gestalt journaling- therapy hours and the strangely similar cousins

warning: id rather you not read this one mom, or any other titled "gestalt journal",...ill applaud your restraint (aha, finally using the clause).

i have a great therapist, jody. she has brought me so far from where i was, but there are things we just cant talk about. we both know this, and so i have made the decision to use the required therapy hours (mandatory for gestalt graduation)for our resolution/closure, though i must say its time to be heading towards termination for multiple reasons- the strongest being i am learning more from living my life now then from talking about it, and the things we can not talk about are just the catalyst for starting this period of the therapeutic relationship (and yes, jody and i discussed it).

the things we can not talk about? we cant talk about jackie for starters (and jackie, you may want to stop here if you would be uncomfortable knowing these things. ive realized that this is my gestalt notebook-its just not on paper) i thought long and hard about this post, but i would put this in the paper journal if i was motivated to handwrite.

jody and jackie are first cousins, both named after the same grandpa joe, and as i started to approach my intense response to jackie, instead of really looking at what was behind it we got tangled in the figure instead of dealing with the ground and jody first became defensive for her cousin(i was very confused by the whole interaction with jackie at first), and then she got jealous ("you want jackie to be your therapist, dont you?!" she kept saying for months, no matter how often i tried to assure her that she was the one i wanted). were doing our best to work through it, jody and i, but it changed things....i really hope noone reading this knows who im talking about...

Song of the day: all my relations-ulali

into the woods

i start another gestalt weekend tomorrow (yes, this one came up real quick) and i will be going in full of wonderment and curiosity.... starting the day off by listening to "into the woods" because that is what this journey feels like, entering into the deep dark forest, finding glades and dells and clearings, but always back into the trees, the darkness, in and out, trying to build the courage to face myself (since i feel very little despair at this point in my life, and i have heard only courage or despair can lead to true change...not that i know i agree with that, but we’ll see)...

anyhow, listening to "into the woods" by sondheim/lapine, i find poetry in the lyrics and want to post some

i know things know- lapine

Mother said, 'straight ahead,
Not to delay, or be mislead.'
….I should have heeded her advice,
But he seemed so nice.

And he showed me things, many beautiful things,
That I hadn't thought to explore.
They were off my path, so I never had dared.
I had been so careful, I never had cared.
And he made me feel excited..
Well, excited and scared.

When he said, 'Come in,' with that sickening grin,
How could I know what was in store?
Once his teeth were bared, though, I really got scared.
Well, excited and scared..
But he drew me close, and he swallowed me down,
Down a dark, slimy path, where lie secrets that I never want to know,
And when everything familiar seemed to disappear forever,
At the end of the path, was Granny once again,
So we wait in the dark, until someone sets us free,
And we're brought into the light,
And we're back at the start..

And I know things now, many valuable things
That I hadn't known before.
Do not put your faith in a cape and a hood.
They will not protect you the way that they should.
And take extra care with strangers, even flowers have their dangers,
And though scary is exciting,
Nice is different than good.

Now I know, don't be scared. Granny is right, just be prepared….
Isn't it nice to know a lot?
..And a little bit.. not.

retraumatizing the victim

Woman Jailed After Reporting Rape
By PHIL DAVIS
Associated Press Writer

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- A woman who told police she had been raped was jailed for two days after officers found an old warrant accusing her of failing to pay restitution for a 2003 theft arrest.

While she was behind bars, according to the college student's attorney, a jail worker refused to give her a second dose of the morning-after contraceptive pill because of the worker's religious convictions........[cut]

The 21-year-old woman was released Monday only after attorney Vic Moore reported her plight to the local media. "Shocked. Stunned. Outraged. I don't have words to describe it," Moore said. "She is not a victim of any one person. She is a victim of the system. There's just got to be some humanity involved when it's a victim of rape.".....She reported the rape Saturday afternoon, and officers took her to a rape crisis center where she was given the first of two doses of the morning-after pill, McElroy said. The second dose is supposed to be taken within 24 hours.

