Enlighten Up!

I so want to see this.

Post 100

"When a question is posed ceremoniously, the universe responds."

--Chinese Proverb. Came across it noodling around online today.

Here we are at the 100th post, and I've been blogging here for just over a year. Since I promised to not only pose questions to the Universe, but also post the results, here are a few.

The blog was a good idea.

He's gone, but he's been right here the whole time, and I know it now.

Sometimes poetry actually helps.

Jenny just moved to Italy.

And I am now singing and doing yoga and jewelry-making, all the things I wanted to do and couldn't figure out how to do them. I've managed to drop the veil of the 'how' and just 'do,' and that took alot of help.

What has thrilled me most is other people asking to post here. It is a growing group belief, or at least hope, that throwing a bottle with a message in it can change something. You can call that speaking your piece, or speaking your peace, or the law of attraction, or prayer, or whatever else you want. What has thrilled me is what people want -- health, peace, purpose, understanding, an end to conflict, for themselves and for others. To put it in the ground.

I've moved into the thinking of our generation's only brilliant popular philosopher to date, Yoda, who said it best. Do, or do not. There is no try.

I've learned only one thing, really, and that's that all of the questions I could ever ask here have already been answered. It's a matter of who said it in the way I can hear it. I'm working on improving my hearing, so the method matters less.

Be well, thank you for reading,

Jen

Guest Post: Faith With No Fear, Please

A guest post from the lovely and talented JP! With an addendum, no less! Because I should have posted this like a month ago and lost the original email! Yay!:

"I have been thinking hard about what I would ask for from the universe. I have been surprised because the answer does not automatically come.

"In giving it so much thought I have made an alarming discovery. I am smart. I have a wonderful husband, a delightful dog, remarkably talented and supportive friends, I am close to finishing my master's degree (something I have wanted for a long time), The people in my inner circle are, for the most part, happy, healthy and free, and yet, I am often at a loss for faith.

"I realized that I don't know what to ask the universe for because I don't feel like I deserve to ask for anything. Isn't that just the worst thing you have ever heard? I am so lucky in my life and yet I am so scared of the future. I want so much and yet I worry that I haven't earned the right to ask for any of it. Somewhere along the way I learned that life is supposed to be difficult and challenging and that blood, sweat and tears is the only way to get results. I have spent a lot of my adult life not trying because if you never try you can't really fail.

"So here it is.

"I want to ask the Universe for faith in my own future.

"I don't want to be scared of what comes next because I don't want to find myself too scared to pursue my dreams fully. I want children. I want to make a living doing what I love. I don't want to make compromises that give me excuses for settling for less. I don't want to look back in ten years and have regrets about what I did with my time. And most importantly, I don't want to waste any more time worrying that I might not achieve all of the things I just listed.

"So there you go, my friend with the ear of the universe...... faith with no fear please."

And the addendum:

While reading your return to the blogoverse, I dug up my "ask the universe" piece to re-send you. I have attached it below..... BUT interestingly.... in the world of sort-of-success-stories, I think it would be prudent to also include that the following things have happened to me since I came to California three weeks ago (now the proud holder of a masters degree)..... I received a letter from the chair of the Brooklyn College Theatre Department telling me that I have been recommended by the department to be an Adjunct Lecturer in Theatre for the fall semester... AND it looks like I will be teaching two or three workshop classes in period acting styles for a summer theatre program for teens run out of Queensborough Community College when I get back to NYC in July. Way to go Universe!

---
Exclamation point mine. I love you, JP.

Peace,

Jen

Universe, Meet the Dharma Punx

If it so moves you, go here and pick one.

--Jen

Do You Really Want To Live Forever. . .

It's simmering outside here and my son is home sick from school. So I'm linking today to this nice bit of synchroncity and thoughtfulness from Peter Shankman's blog:

An Open Letter To The Two Kids On The M11 Bus This Morning

I especially like that the piece contains shout-outs to both karma and Marlon Wayans, not to mention an Alphaville reference. This is much of what I wish I'd known at 18, had I been willing or able to hear it. Go find an 18 year old and show this to them, even if they roll their eyes at you, and ask who the hell Alphaville is.

--Jen

Hey Universe, et al

I walked out of this dark, warm friendly place about two and a half months ago into the glaring sun and tried to figure out exactly what I wanted when I came back here. I didn't. But I missed writing, and thank you to the people who wrote me to say the writing was missed.

