There Is A Crack In Everything: That's How The Light Gets In

It is a wonder how quickly understanding settles in when I stop avoiding my feelings and just get into my body and feel them.

I have been feeling the drag of an attachment I had to a man I know.  This is a familiar feeling:  attachment to a man.  It doesn't matter what I'm doing or where I am, that feeling is hanging out at the back of my mind, and any time I have a chance to quiet down, the feeling is right there, waiting for me. It's a feeling of longing, of missing someone.  It's a drag.  Literally, I can feel the rest of me speeding along, excited about life and being in the moment, but there's this little ball and chain being dragged behind me, slowing me down.

It seems that if I take off the ball and chain of one attachment, I just replace it shortly afterward with that of another.  And if I am not wearing the ball and chain of any man in particular, I am out looking for one.

Society mistakenly names this feeling "love."  It is not love.  Love speeds us up.  Love excites and fulfills.  Attachment breeds jealousy and anxiety, doubt, worry, and general malaise.  I actually became physically sick shortly after taking on this particular ball and chain.  It hit me full force and my body rejected it.

I let it slowly ebb from me, and this morning after my walk I could feel it ever so gently asking for my attention.  I lay down and got into my body.  I didn't force it out or ask it to leave, I just curiously felt it.

Suddenly I realized I had been treating my relationships and sex in the same way I had been treating my career and money.  I had the priorities backwards!  When I made my dreams of being an actress take top priority in my life, the money had to come hand-in-hand with the next opportunity to come my way.  Money has even come in other ways outside of acting, without me going out and looking for it.  But getting my priorities straight primed the pump in the right direction.

The same thing needs to be done in my relationship sector.  Sex needs to be forgotten about.  Instead of looking for sex and then hoping a relationship will form from that (which is how I have been unconsciously going about it), I want to prioritize human connection.  I want to deeply connect with other humans.  It doesn't matter if they will be sexual with me or not, I want to connect.  I want to let people into my heart and take them in fully.  I want to treat my human interactions like I do when I'm on stage.  Being present and honest are the fundamental components of the Meisner Technique, which is why I love this technique so much.  I feel that we should all be living this way all the time, with some modifications.  On stage, it is acceptable and encouraged to shout, curse, threaten, hate, rage, and all of those other powerful things that in "real" life, we hide from others lest we get carted away.  I think in regular life, if we could but say the things that we are feeling, we would be so much more free in our relationships.  If someone does or says something that stirs within me a feeling of rage, I can say it.  It doesn't mean I have to yell at that person or call them names or beat them up.  But just being honest with myself about how I feel, and then, if necessary, voicing that feeling to the other, frees up a lot of tension that is created when we try to play the game of skirting around other people and their discomforts.

We all put up walls.  We put them there for a good reason.  But the time is fast approaching when we will recognize that it actually takes a lot of creative energy to put up those walls every day.  It's not like they just stay there on their own.  We actively put them there.  Of course it has become habit to put up the walls every day, just like it's a habit for us to put on clothes before we walk out of our house.  But we do it actively, and it's not like our clothes are glued to our bodies.  We take them off every night.  And sometimes, if a crack is found in our wall and we feel the relief of having it down, it scares us because we feel naked and exposed.  But as we push into that feeling of fear of exposure, it actually becomes quite thrilling.

To be seen.  To be witnessed for all that we are.  We are incredibly glorious creatures, not just as our physical, biological selves, but our human nature.  We are these swirling, roiling masses of powerful emotion and desire.  With that power unleashed, we can create things the world has never seen.  But we must first take our walls down, or rather stop putting them up.  You will feel exposed.  You will feel scared.  You will feel embarrassed and raw and tender.  But if you can choose to own all of these things and let them flow through you, those who see you will only see courage as you stand naked before them.  They will wish they were as strong and brave as you.  Because they will feel what you are showing them all, and they will know it is within them too, wishing to be uncaged.  But their fear will hold those walls in place until they are ready, just as your fear holds your walls in place.

