Dear Lena,

There's no reason to have faith.
Our minds destroy it.
There's no reason to believe that it is all happening in the right way, that we are safe to let go and open to the new.
There's no reason to believe that we can follow our hearts and it will be alright.
But sometimes I have the wherewithall to believe in my life, as it is, and to really say Yes to who I am now and what my life looks like now. It takes an incredible amount of courage and effort to say yes. And to Have Faith that what is happening is the right happening.
There's a big part of me kicking and screaming that this is Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. That I did it Wrong.
But that part gets nowhere. Really nowhere. Its just a person in a dark room, sobbing and pounding at an unlocked door.
I have to live believing, irrationally, that things are happening as they are meant to. Even with as much pain as they contain. So much separation in a lifetime. So much loss for each one of us.
But also, in every stranger, in every barista, in every person stuck in traffic, is this undying impulse to love each other. And to love ourselves.  It is who we are. To love instead of resist.
Love and grief are just about the same.
But how am I going to remember to have faith. Instead of destroying things with my doubt?
It becomes so clear and then I get fogged over again with this sense of tragic loss and regret and fear and dread. Then the fears feel more real than the love! And I start frantically planning and protecting and freaking the fuck out.
I forget that love is letting go.
Lena. Let's remember.
Raining so beautiful now.
Nora

Work

Dear Lena,

Two and a half years later now. I can see why I was struggling. I felt like work shouldn't be work. That things should dovetail together and feel aligned, completely.
 Its not the way I feel now. Work is work. Maybe 50% of the time you hate it. Also, you just do what you are called to do, not what you want to do.
Also, write one book at a time. Just one. Put the other books you want to write on a list on the wall. They will still be there in 5 years when you are ready to write them. I'm starting this business. There's no turning back now. I'm starting it until it is done. I doubt myself constantly. Doubt that this is the right decision. Doubt that it will take me to the right place. Doubt that I will ever be happy doing it. I tell myself that I should be doing grief work, or midwifery, or work with battered women, or helping people who can't conceive. I should be doing Chinese medicine. I should be doing nutrition, healing. I should be in school. I tell myself that I am following exactly in my father's footsteps, though my whole motivation was to avoid them. That I, like him, will end up in a nowhere job, hating it, hating things, feeling cynical and slowly poisoned. Its like a chorus in my head, chanting. Chanting against the decision I've made. Always sprinting for the exit. But, having lived like that for a long time--I'm now 29--I'm not taking these doubts as seriously as I once did. They would be there no matter what path I took. In my relationship, they doubted my relationship. Out of it, they now howl about how good it could have been. IF ONLY I had done just this different. I think the key is to let in some sadness. Let in some loss. Let in some solemnity. That's how building this business feels to me now. And it is punctuated by moments of excitement and clarity, when I feel really good about building a dream that was born inside my head years ago. But a lot of it is just showing up at my little "vintage" (in the words of the Apple store guy) laptop each Monday and Wednesday and working. Working on tasks that have nothing to do with my power as a healer or with my natural gifts. I scan the internet for advice on how to set up a business email, what to make of the LLC, SPC, DLG, OMG, LOL business license hoo ha. I sit here, for many hours, and I try to figure that stuff out. I take photos of the art I used to make, put it on the website. And every once in a while, I call an herbalist, make a commitment to him that terrifies me, and learn a little something about herbs. But the Expectation to enjoy this is gone. And that is solemn, a little sad, a little scary, and also quite grounding. I feel more relaxed. It opens up the space for me to complete things without squeezing them through the tiny enjoyment key hole. What if I expanded that philosophy to my whole life? Took the pressure off of myself to ENJOY IT. Like everybody else seems to be doing. What if it wasn't about enjoying it? That just feels like a tremendous amount of pressure. I've heard that life is about helping people, and that seems right to me. But it's also vaguely defined. What feels good to me, the purpose of my life right now, is just to build toward my goals and to value my truth above my fear. Love, Nora

Dear Lena

I'm leaning that way again. This is the motherfucking ef word.

Lena, I am at a loss. For words. And direction. And gusto. And courage probably. And/ or practicality. But I just want it.
So, I manifested, yes that's right, this fucking job interview. I will spare you the whole story, but I did. Then I pooped in the mouth of the interview half way through when they started explaining to me all of the practical components of the job. Like, write down what you did here. Put the peatry dish in here. Check it in three days. Don't fuck it up because if you do you will ruin a HUGE amount of plants.