Blogs are puzzling. You either chronicle your every waking moment, or comment snidely on someone else's every waking moment. Or you write about a broad obsession (food) or a narrow one (your adventures in becoming an expert in making, I don't know, vegan sausage, that then becomes a crazy trend in your tiny town and suddenly there's a 200 person waitlist to get into the monthly tempeh-casing-stuffing meet-up being held on your back porch). The word "I" makes many appearances. You only have to have opinions, or be a smarty-pants about something in an effort to be read by all the lesser smarty-pantses.

I started this blog with one intent: to trick myself into doing something (writing) that I feel guilty about not doing enough by setting a constraint (make a wish every day! piece of cake!). As tends to happen when you are me (just wait til you are me, you'll be glad I gave you these instructions), the simple trick unfolded into an endless moibus strip. Because now I don't just want to write every day to appease my sense of guilt*. I want to write my way out of a corner and into the everything. I want to write my way into understanding what we want as individuals, as members of the American family and as a planet. I want to be one window into understanding the meaning of life and what our purpose can be -- and I know there are already many windows out there, but it looks to me like many more are needed.

My hope, Universe, is to become one more window into you. And to write the word "I" alot less. And for this to eventually be what I do all day long.

I know this is vague, but like everybody else, I'm struggling to find the words to describe the mystery. In the meantime, send a postcard. A care package would be nice too. If you sent me a query for the universe and don't see it here, resend it. My computer died and is being revived in Memphis, TN. Hopefully it will get to visit Graceland when it's feeling better. If you want something and think God 2.0 might hear you if you yawp it out in cyberspace, send that here too.

With love for everyone, everything,

Jen

-----

*And I could cop out here and say it's Jewish guilt, which for me would be more like culutral quarter-Jewish guilt, but really it's not. It's the guilt of a native New Yorker, the guilt of not having as much ambition as everyone else who came here to get themselves on every square of the Monopoly board. As a result you berate yourself about not having the ambition, or you fake the ambition, or you move to the suburbs. EOM.

The Yawp Gets Returned

A beautiful gift came into my email inbox this morning. It is a gift to PB from a fellow traveler, a gift to you, and certainly a gift to me because I'm still fighting a bad cold and can't get my whoses and whatsis together enought to write anything intelligent, plus the cold medicine makes me feel like I'm typing with my elbows. It is a rumination from my beloved RR, and reminded me that in additional to all the other logical magic she brings to me on a regular basis, she's a knockout of a writer.

The open call still stands, folks, and it has resulted in at least one other guest post that I'm hoping will be ready to go up by tomorrow. Be well.

-----

From MBRR:

Having been in PB's shoes, or at least similar places of flux, at various times in my life, I can understand what she is going through. Closing your eyes and taking a giant leap of faith to change your life always has repercussions, but unfortunately they aren't always the one's we think they will be when our feet first leave the ground. When those repercussions turn out to be not what you planned, it can make you want to shake your fist at the universe. Come on, universe! You want to say, I did the hard part already! I made the decision. I landed here. Now it is your turn to bring serendipity to my side. Consciousness and mindfulness, rather than acquiescence to the status quo brought me this far, now I should be rewarded for my bravery. Shouldn't I?

I have been contemplating this question in particular for the last several days because I too recently made a decision to take my life in a certain direction, one that I felt was right in my gut. Yet I have been faced with the harsh reality that the universe has more or less taken my decision and thrown it back in my face. For 3 days I have been railing inside- my thoughts black and spiteful and unproductive. Ef you, universe- and Ef your mother, too! I have been eaten by the unfairness of it all. Everyone, and I mean everyone I know agreed that the decision to do a PhD was the right one for me. People who have known me a long time said they always thought that I would, and wondered why it took me so long to figure it out. People at my job said absolutely. It is the right path for you. Academics told me I was a virtual shoe-in, what with my experience, grades, and knowledge. I was a rare candidate, indeed. Universities would probably throw money at me and beg me to come study. And so I was sure. My gut told me it was the right way to go. And I had external validation and support for my decision. What other signs could there have been, or could I have read? And yet, here I am. 3 out of 4 applications rejected. One more pending and not a shoe-in or a sure thing by any means.