Should every wall be taken down all at once?  No, probably not.  Let's be gentle with ourselves here.  Overnight change is rarely permanent.  But as soon as you feel your own wall there, let it be dissolved. Let it be dropped.  Even just for a moment so you can visit with yourself.  Just for a little bit, so that you can recognize your own Who-I-Really-Am-ness.  So you can feel the difference between being free and being caged.  So you can get a taste of what you're missing.

It's ok.  It may take some time before you're ready to get naked!  I know, it has taken me several years since my first tastes, and every day a little bit more drops away and I feel the breeze on my skin and it makes my nipples prick up and I want to cover myself again but I let that urge pass.  It will become a new habit to forget to put the walls up.  To forget the walls ever existed.  To look back on a time when those walls were there and think "Did I really build that around myself every day?  What a load off!"

I love you.  Be well.

Thank you,
Phoenix

The First Big Fly

In my post about relationships (The "R" Word), I talked about wanting to treat my relationships like I have treated my acting career.  I also mentioned my need for a teacher.  Someone who could show me something new about relationships, someone to point out my blind spots.  Someone who was objective enough that they could be honest about what they see, and who cared about me enough that they could be loving and firm in their feedback.  I have also been wanting someone to mentor/coach/train me in my craft as an actress.  My classes are amazing and fun and completely beneficial, but I want to go even more in depth with my training.

So then in my post this morning I talked about building my web and allowing the flies to land there.  Well today, one hell of a fly has landed, and I am amazed at how mind-blowingly perfect and synchronistic it is!

In April this year, I answered a Craigslist ad requesting people who were interested in journalism, but who wanted to do it differently than it is being done in the media today.  I don't remember what the ad said, but it is irrelevant.  I replied.  She responded, asking to meet.  But for whatever reason, the timing wasn't right and our paths never managed to cross.  I never heard from her again.

Until a few days ago.

I got an email in reply to the previous emails we had exchanged.  I remembered contacting her, but it had been so long ago that I didn't even know what I had replied to.  But she said she would be in town for a couple of days and wanted to connect.  Well sure, why not?  We decided to meet tonight at one of my favorite little cafe/restaurants downtown.

Well we immediately hit it off because the first thing she said to me was that, somehow, my old email had been bumped to the top of her inbox before she came to town, which was why she contacted me again.  She felt that we were meant to meet.  I agreed.  So she asked me about myself.  I told her I am an actress.  She said, "Yes, you're taking a class, right?" (I had mentioned it in one of the emails).  She said, "What method are you learning?"  I told her we use the Meisner technique.  She said, "Oh, you know I graduated from the Neighborhood Playhouse!"

Cue mind explosion.

"WHAT?!" I said, "You're blowing my mind!"  She said with a sly grin, "I'm blowing your mind?" and suddenly we were doing repetitions.

The entire time we talked, I could hardly believe what was happening.  I have been considering going to the Neighborhood Playhouse to further my training.  As we talked, she told me tips and tricks of the trade.  She showed me how to relax my voice and get into my body.  She told me that she thinks I'll be ready to hit the pavement without going to the Playhouse at all.

I told her how insanely cosmic this was, because I had been asking for a mentor.  I had been asking for a teacher who could see me and who could be honest with me and help me prepare for the next steps I'll need to take as an actress.  Everything she said to me resonated so powerfully, because they were things I had been trying to tell myself.  But like I said in my "'R' Word" post, I am an extrovert, and I need external feedback to fuel my momentum.

But she didn't just give me blessed advice and praise in my acting career.  She somehow managed to provide me with a safe place to empty out my relationship worries, and we looked at them together.  She told me things I had been trying so hard to tell myself, but I hadn't been convinced.  Now I feel strong in my knowledge of what I truly want.