Later, as she was riding in a patrol car trying to locate the crime scene in the dark, police found the warrant stemming from a 2003 juvenile arrest for grand theft and burglary. It said she owed $4,585.....[cut]

Hess sent this to me....his issue was the worker who alledgedly refused to distribute the morning after pill while the victim was in jail...i do have an issue with that, but i have a bigger issue with police throwing a rape victim at the time of reporting in jail for a $5000.00 fine...talk about a great way to discourage women from reporting things like this...and apparently the tampa police agreed with me

local resources:
cleveland rape crisis center
cleveland mobile crisis unit

for you, rumblefish, in admitting the problem

so hard on yourself, rumblefish, i want to share this with you. a friend gave this to me many years ago, she told me her ex-girlfriend wrote it (i think realy its a famous piece that the ex WANTED to have written).... i wish i could give you my original copy, as i hold it here, tattered and yellow, as i have been at your crossroad, just as my friend shelley had been before me... (ive had it over thirteen years now). you are learning michael, changing, and i appreciate your sharing it with us

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
I
i walk,down the street,
there is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
i fall in
i am lost...i am helpless
it is not my responsibility.
it takes forever (it seems) to find a way out

II
i walk down the same street.
there is a deep hole in the sidewalk
i pretend i dont see it.
i fall in again.
i cant believe i am in the same place.
but it isnt my responsibility.
it still takes a long time to get out.

III
i walk down the same street
there is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
i see it is there.
i still fall in....its a habit
my eyes are open.
i know where i am.
it is my responsibility.
i get out immediatly.

IV
i walk down the same street
there is a deep hole in the sidewalk,
i walk around it

V
i walk down another street.

only you know where you truly are, rumblefish, but that area in the middle, chapters 2-4, there is alot of moving around them, back and forth, in a non-linear fashion, and sometimes, even after you have found a new route, you will find yourself walking the old path, sometimes managing to stop and turn around, sometimes not.....its the awareness that matters, not avoiding the mistakes.

what we bring forward

i dont know if this is a gestalt thing or not, i dont have my notebook with me, but what i as a person chooses to bring forward in life (conversation, writing, artistic representation) really structures most of what goes on around me

i got a job yesterday. all the paperwork still needs to be done, but i did, i got a job and i ofcourse had to let everyone know that i got a job. some people i called, some people i saw, and a few i emailed (and not in a group email, i think i wanted to connect differently to everyone)

most of the responses i got were predictable, but not jackie, jackie sends me these graphics of cheerleaders jumping up and down, and there i am, picturing her jumping around in a tiny little cheerleader outfit waving pompoms, and it was so contrary to how i usually see her in my mind that i wrote back "lol, would never have taken you for the cheerleading type!"

well, she writes back that who she is cheering FOR is more important then the act of cheering..

i realize now how often i miss contact (see gestalt cycle ) because i choose to take the safer route, in this case deciding to 'crack a joke to lighten the mood' path, instead of just saying, 'wow, jackie, thanks, your excitement for me was a great thing to wake up to!' (and it was, my smile got bigger and my chest felt expansive, i felt connected)

i think i will give more consideration to what i bring forward.


Song of the day:hey mickey- toni basil

hired!!

after having a second interview with a guy named bill (and no, oyu did not miss any steps, the second interview was right after the first interview in the same building) i have most likely been (95%, gotta wait for the definite out of the mouth of HR) been hired as a school based therapist at margeret a. ireland, a school for seventh to ninth graders that have all (and this is the best part in my mind) failed at least two grades...i dont really have to worry about family preservation at all for the first three months, and you never have more then one family in family pres. at a time (which is the in-home stuff i did not want to do)...

i am really happy, adolescents are my favorite and i will still be working with alot of mental health issues

BANANAS....i do love monkeys

just fun for the morning!!
thanks robin

lake chad again

once again i want to say "look to lake chad as a motivation for terrorism in africa". from yahoo news:

Climate change seen fanning conflict and terrorism By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent
Wed Jan 24, 11:21 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Global warming could exacerbate the world's rich-poor divide and help to radicalize populations and fan terrorism in the countries worst affected, security and climate experts said on Wednesday.