And so while I wait for magic #4, I have been forced to deal with the question that I really never thought would come up. What will I do if I don't get in? Some people have suggested that I wait and re-apply next year. This seems to be how the game of graduate school gets played these days. And re-applying may be a test from the universe about how loud my gut was really speaking to me. If it is the right path, the universe seems to be saying, you can wait. And yet, I can't. Maybe others can, but I cannot. I went through a huge amount of personal upheaval to arrive at this decision, and I am just about worn out. Doing the PhD was to be the new path, the one I chose after almost 2 years of hard soul searching and heart wrenching decisions of all kinds. It was to be the answer I tore the rest of my life apart looking to find. Now I just don't have the stamina to wait another year, and go through another round of applications, to have it come out wrong all over again. I just don't think I have it in me.

Nevertheless, once I decided that the PhD was the path I wanted, I came to see it as not just the answer to what I would do, but the answer in some way to who I am. For the last year, since I decided that it is what I would do, I have held the decision and the idea of it close to my chest, and defended it as a part of my identity- the true identity I had been growing into for all these years. My chance to become the woman I always knew I could be. And in the waiting, I have gone into some dark places. Each rejection a personal affront, and my life hanging before me like a butterfly inside a cocoon, doomed to be forever unrealized.

Today though, I realized something for the first time. Whether I do or whether I don't get accepted, a PhD is not who I am. I am not the sum total of the knowledge I possess, the opportunities I have been given, the rejections I have received. I am also not how I look on paper; I am not the deficiencies on my resume, nor the antithesis to those who have gotten what I wanted. I am not the praise I have been given, nor the shock of others who were also convinced I would get in. I am greater than all these things, and all these moments. And I am enough. As I am, with all the knowledge, and experience, and education I already have. I am enough. Somewhere in the universe there is a place for me to pursue and create the life of the butterfly I am capable of becoming. Even if it doesn't turn out to be where and as I, and my gut, thought it should be. All I can do is trust that the universe knows better than I what my fate should be.

So what is it that has tossed around for me about PB's post? I guess it was that I wanted to say to her, let go a little. Desperation won't help, but money is the same color no matter where it comes from. Take a job waiting tables if you have to. Sign up with every temp agency you can find. In desperate times, any job can be the job, until the right one comes. In the meantime, remember that the money that feeds you, isn't who you are. And just to show that I know all this is easier said than done, I once worked folding shirts and greeting customers at The Gap, even though I had a master's degree and 5 years professional experience in my back pocket. I needed money badly, and I couldn't face receiving unemployment. After a month, I left the shirts to start the job that, 7 years later, is my career.

Finally, for both PB and myself, the mantra I have been trying to hold onto in a very uncertain time is a quote from Rilke. "...And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, in any case."For PB and myself, I sincerely hope we both get what we want, but even if we don't, none of us is only our wishes or desires, realized or not. We exist outside of wanting. And we are enough.

A Yawp For PB

In response for my open call to get on the bullhorn, my friend PB asked me to give the Universe a yawp for her.

PB is an awesome chick, a cool girl in the grrrrrl sense, a deep thinker, a friend to broken animals and a Dharma Punk. She has been a good friend to me and my husband, and particularly to my three year old son, who she calls The Dude.

PB followed Love and Her Heart down the Right Coast to from New York to Florida early this year but, so far, Money hasn't gotten on board for the ride.

As she put it to me: "Please ask the universe to help me find work, so I can help others and myself .. . Everything has been so wonderful in my world for the last few months that maybe its not fair for me to ask for more, but I need a job. It's starting to mess with my self worth and confidence."

And let me note that it's absolutely fair to ask for more. It's fair to be whole and well and working and living. When one person gets to the top, they can help the other people making the climb. (PB, I hope that imagery appeals to your Macchu Pichu climbing self and doesn't register too high on the schmalz-ometer).

So, Universe, please give PB what she wants and what will benefit so many other people -- a job. A job as a yoga instructor would be ideal, but any job that she will be served by and will allow her to serve others would be fine. She'll know it when she sees it, but as you know, circumstances are getting more dire as the days go on. Please untie her from the train tracks and get her new life moving forward, especially she has taken such a big and brave leap to get said new life in the first place.

When It's Surmountable

I'm very lucky in that I have a job I like. However I want to do something completely different -- and no, it's not the fish-slapping dance. I found out this year that I want to design jewelry. I am slowly building the skills to be able to do that -- learning to render, learning to silversmith, designing and so on. I am also trying to suspend my disbelief that this is an insane idea. I have two great things in my favor: a husband who is completely supportive, and friends and family who draw monsters and make fertility sculptures out of broken furniture FOR A LIVING so boy am I in the best possible company for this kind of career transition.