This hit me as such a miracle, to be meeting this woman.  It was like meeting an older version of myself.  I feel like a child, so ready and eager to take in as much as I possibly can fit into my tiny body and brain.  I want to learn and grow and play and explore.  I want to be trained and molded.  I want to master my craft, and I need to learn from someone who has it mastered.  I have been needing this, and I am so thankful to have let it in.

It is so fantastically cosmic.  It is amazing what happens when we focus our intention.  When we clear aside all the other energy-sucking endeavors that pull at our attention all day long.  "How am I going to make money?" was a major energy-sucking intention-diverter for me.  Another one is sex, and my conflicted desire for and fear of it.  But now I realize that the more I focus on acting as the most important priority in my life, above ALL else, the other things will fall naturally into place in the right timing.  There will be no need to work at those things or hunt them down, because they will be swept up to me along the current I am now in.

Nothing is more important to me than acting.

"Well what about God?" some might ask.

Good question.  For me, acting IS connecting with God.  It is the most visceral, pleasurable, exciting, passionate connection I have ever experienced with myself.  I want to explore it, grow it, breathe into it, expand it.  All I want is IT.  I can't go back to not having it, I will literally die.  This is what keeps me breathing.  This is what stirs me to waking in the morning.  This is what drives me to live each day with open eyes.  That is what God should be for everyone:  that thing that wakes you up and breathes you and pushes you forward into something new and tantalizing and exciting.  There is nothing like it and it makes my heart want to explode into my brain and out my eyeballs.

When I focused my intention and made my acting career my top priority, my reason for being, and more important to me than money or sex, the momentum kicked into high gear.  Things are manifesting swiftly now, and it will take all the awareness I have to continue to allow it in.  It will take all of my awareness to continue doing things that serve my top priority, and to discontinue the things that are robbing me of the precious energy it takes to keep this momentum going.

To say that I am thankful would be a gross understatement.  I am floored, and so much excitement and hope and passion and certainty has been ignited within me.  Now I know, without the shadow of a doubt, that Divine Providence has taken over my life.  All I have to do is keep my eyes on the prize!

So much Love,
Phoenix

Weave Your Web

The night before last, I dreamt of a very large spider.  It was about the size of a golfball, perhaps a bit larger.  It was only the flash of an image and a pinch of dream fear.  But it stuck out to me more than anything else in the dream.  The next morning, as I was slowly waking myself up, I looked at my window blinds right above my head and saw an enormous spider-shaped shadow, almost exactly like in my dream!  I peeked behind the blinds and saw a big spider weaving a magnificent web right outside my bedroom window!  Mind you, it wasn't a golfball-sized spider, but it was it was about the size of the end of my thumb from knuckle to tip.

At first, I felt a twinge of that dream fear trickle through me again as I watched the shadow of it creeping across the blinds.  But then, as I pulled the blinds open and looked closer, I was amazed by how stunningly beautiful and intricate this creature was.  Because there was a pane of glass in-between us, I felt safe to examine the spider from an inch away.  It paused in its webmaking and I saw brown and black aztec patterns on its back.  As I lay in bed and watched it weave, I became more and more aware of its awareness.  Methodically, it pulled the silk from its own body and felt along for the proper place to attach it.  Within 15 minutes the web was complete, and the spider sat in the middle, feeling and claiming its new creation.  After a little while, the spider pulled itself along one thread in the web and hid in the corner of the window, out of sight, waiting for something tasty to run into its trap.

Now, usually I don't analyze my dreams, partially because I can't remember or make sense of them in conscious-land.  But this was too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.  Spiders have been showing up in my life experience a lot lately.  One night I was driving to pick up a friend, and suddenly I realized that my car was full of spiders!  Little white-bodied ghost spiders crawling all over my dash board and windows!  Ok, maybe not full of spiders, but there were at least 6 of the same kind of spider, and it freaked me out because I didn't know where they were coming from.  I respect spiders and find them interesting, but I do not want them on me.

Anyway, the spider theme stuck out at me and I asked myself what it was about.  What is this spider showing me that I can use?