"We have to reckon with the human propensity for violence," Sir Crispin Tickell, Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations [said]..... "Violence within and between communities and between nation states, we must accept, could possibly increase, because the precedents are all around."

He cited Rwanda and Sudan's Darfur region as two examples where drought and overpopulation, relative to scarce resources, had helped to fuel deadly conflicts.

Experts at the conference hosted by the Royal United Services Institute said it was likely that global warming would create huge flows of refugees as people tried to escape areas swamped by rising sea levels or rendered uninhabitable by desertification.

"Those who are short of food, those who are short of water, those who can't move to countries where it looks as if everything is marvelous are going to be people who are going to adopt desperate measures to try and make their point"

Song of the day: ethiopia- joni mitchell

blogging from darfur

BLOGGING FROM DARFUR: Please help us raise awareness!


Emily Holland, a staff member of the International Rescue Committee, is blogging from Darfur to document our humanitarian relief programs that aid tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees. “Who hasn’t been profoundly affected by media accounts of women, men and children living in what the United Nations calls the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis?” writes Emily. “My goal is to capture the daily experience of Sudanese refugees — especially the women — and the ways in which the IRC is helping them.”


Song of the day: we are the world- everyone famous in the '80s

state of the union

yes, i actually watched it last night, went up to the bar at the corner of my street, had a glass of chianti (politics can be difficult to digest) and forced myself to at least watch if not fully pay attention...

the bar was rather empty, a consequence of the smoking ban (it shows that the food and service at this place have not been strong enough to bring in a new customer base to replace the smoking crowd), so i could hear everything that was said.one chick at the other end of the bar whined "i cant believe they pre-empted american idol for this!!" as nancy pelosi gave the final presidential introduction...

sitting there, i imagined that 30 years ago, people actually WATCHED these things with interest and curiosity, maybe even ten years ago, some people did (though by then, people my age were becoming politically aware and were rather uninterested and jaded)

then our president began to speak- he talked about balancing the budget (and tried to prove he did with smoke and mirrors)a dn ending earmarks (which was a trademark of the republican congress), ha talked about using private citizens for millitary responsibility, he talked about tax breaks as a way to make individual health insurance plans affordable to non-insured americans (in the state of ohio, a decent individual health plan costs about $400.00 a month- not affordable in my mind to anyone making less then $25,000 a year, and even that would be very very tight).... i wish people would stop focusing on the immediacy of his tax cuts and start seeing the larger picture of what bush has done for the rich.

anyhow, sen. jim webb of virginia gave the democratic response. i am not a huge fan of webb, but i did like some of what he had to say, most importantly, his respsonse to america's economic health:

When one looks at the health of our economy, it's almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.

somehow, we have stopped valuing the worker and put all our eggs into the basket of the "bossman"...thats all i have to say for now

gestalt- revisiting the cycle of experience

ok, ok, i found yet another place where the two different versions of the cycle i have received differ, the step of resolution.

it started the other morning with hess, who said to me "if i were in the gestalt group, i would have to argue the point of closure as nothing ever really ends. no such thing actually exists" and something in what he said rang true for me...

so i went back to my groups class notebook, where i spent some time looking at the cycles of my clients last fall,and realized, not only did the newest version of the cycle i received have two extra circles but the step of resolution was missing, i guess lumped up into closure.

when resolution is included in the cycle, it acts as the place where contact meets some sort of outcome or solution (for lack of better words) and closure is more about the physical and static connection ending- more like withdrawing for the moment then ending-, making room for another cycle to start.

Song of the day: boys of summer- don henley

more inhome?

so im going to interview at beechbrook on thursday, but this is also for a school-based inhome position....apparently, noone wants to do inhome, but the salary looks like it might be $30+ an hour according to the woman who callled me and that there may be a part time position, so we'll see

Song of the day: she works hard for her money- donna summer

LABRYNTHITIS

i just need to whine briefly...i have an inner ear infection again, i am dizzy, and hiccuppy (i think i swallow air alot when i am dizzy) and am sitting in my car in front of my apartment building where i can pick up internet as i wait for the new internet in the building to be up and running

i am tired of this stuff...