The third thing I now have, courtesy of my lovely Tante, is the passenger records of my maternal great-great grandparents and seven of their nine children, ranging in age from 18 to an infant (the last two, including my great-grandmother, were born here) when they came through Ellis Island from Russia in 1898.

In addition to the sheer loveliness of having all of their original names on record (some of them were Americanized to the point of being unrecognizable), I have a reminder that will carry me through the next year and half -- that my great-great grandmother was the exact age I will be this year, 37, when she came here with basically nothing, survived the trip and started over in a new world, with seven children depending on her.

I would wish for her strength but I know I already have it, so I can only say bless you my wonderful ancestors. Everything I could ever want in this new world is entirely possible.

Be The Change You Want to See in the World

I believe that one is Mahatma Ghandi. Another wonderful quote is right on this site -- "My life is my message." So what is the message of your life?

Life is getting very hectic -- job changes, work environment changes, all of which I'll be able to talk about more in the New Year. I also have an idea for a new blog that I'm very excited about, but don't know if I'll be able to sustain both. I am officially taking myself out of the pressure situation of blogging here every day, although I do want to write here as often as possible.

Little proofs of the good that comes from connecting and asking for what you need have been everywhere in my life lately. It makes me wonder, who is asking for what I need? And is it working?

More soon.

The Mind Boggles, I blog (gle)

Boy, that was bad. You can tell how close I am to my English teacher roots on any given day by how bad the puns are.

Coming back to this blog after a holiday always seems to be difficult due to work pileup. We also weaned my son off the bottle this weekend, which was kind of like being snowed in during a blizzard -- you stick close to home and create fun with whatever is at hand, but really, it just kinda sucks. The countdown to this event -- stockpiling treats, tense strategy meetings over grain alcohol -- was as close to planning the survival of a war as I ever want to get. End result, however, is that the kid is bottle-free.

My mind is boggling over how much my life has changed in the last few months and particularly in relation to this blog. Some of it I can't write about quite yet and some of it is still in the planning stages. I still have to write about one of my vacation adventures but want to get a sign-off first from other people involved (attention ridiculously beautiful and wonderful newly married couple -- I mean you). In the next week I'd like to go back over what I've discussed here to date and what has come of it so far. And, once again, not like I have any pipeline to the universe that you don't, but if you think a snarky girl in Brooklyn writing your hoped-fors on her blog might help you out, I do take requests.

Til later.

Honey, I'm home

And have been for three weeks. Vacation was wonderful; I'll be blogging about some of the major events here in the next week or so. Since getting back I've been catching up with work, dealing with various welcome-to-winter ailments of everybody in my house and going slowly insane as a result of communications breakdowns. Both between me and other people, and actual breakdowns of my email server and cell phone.

Before I left on vacation, I blogged a bit here and there about a friendship that had stopped working long ago and had many things left unsaid. I had a long meditation/prayer session where I asked for the friend in question to be freed from what I perceived as an overarching state of anger that has been holding them back in life. I asked for their happiness. I asked for them not to be held back by what happened between us. I asked for them to come to some understanding of my side of things.

Careful what you wish for. I'm still glad that, within a week, the wheels were set in motion for all of those above things to begin to happen. I just wish clearing the air felt less like a baseball bat to the skull. This is some really dense and painful air.

I don't want to disrupt this person's privacy, so this is the last I'm going to discuss it here, but I felt it was important in the context of what I'm trying to do here to mention that I'm still having alot of trouble with this lesson, and I think it's an important one, that I don't get to be exempt from the workings of the universe and if I'm going to ask for things, the universe looks like it's going to make damn sure I participate, even if I'm picked last and the uniform is a really ugly color.

Be well, more tomorrow.

Be That Kid

I saw my twenty year old cousin at a family party this weekend. The Kid is one of the few people in my life who I would step in front of a bus for without hesitation. I know this because he is the only person I ever rode the Cyclone with at Coney Island, when he was twelve and I was alot older than twelve and I saw how disappointed he would be if he didn't get to ride in what is basically a cigar box on rails that holds you in with a piece of baker's twine. This is what passed for a roller coaster when it was first built in 1927. Six Flags be damned, there is nothing so scary as a ride that is showing every possible sign of crumbling to bits underneath you while you are in it. I'm calling him the Kid here to protect his privacy but also because he is my kid, and in my heart he will always be my kid. In reality he is a wonderful young man.