Well there was a fly in my room at the same time as I watched the spider weave.  I considered opening the window to let it out and into the web.  But then I realized the web might break if I messed with the window.  I thought about the spider's methods of hunting and realized the answer.

Spiders don't go out hunting for flies.  Even though a spider will die if it can't find a fly to eat, it will not go out and hunt down a fly and strangle it with its bare hands and consume it then and there.  The spider uses the resources it has to create something beautiful and nearly invisible.  (If you had no idea what a spider was, and you saw it doing this, you might think it was creating some piece of artwork.  The craftsmanship and care that goes into building a web is impeccable.  Would that everyone applied such technique to the lives they built, this world would see magnificence the likes of which have never existed heretofore.)  That beautiful, invisible creation is then left alone, and the spider waits.  It waits for the perfect moment when what it needs lands in its creation.  It feels the landing, and it rushes forth to take the opportunity.

In my life, I have been so eager to find my way to the fulfillment of my dreams that I have been using a lot of energy to go out and hunt flies.  In this analogy, flies represent money-making opportunities.  Instead of making my web-building the top priority, I have been diffusing my energy by trying to go out and make money in auxiliary ways.  This summer I worked 9 to 4 every day.  I had to commute half an hour each way, so I had to wake up extra early to get there on time.  On top of that I was taking my acting class.  I had no time to pursue acting opportunities, because I was too busy making money in a way that had nothing to do with my dreams.  Yes it was a blessing to have some money to pay off a few debts.  And yes, the job was fun and great for summer.  But by the end of it, I felt so deeply exhausted that I spent two weeks doing nothing but sleeping and resting in every possible way a person can rest.

So last night, my director and I had a chat.  I had wanted to schedule our shoot around an art modeling gig I had scheduled.  I was really hoping to make it work so I could have an extra $40 this week.  But I told him that I was only doing it for the money, and if it was really going to make it a hassle, I would forgo the cash, because the movie was a much more important thing to me.  He agreed to give me my paycheck that night, so either way I was going to be receiving some money.  I was fine with it.

Then this morning, I checked my phone and saw that I had a voicemail message.  It was from my director's professor, offering me a paid acting gig for this weekend!  $50 a day for 2 days!  That's now more than twice as much as I "gave up" by making the acting a priority!

So the point I have been trying to make in my own rambling way is that, as soon as I made my dreams a priority, they came through to support me.  When I decided to focus my energy on weaving my dreamcatcher, my spiderweb, the sustenance landed right in the middle of it.  As soon as I decided that acting was more important than money, the two came to me hand-in-hand.

Now there is a difference between waiting for the opportunities to come after building the web, and just waiting for something to land in your lap without doing any work.  The spider is not entirely passive.  The spider puts a lot of careful work into building the dreamcatcher.  The spider makes sure every thread is in the right place.  But when it is complete, and the structure is sound, the spider gets out of the way and lets the dreamcatcher do its work.  It may not happen instantly, but it will happen if the dreamcatcher is placed well and structured well.

My web has been woven with the resources I have available to me.  The people I have connected with over the last year in my acting class.  The students who have worked on the films I've been in.  And now the professors of those students.  Even (and especially) my dad, and his gracious providence of a car and gas money, food, and a home.  I don't have to worry about these things right now as I build my dream.  I don't even really have to go out and find acting opportunities.  They have been steadily coming to me for the last 2 months.  Only one of the films I have been in this year was one I auditioned for.  The rest of the roles I received were given to me because the people who worked with me when I was just an extra liked me, appreciated my hard work, and knew I would benefit their friends who had more projects to do.

I still do the work.  I still put in the time and travel and work it takes to claim the opportunities.  But the dreamcatcher is snagging up the flies, and all I have to do is take them, wrap them up, and consume them.  All I have to do is show up and be the best I can be.  This is the path to greatness.  I am well on my way!

Thank you.

Love,
Phoenix

The "R" Word

Romantic relationship has been on my mind lately.