Song of the day:

gestalt-field theory I

reading "reflections of field theory" by malcolm parlett:
there are five principals of field theory:
1. the principal of organization-
2. the principal of contemporaneity
3. the principal of singularity
4 the principal of changing process
5. the principal of possible relevance

1. principal of organization- "whether or not a....behavior occurs depends not on....one fact or a number of facts viewed in isolation, but upon the entire....field as a whole"- lewin
i think this basically says that as humans, we structure the function of things based on our need. a chair is for sitting in, but if someone gets dizzy and needs to lie down, and there is no bed, but a collection of chairs, the chairs can be organized around the need to lay down and so are lined up, creating a makeshift bed.

2.principal of contemporaneity- im gonna have to come back to this one...it seems real simple, but im having trouble holding on to it the way parlett has worded it.
i think the closest i can get is to say that the past and present in their original form are not existant in the moment, so instead of treating the moment as if it is reoccuring to approach it from terms of "what is,and not what was"- how the past plays out in the present (but it feels so flakey for some reason

3. principal of singularity-"each situation, and each person-situation field, is unique...we are all in this lecture hall together but our actual phenominal experience are all different..... meanings will be individually constructed and conclusions drawn which are not identical"- parlett
what i like about this one is the acknowledgement that generalizations are actually taking away from the experience, by assuming that all people are going to respond in the same way, alot is lost

4. principal of changing process- "experience is provisional rather then permanent. nothing is fixed and static in an absolute way" -parlett
black and white thinking be damned! its like snowflakes (if you ignore the newest research atleast), no moment can be exactly like another, as our state of mind is never truly exactly as it was at another moment (do you see why i say this is kind of hard to hold onto? )

5.principal of possible relevance- "no part of the total field can be excluded in advance as...irrelevant"-parlett
i can see that majickal professor of mine in this. she never rejected anything any of us said...

OH, and Kirsti, this is specifically for you!!!- " in old style gestalt therapy groups, the presence of a "hot seat" inevitably is a major part of the framing or context of what happens in the group."- parlett (as i know we were interested in that)

ok, thats enough for one sitting.

tripping through bohemia

my friend jeff invited rosanne, chi and i down to the bohemian national hall(on broadway) for the monthly fish fry last night (andy was invited to, ofcourse, but he's not been very healthy). jeff's mom, vi, was helping with the cooking, and having also taken into her home jeff's high school senior nephew, needed some extra support, which we were happy to do. it was evening, so all the stores housed in the hall were closed, but there was still plenty to see

this is an event i want to bring forward becasue i had no idea that there was a place like this less then ten minutes from my house, in the middle of the slavic village area where i had worked for a year. its amazing, new and with hand painted murals on the wall...

one friday a month, except for december and august, they sponser a fish fry ($7 for the large plate, 4 for the small, hot dugs and chicken and fries and a bar), and the money earned generally pays for the monthly expenses to run the club, which is home to a new gymnasium that was holding extra gym classes for all the little boys on one half while some teens practiced true gymnastics on the other...

it was thought provoking, inspiring wonders such as, why is it that jews from these same regions are still so seperate from non-jews of similar background, and i loved the ethnic taste to the entire evening.


Song of the day: father and son- cat stevens

a group interview

beechbrook just left me a message to do a pre-interview screening and to invite me to group interview on thursady at 3:30- its for a part time position running groups on the intensive treatment unit....

my response? PERFECT!!

Song of the day:

don angel

sometimes, i just miss our life so much and i hope youre in town when i am next month...i want to let you squeeze me and pat me on my head as if i were a family pet...

