slow Danger and the classes they offer.
I’ve participated in three modules so far. Needless to say, I have very little natural talent or affinity for dance. Despite this, I absolutely love it.
Many of the people I’m working with are incredibly talented ballerinas or interpretive dancers. This was quite intimidating at first, but they seem to appreciate my enthusiasm and I’m getting incredible support.
Obviously, it’s more of a somatic and kinetic practice, but the instructors have been great with introducing me to the philosophies and theories they’re drawing from so I can have an intellectual anchor.
Here are some that have been particularly fascinating:
- The work of William Forsythe
- Composition
- Suzuki method
- Viewpoints
- Alexander Technique
- Corporeal Mime
- Laban Movement Analysis
- Body Mind Centering
Future Projects
To conclude, I’ll say that I have a number of pieces cooking at the moment.
Everything you always wanted to ask about Jung (but were afraid to ask Shakespeare)
This is one I’m particularly excited about. Much more on this in the immediate future.
In short we’ll look at some of the concepts we’ve already explored in depth on this blog vis a vis Jungian psychology using Shakespeare plays as a guide.
I am a Dead Avocado
Ah, this essay. It’s something I’ve been working on for awhile for The Good Men Project.
It’s about exploring similarities between shame and grandiosity using the plant alchemy of Paracelsus as a metaphor with a dash of the pragmatic philosophy of William James for good measure.
The Orgasm Manifesto
I don’t often tip my toe (or anything) into political writing, but orgasm equality is something I feel strongly about.
I’ll just leave this one hanging, but briefly I’ll say it’s greatly influenced by the the work of Valerie Solanas and Wilhelm Reich.
The DSM 666
This one has been fun to write. I’m highly critical of the project to medicalize conscious experience. Drawing on writers from Foucault to Szasz I’m revisioning the DSM in a kind of parody / reductio ad absurdum.
Thanks again for the excellent comments and for following the blog! Excited to see where we go from here.