Actually, it has been on my mind nearly every day for all of my life.  I had gotten good at pushing the desire from my mind for the most part, so that its incessant throbbing became merely a dull ache.  But this last week it has been catalyzed into full-fledged reawakening and it is consuming me.

I can't hold back anymore.  This is something I strongly want, but I don't know how to go about having it or pursuing it.  As I drove home through the dark tonight, I sobbed and railed against the injustice of it all and begged for clarity and direction.  Suddenly, after about 25 minutes of this, I reached a realization that I actually enjoy and understand.

In a matter of about 5 seconds, I went from despair to courage as I realized that the only way I can go about seeing any dream manifest is by starting from the very bottom and working my way up.

I have been doing this with my acting career.  I tried and tried to just jump right into getting roles and agents and all of that.  But I didn't have the confidence.  I knew I had raw talent, but I hadn't had any kind of training or constructive feedback from knowledgeable sources.  As wonderful and well-meaning as they are, the people that love and admire you aren't going to give an unbiased and constructive critique on your art.  They are going to say "Oh that's wonderful!  I'm so proud of you!" and leave you feeling fleetingly happy.  But the fertilizer is the critique.  The most important part of being an artist is allowing critique.  Because if you can take in a critique with grace and an open mind, and apply what was given, then you have allowed yourself to grow and flourish.

My mother keeps telling me I am an extrovert, and I agree.  Extroverts are not just outgoing social butterflies.  From what my mom tells me, people who are extroverts need to process things externally.  They need to bounce their energy off of the people around them so that they can see things clearly.  Thoughts and ideas are a mush inside... like a pile of yarn that, once uttered, knits itself into a coherent sweater.

I definitely am this way.  This is why I have begun writing again.  I need to at least see my thoughts on paper (or a screen).  Otherwise it is just this constant echoing, jumbled mess in my head that leaves me exhausted after I try to internally sort it out.

Introverts are the opposite, in that they need to process fully, internally, before expressing.  Their power lies in having it all clear within them before moving forward with any kind of interaction or expression. I need to just get it out there so I can see it, and most of all I need feedback.  I need someone to tell me what they see.  I need someone to be honest with me and point out my blind spots and show me what I can do differently.

This is why I have flourished so much in this last year as an actor, because I have two of the greatest teachers I have ever had in my life.  Not just the best acting teachers, but the best teachers OF ALL THE TEACHERS.  They are great because I know they already think I'm great, and everything they tell me comes from the desire to see that greatness emerge more and more fully.  THAT is what makes a great teacher, and I am so thankful to have found that in my pursuit of my acting dreams.

So what does this have to do with my desire for romance?

In the instant between despair and clarity, I realized I have been going about this whole relationship thing in the same way that I was once going about my acting career.  I've been trying to jump in with all four feet, without having been trained.  I know I have the raw "talent" -- I have the desire, the passion, the love and the sweetness.  I know I could make a wonderful lover.  But I have never had honest and objective feedback.  I've had feedback.  But it was heated and argumentative and tearful and all of that. I want to approach this big dream in the same way that I chose to approach my acting career.  As if I know nothing. As if every piece of information is gold and can help me on my path.  As if I cannot possibly lose, but only grow and learn as a lover.

As if I have never done this before.

Two years ago, I felt discouraged about my acting career.  I didn't know where to start.  I wanted to jump right into the fullness of the dream, but I couldn't wrap my mind around it, and I couldn't believe it to be a possibility for me.  Today, I know with certainty that I can and will succeed as an actress, and I will be great.  Even though the fullness of my dream has not manifested yet, I am living as much of it as I can fully grasp right now.  I am viscerally on my way towards it, and the momentum is increasing.  I am acting every week.  So far this fall, I have been filming every single weekend.  I haven't even had time for partying, and that is one of my favorite things to do!  But I haven't missed it, because I have enjoyed myself so thoroughly.