Song of the day: carolina in my mind- james taylor

whats wrong with this picture?

hess says my energy is different right now;
"if i believed in auras and could see them, id say yours is a dark crimson with specks and flashes of black!"

im trying to figure it all out, i think i am a little crabby-concerned about whether or not my application to akron will be accepted (it was due in by monday, but my official gre scores wont be sent til the end of next week), concerned that i am procrastinating on job hunting (there are things i want!! i need another income), and i am still being lazy, lazy with the diet/exercise regimen...

what is wrong with this picture? i have everything i need to leap into my life with zest, except maybe the confidence in self to manage starting a new job without being overwhelmed...there is a reality that once upon a time i had extreme work phobia, and i do ok if an opportunity just presents itself for work, but i am not as skilled at seeking out employment...like it feels too risky
...thats all

oh, and p.s., bellfaire wanted me, but i didnt want the schedule of in-home work

Song of the day: she talks to angles- black crows

winter morning

ive only recently learned to appreciate winter
its a crisp, snowy white day, the type of day that my mum dislikes. she likes winter for the grayness and dreariness, so she can stay home and sit in front of a fire (which is what i am doing right now at the coffee shop up the road from my apartment).

i walked the lake
stopping to breakfast with a squirrel...


it was a good morning (such a good morning i forgot an appointment and will now have to double pay, but oh well)

assigning motivation

it is a difficult thing, letting go and not assigning motivation or meaning to other people's behavior.... hess and i got in this conversation a week or so ago over an email i had received from my friend kirsti. she was responding to a comment i had made in which i had thanked her for
sticking with me as i went through a rough time, and she wrote back that i had nothing to be sorry about

well, i said to jeff "hmmm, i wasnt sorry. i wonder why she wrote that?"

and hess says "well, she must think you have something to be sorry for"

to which i replied "wow, i am not going to assign that motivation to her...that could really mess us up if i assume something like that!!"

to which hess immediatly repliedc "you are absolutely right.assuming something like that is not helpful. thanks"

trusting that what is behind a behavior (or a word or whatever) will present itself when its ready to be seen is just so...ok, i like to have control, and not allowing that conversation with jeff to alter my trust in the connection between me and kirsti was difficult, but i was successful (because i do want to always know you-just so you know). and i can see a million places where i struggle to do be as successful (you have no idea how hard it is to not assign meaning to your liking my choice of photos, j., it took awhile to open that space up for you to fill or for us to watch and see what shows up in the gap).

assigning motivation never leads to good, whether the outcome is lost opportunities because of disbelief or disappointment after putting more meaning behind an action or word than what was intended- its just never any good....except when you happen to be right (wink, wink)

Song of the day: falling- alison moyet

homophobia in the workplace

(i truly cannot think of a better example of love then xena and gabrielle)

i have a couple hours til i go out, and have been itching to write alot, so here i go....i missed a party for work last night. one of the occupational therapists had invited me to meet her for drinks before hand, being the thoughtless one i can be, instead of meeting up with her at work and following her, i agreed to meet her at this bar. i had no idea where it was and got lost in this unknown western suburb where the streets arent as nice and orderly as they are on the east side. after two hours of zen driving, i finally came across a freeway entrance and hurried back towards my neighborhood, where i called a friend and met him for dinner someplace i knew well...

the report today was good, as were the left-overs, and i enjoyed hearing most of the stories, until discussion's of bea (as i will call her for this purpose). i asked if bea was there. bea is a supervisor, and she's gay. she has been with her wife "dee" for about a decade, and it is a strong stable relationship.

well, i asked if she was there and one of the nurses said "oh, yes, she was there with..." and her voice trailed off
"with her wife? with dee?" i asked her
"with her friend"
"with her wife" i repeated and one of the aides said;
"glad i wasnt there" with this grimace on her face
"why" i asked
"i dont like bea, and i certainly dont like..."and now it was her voice trailing off and another nurse pipes in
"yeah, i dont like working with them either"
"with them, who?" i asked, as dee does not work with us.
"you know" says nurse 2 "gays. i was surrounded by them at *****, worked with a bunch of, you know, one of the nurses was a lesbian, and the social worker was a lesbian and they got to be best friends and thats all they ever talked about. they were all political and always saying they deserved equal rights, being all political...im for the dont ask dont tell thing."...and the grimace about the lesbian party continued for awhile, with me asking directive and challenging questions

people know i like women at work. its no big secret....i also like men though and am very non-commital, so i guess they focus on that....i didnt try and fight them in this converation, just kept asking questions to try and understand better, to shed light on what they were saying....but now feel bad about myself for not bitching them out

(1/14/07- by bad, i realize i meant that i felt disappointed, as my integrity and self respect are very important to me, and i didnt say "you are also talking about me, not just bea right now)