What the fuck am I doing?

As they started explaining to me all the bullshit about the papers and the thinking and the not forgetting, I just started flashing back to the myriad interviews I've had over the last year and half where they ask me if I can work it like a Virgo, and I lie and say Yes, Of Course, and then they hire me because I am hell of CHARMING and then we get two or three weeks in and they are like "Oh shit." And I am like "Fuck this. I can't remember this bullshit and I'm either going to hate myself about that or hate you and I pick you." Then there is a falling out and I am eventually fired or I quit on bad terms.

I WWAAAANt to be a fucking Virgo.
I DON'T!!
I want to be me, Miss Neptune Pisces 12th house dissolution transformation shit storm. I want to be HER I am HER and I just don't know where in this godforsaken planet she fits.

Here I am going to herbalism school now. OK. Cool. I'm doing this herb share and sending out tinctures and making them and it all feels pretty good but THERE IS A LITTLE TERRIFYING VOICE IN ME THAT NO ONE CAN KNOW ABOUT BECAUSE WE'RE ALL NODDING AND HOPING THAT I AM FINALLY GOING TO GET MY SHIT TOGETHER THANK YOU MOM FOR PAYING FOR MY CONTACTS AND CAR INSURANCE AND CELL PHONE I'M 27 YEARS OLD. And the little voice through all of this herb stuff says: don't do this. Its just more Virgo tasks that stress you out. You can do it, but it is still work. Its not your calling. Its not that work, that job that I KNOW is out there for me where it no longer feels like work. It no longer feels like I am trying hard to do it. Its just my spot. I can feel that my spot is there. Its woo woo and it is also not so woo woo. Something magical and practical and oriented around health. The astrologer who just did my chart for free said I would make a really good medical intuitive. YES. HOW?! Oh fuck it, go to herb school first.

The cunundrum I'm in now is this.
Option 1: Get a stupid job that pays the rent so I can actually focus on this other stuff, have days off, and not be in the constant and frantic state of oh my god I am going to have to come up with $300 in the next five days. Yes, I do.
Option 2: Push through. Somehow allow myself to believe that I can have the job I want and the job that is easy and fucking pays me NOW. Lena, I really think that if I were able to actually believe that, it would happen.

Oh, but here's the work. I think I should work patiently through all the demons that keep me from that belief. I like that. It feels relaxing and kind of fun. I'm going to find a way to lure those shadows into the light. (I can't work. I can't keep a job. I don't have a brain for working. I will always let my employers down because I am forgetful and distracted. etc.)

I have to go to bed. last night I stayed up until 1am flipping through facebook pages. How romantic.

I'm so goddamn into astrology. I want to look at your chart again. I'm going to a free class on it every thursday morning. I met the coolest two old ladies there. Alice and Susan. I liked them immediately. As it turns out, my chart is very similar to both of them. THE WOO WOO IS REAL. GOD LETS US BE BORN or I'm bound to die before sunrise.

LOVE YOU
godspeed on the shit mountain of pure light,
Nora

Garage Sale

Brittany Lives.

But only as a ghost on Shotwell Street.

For fun, you can try moving the triangle curser back and forth rapidly.

Check out the new POLL

Do it, everybody. Its a great way to ask yourself if you think I'm special, which is what this blog is all about. Totally!

Nuts

Just when you think
there's not a bird's unsung
and just when the very last
cricket is wrung
out for every
twitter and tweet!

That's when your eyelids
start spinning their gates
and your skin
starts its peeling undone

That's when I'll reach you
and pull on your hair
and that's there the moment
when I'll ask you, I'll stare!
just who
it is
that I'm pulling
and for how
it is
that I'm spunning
undone-ing
you see

for how it is
that with spindly legs
like a cricket in spring
and a spindly sound
like the haunted
red wings
(who haunt now the heron, our pond)
I've come on forgotten
my song

and left
I am only
with a sputtering tongue
slickering saturn
of what once begun
and tired with the
stale taste of ashes
but oh
she's SLOW as molasses!

this hand song's a grip, son
and she wants your hair
and I think if we can now
we ought to be fair
just give her a lock
to take home
come on home.

Then I'll send her to bed.
and in the din
of their spindles
in the weight
of their dark
little legs
in the hope of a per-
haps
a just haps!
a song
we can sleep some
before night is gone.