So this is my new intention.  Starting now, I'm no longer going to try and jump right into "the big one." Starting now, I am going to learn and grow as a lover.  I am going to take in every single bit of feedback I receive with an open mind and open heart.  I'm not going to take this feedback as a personal attack, but as an opportunity to see myself and allow that greatness that is already there to emerge more fully.  I don't need to shut down and cry every time I get some feedback.  Like in acting, I'll just take it in, make a note, and try my best to do it differently next time.  Like in acting, I will pull back every time I feel myself trying to rush ahead.  Like in acting, I will encourage myself and do every single thing I can do to improve and learn and grow.

I can do that.

Every day I feel like I know myself better and better.  I'm really proud of who I'm becoming.

Love,
Phoenix

Into The Great Wide Open

More and more lately, I have been having this sensation of being on the edge of a precipice, and beyond that precipice is a vast and infinite abyss.  

I remember distinctly being 3 years old, at an art gallery of some kind, and having this sensation as someone lifted me up to look through a window into a black little room with a small model of the Earth, rotating alone in the center.  It was the ultimate combination of vertigo and deja-vu, as I instantly felt as though I had been propelled to millions of miles outside of the Earth's atmosphere.  I felt like, if I wasn't being held up, I would drop into the abyss of space and just float there eternally.

I will never forget that sensation.  And nowadays, It has been coming up often for me.  

When I think about potentially loving someone romantically (yes, someone in particular), I feel it.

When I think about my father and his inevitable death, I feel it.

When I think about having children, I feel it.

I used to feel it when I was very young every time someone mentioned the heart.  If I heard a heartbeat, or saw a picture or drawing of a heart, or someone even said the word "heartbeat," I would feel it.  It's almost a feeling of arousal, but it is more than a carnal desire for physical stimulation.  It feels like the whole Universe is attempting to fit within my chest space, but it's too big, so it starts to leak out of my arms and face and legs.  

I don't know what to do with all of it.  It is far too massive for me to contemplate without breaking down into a fit of overwhelm, despair, and joy all at once.

I remember on New Year's 2000 (remember Y2K?), I had such a sensation and I broke down sobbing.  My dad, alarmed, asked me what was wrong.  My small 11-year-old self had suddenly realized how quickly it was all happening.  It was Earth-shattering to me to have been swept up in the current and not noticed how fast life was moving by.  That was the first time I remember understanding mortality.  

Almost every day, I face the fear of my father's death.  I know it must happen, and it may happen sooner than later.  But somehow I cannot overcome this gut-wrenching grief that someday my dad won't be here anymore.  Maybe my feeling of loss is more linked to my desire for him to be here more often as it is.  He has worked so hard and done so much, and his intentions are noble.  But some days I wish I could curl up in his lap again and have him tell me a story and tickle me with puppets.  I only hope that one day I will find a man who can do that for my children.

It is such a strange thing, to be a Human.  To have such strong emotional and physical desires.  To wonder so much and know so little.  The only thing that keeps me grounded is following my dream of being a great actress.  I don't know why this thing calls to me above all others, but I must follow it.  Every day I don't heed that call, I feel myself sinking into the hell of stagnation and boredom.

Maybe this feeling of vertigo and deja-vu is just the universe making its Presence known.  I can't say that it is an entirely unpleasant feeling.  Maybe I can expand myself to allow more of it in, and perhaps that will take the edge off.  We humans are so used to being closed-off to all feelings of expansion and bliss, and when they happen it can be scary.  Last night I wept and nearly panicked as wave upon wave of love and fear of love crashed through me and racked my body and very being.  It was overwhelming and amazing and horrific all at the same time.  It was wonder and desire and incredible fear.  

I hope I can someday effectively harness these powerful emotions, in my craft and in my life creation.

Love,

Phoenix

A Political Rant

Well, it has been 10 months since my last post.  How strange, I completely forgot to participate in that aspect of my creative flow.