Song of the day: it's all right- indigo girls

"and its alright if you hate that way,
if you hate me cause im different,
if you hate me cause im gay, the truth of the matter?
itll come around one day, and its alright"

the math tutor

math was the bane of my high school existance (well, one of them). i always had a rocky school career. i had been skipped ahead a grade early on, but as my family started going through crisis, i discovered that i could have some control over at least one situaion; my work. i think it started quietly, my refusal to get my work in but i know for sure that by my second year of third grade ( my step-sister and i were going to be in the same grade at the public school we wanted to switch over to so as to get away from the misery of hathaway brown, an annoying, wealthy all-girls school. the public school didnt like siblings to be in the same class, and held me back due to "emotional immaturity" making me repeat third, which led to increased boredom) by that year, i was either sitting in front of my mother to do the homework then telling the teachers i hadnt completed it, or i was intentionally doing the wrong assignment to hand in. anyhow, my school career was strange and somewhat tragic, but then at wiley middle school, i finally pulled it all together, and was starting at heights high excited to succeed

only one of my classes was freshman AP geometry with ms. pendley, who, as my friend jason would say, should have been teaching potato peeling 101 in boise. she was a terrible teacher, and by the end of the first quarter i knew i would not be able to pass her proof based class (i went to the guidance counselor and she told me to stick it out to, which was a huge mistake), as my answers were always right, but i was failing due to the absolute wrongness of my proofs.... i dropped out with only a tenth grade education and immediatly got my ged, but it was very destructive to me as a person, that class.

so then, here i am, studying for me gre, not getting anywhere close to passing the math section, and in sets the anxiety, so i find a math tutor, a professional, an ex employee of case. we sit down together, she has me do some practice problems, and then says to me "youre great at math! what are you talking about? and your ability to understand statistics is incredible!"

over the next few weeks we met, and she pointed out a million things in the work i did on her white-erase board....i would get the right answer and she would say "your answers are absolutely true statements, you are one of the more creative problem solvers i have worked with! i want to make sure that you recognize other ways though, in case the test question only gives you steps and not the solution", which made alot of sense to me, and did not punish me for doing things my way...she also asked if i believed in esp...which i didnt know how to answer, but i did allow her to use the word intuitive to describe me

thank you lizann, what a world of difference and healing you created with me

Song of the day: learning to fly- tom petty

i have this intention

you know, i dont know when i became an exhibitionist, but i cant seem to journal in a real notebook right now....anyhow, i have this intention

dont know why this is an intention of mine...i mean, certainly it sounds interesting, but it feels somewhat elusive, like i cant really get a grasp on it...like an itch that im very aware of, but hesititate to scratch, theres something wanted in the sensation.

i just, i dont know if im ready yet...id like to be, but i still have some surface stuff in my way... ( by the way, im not giving any detailed information, as my scorpio nature tells me to be protective lest everyone else decides that it sounds like a good idea, and then there's no room left for me-im smiling as i write this, but only half kidding)

Song of the day: counting backwards- throwing muses

army babe; can we say "hypocrisy"

army babe
"Sergeant in trouble for Playboy spread" Fri Jan 12, 5:42 AM ET- from yahoo

SAN ANTONIO - An Air Force staff sergeant who posed nude for Playboy magazine has been relieved of her duties while the military investigates, officials said Thursday.

In February's issue, hitting newsstands this week, Michelle Manhart is photographed in uniform yelling and holding weapons under the headline "Tough Love." The following pages show her partially clothed, wearing her dog tags while working out, as well as completely nude.

"This staff sergeant's alleged action does not meet the high standards we expect of our airmen, nor does it comply with the Air Force's core values of integrity, service before self, and excellence in all we do," Oscar Balladares, spokesman for Lackland Air Force Base, said in a statement. Manhart told Playboy that she considers herself as standing up for her rights.

ok, so then, does that mean your suspended from the military for looking at playboy? is there really integrity in being the looker and none in the poser? because it seems hypocritical to me...i mean, whats good for the goose is good for the gander, right? nothing illegal about playboy, after all.