So I see the Kid at this party and he comes over to me and the first thing out of his mouth is "Jennifer, I want to be a computer animator." I nearly sing I'm so happy -- he says it with total conviction and he is studying graphic arts. After really searching searching searching for what it is he wants to do he seems to have found it. We talk for a few minutes about it and I say, "You know I don't have any friends who work in animation but I do have some friends who draw comics. In fact, my friend Jamal Igle, who draws Green Lantern or something--" and at this point the Kid's eyes have shot out of his head and are rolling around in the lawn. I forget how cool this is because I've known Jamal forever and six days. But I've just been reminded of how cool that is.

He asks how Jamal worked his way to being Green Lantern or something man (what a bad friend am I that I don't know what the man is drawing right now), and I say "You know, when he was ten years old--" and the rest of the story is Jamal wanted to draw Superman and set out to do it. He had good jobs and crappy jobs and no jobs, he spent some time drawing storyboards for the movies, he kept working and working and now here he is.

But before I could say any of this, the Kid said "That was me! I was that kid! I was that kid."

So today's request is for our childhood dreams to come rolling back into our lives and propel us into the sky, down rickety wooden rails or into zero gravity. For a wonderful lecture on how to achieve your childhood dreams (and go into zero gravity), go here (with thanks, as so often my thanks are, to R). The lecturer is Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pauch giving his last lecture, on this topic. It is quite literally his last lecture, as he is dying from pancreatic cancer. It is rather phenomenal. Take a look if you have the time.

Until later.

Hey Universe

So I'm all set. I want to sing, make jewelry and write for a living. I will do marvelous things, and help people and I'm open to whatever path this takes me on. I want to be wildly successful, and for that success to ultimately make the world a little better.

Let's make it happen. You and me, universe. We're the same thing anyway.

Happy Friday everybody.

#26 -- More dancing and singing please

This blew my mind. Since I'm doing nothing but blowing my nose (the exhaustion has morphed into an actual cold), here's a fantastic story from the life of one of our modern masters of creating his very own reality, Peretz Bernstein --er-- Perry Farrell. From his Wikipedia entry:

"In December 2001, Farrell risked his life by flying into politically troubled Sudan with other members of Christian Solidarity International to negotiate the release of Sudanese slaves. Jane's Addiction donated their earning from one concert for the redemption of over 2300 people, who had been enslaved under terrible conditions. Once the redemption agreement was signed, Farrell started up freedom parties at various redemption sites "armed only with a boom box and his legendary voice."

"He began dancing and singing," said an associate; "I wasn't sure what would happen, but then everyone joined in. Everyone was dancing. Even the Arab retrievers joined in. It was Christians, Muslims, and Jews all dancing together. Arabs, Africans, Americans, and Europeans — all."

This says a little about why, as I get older and more decrepit and creaky, I see less and less personal value in finding the subculture that accepts you (maybe because I've done that already and admittedly, it's a good place to start because then, a, you have a community and, b, you have some empirical evidence that maybe you are not insane) and more value in this -- showing up and dancing and singing in a crowd of people who are nothing, at all, like you.

Until next time.

#25: Let Everyone Find Their Bliss

I know there's only about 20 of you reading this regularly -- and to those 20 of you, I say hail the tastemakers! I've been too tired to write anything substantive -- and by tired, for a change, I don't mean lazy. I'm literally exhausted and working to find out if there is a root cause.

Having spent nearly a week going through periods where I can't really move, I've gotten a little desperate, and a little whacked out, so I started asking the universe point blank for what I need the most last night as I lay in bed.

Please let me have my energy back so I can accomplish the things I need to.

Please let my son feel better (he has a cold)

Please let my friend K find the love of his life, cause I'm pretty sure he needs outside assistance.

Where the hell did that come from?

Next thing I know I'm asking for everything, for everyone I can think of.

And here's the thing. I've come to believe that we can all achieve what we need to in this lifetime. Joseph Campbell, Mr. Find Your Bliss himself, believed that reincarnation was a metaphor for continuing to die and be reborn in this lifetime until you achieve enlightenment.

I worry sometimes that this blog is just so much navel gazing. But I also think that as a society we have a responsibility to get ourselves in order. To be positive, to treat others with kindness, to be conscious of why we do the things we do.

So, here's what I want. For you to find your bliss, and for me to find mine. Let me know what I can do to help.

Tomorrow, I'll start to go beyond that.