Song of the day:

WOO HOO!!

i took the gre yesterday and did well enough on it. the score comes up at the end, though it will be a couple weeks til the official copy is sent, i can now say i have taken them. i can finally relax and claim that all is right in the world!!

Song of the day: she loves you- beatles

a different version of the first three days

here is the first three days in a version of genesis written in a way meant to follow the original hebrew. i like how full of possibilities it is, and the poetry in it-

At the beginning of God's creating of
the heavens and the earth,
when the earth was wild and waste,
darkness over the face of Ocean,
rushing-spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters-

God said: Let there be light! and there was light.
God saw the light: that it was good.
God seperated the light from the darkness.
God called the light: Day! and the darkness he called: Night!
there was setting , there was dawning: first day

God said:
Let there be a dome amid the waters,
and let it seperate waters from waters!
God made the dome
and seperated the waters that were below the dome from the
waters that were above the dome.
It was so.
God called the dome: Heaven!
there was setting, there was dawning: second day

and finally my favorite day, the third day, not that i know why it is my favorite, but it is

God said:
Let the waters under the Heavens be gathered to one place,
and let the dry land be seen!
It was so.
God called the dry land: Earth! and the gathering of the waters
he called: Seas!
God saw that it was good.
God said:
Let the earth sprout forth with sprouting growth,
plants that seed forth seeds, after their kind,
fruit trees that yield fruit, after their
kind, (and) in which is their seed, upon the earth!
It was so.
The earth brought forth sprouting-growth,
plants that seed forth seeds, after their kind,
fruit trees that yeild fruit, in which is their seed, after their kind,
God saw that it was good.
There was setting, there was dawning: third day.

...if i didnt have so many other expensive intentions, i would buy the entire everett fox version of the bible, but it just wont be so right now...

BREATHE!!

another gestalt principal is to use the breath to help meter Self, to make a space in which to think, to slow everything down, to keep the panic at bay.

during the workshop, when the group was large and i was able to melt into the whole, i found myself using the breath alot to help keep from panicking. i mean, the room is rather small, the amount of people is rather great, and there is alot of internal dialogue to manage during the hours of exercise, sharing and listening and since impatience often makes me feel like i want to panic, jump right out of my skin, going back to the breath really did help.

then there i am in practicum, and those timeouts in the session for "consultations", and the supervisor says to me "are you breathing" (as i was very upset that saturday, overwhelmed and tearful)and i said back "shallowly" but refused to take it back to the breath with these four other women watching, and i stayed dizzy and uncomfortable for the rest of the session (im so damn stubborn).

as a person, when i get overwhelmed my initial response is to panic, not breath, and then after the initial panic, when i have a little room to think, i can calm myself down and make whatever caused the panic managable...i think im going to try this breath thing for awhile, even if other people are watching, as i think i would have to "fix" alot less, and there would be alot less ambivilance

Song of the day: exit music (for a film)- radiohead

day is done

its been a bad night.one of those nights where nothing actively goes wrong, but the type where everything feels a little wrong....i messed up in a thousand places this week, forgetting important things, anxiety emails and phone calls, stepping on toes, having passive aggressiveness thrown at me, just strangeness thats a part of living and relating i guess...i know that im feeling rushed and unhappy, trying to gestalt my way through it but not finding it helpful, wanting to be able to control everything, wanting to lash out since there is no control at all...just please, please find beauty in my growing because it all really hurts

Song of the day: day is done- nick drake

"When the day is done
Down to earth then sinks the sun
Along with everything lost and won
When the day is done."

morning; relationship

the interesting thing for me about playing with photography is not the gadgety part, i never liked using cameras before digital...its about the relationship with a subject...i think thats what makes photograpgy magical, why certain pictures catch my intention, whether a beautiful woman or a blender, and that is the connection between subject and observer

Song of the day: the only joy in town- joni mitchell

my growing family

a newer friend of mine watched my cat while ia was out of town and this is what i came home to...notice she states my age but leaves out her own ( i believe shes 48 or so)



Song of the day: keep it together- madonna

needlepoint

Song of the day:you and me of the 10,000 wars- indigo girls