But it wasn't for laziness!  So much has been unfolding this year and it's been wonderful.  I have tangibly been following and living my dream of being a great actress!  I am taking an amazing Meisner Technique acting class and it has changed my life.

As I have grown as an actor, I have deepened my appreciation for the Human Essence.  More accurately, I have come to be more at peace with my own humanness.  It is beautiful and intricate and strange.  Sometimes it feels awful, and I love it.  Sometimes it feels fantastic, and I love it.

I have also noticed that, while my compassion has increased, so has my blunt refusal to see anyone as a victim.  I see a lot of people (including myself) who become trapped in invisible mental prisons.  But these prisons are our own creations.  And they are as easily destroyed as we choose.

One of the major mental prisons that we have collectively bought into is our dissatisfaction with our country, state, town, home.  I live in the United States, and our election date is approaching in a month. Politics as usual shines a light on our divisiveness and opposition.  It says "Here is why we are better than them, and why we should be controlling your future."  But there are a number of inherent untruths in this kind of statement.  First of all, we are all humans.  So who is "them?"  Those horrible others who also breathe and eat and sleep?  Those terrible creatures that hope and fear and cry and love?  Those nasty, despicable things that have the audacity to desire a world in which they and their families can be happy and secure?  You see, it does not matter what "side of the fence" you are on.  Whether you are a democrat, republican, libertarian, rastafarian, francophile, transvestite, fashionista, or any number of categories in which you may place yourself.  You are a human.  You and I have the same basic needs and desires.

Now the forms those desires may take are going to be different.  Always.  That's what makes each of us unique.  I want to walk along the Seine wearing a flapper dress, pumps, and elbow-length gloves, smoking a cigarette in a long filter.  I want to make love while free-falling from an airplane (with parachutes available, of course).  I want to drink ayhuasca with a shaman in Peru.  You may be completely repulsed by these ideas of what I find delightful.  But you have the inherent ability and opportunity to create whatever you like in this world.

One of my friends recently made a disparaging post on facebook about my hometown, saying it either sucks the life out of you, or causes you to put on blinders in order to not drown in the "negativity."  A lot of my friends liked it and commented with their agreement, that this town is indeed a hellhole filled with horrible people.  But the truth that nobody seemed to see is that each of them has that same view of this town.  Each of them is participating in the "negativity" that they claim to hate so much.

This is an important point that I am making here, so listen up.  We cannot change the way things are if we continue to participate in the behavior and attitude that has created the way things are in the first place.  Living in despair at the "horrendous" state of things does nothing but cause you, the individual, to suffer.  And it is no wonder you are suffering when you look out at millions of people around you who are looking around and seeing millions of people suffering.  Do you see?  Changing your view, changing the way you choose to see wherever you are, is the most important thing you can do.  As a revolutionary, this is your task.

It has to start with you.  There is no one else.  You cannot control "them" (whoever "they" are) and you cannot change all of that "out there."  But you can choose to see this place as one of potential.  You can choose to see these people as potential geniuses, full of lovable qualities that they are just dying to share.  Literally.  Every person you see who is miserable and aging and grumpy and full of suffering is only that way because they have, through the course of life, decided that they have nothing to offer.  And every person who has decided that has lied to themselves in the worst way.  Because not one thing exists in this universe without having something to offer.  And no offering is too small.  Even if it is simply looking beautiful.  Even if it is writing a very long and wordy blog post that maybe a few people will read.  Even if it is smiling as you serve people coffee.  Every act that comes from your desire to share yourself with the world is beneficial, in ways you may never know.  But it is vitally important to remember this.  Because as soon as you decide your inner world is not worth sharing, you have begun to die a little bit.

I'm really thankful to anyone who is reading this.  I hope you are taking the baby steps towards your deepest dreams and desires.  I know I am, and writing this has strengthened my spirit in that endeavor.

Thank you.

Phoenix

wet dreams

once again, i encounter a state of hibernation. and while my nervous mind wails and rails against the stagnation, my Inner Being tells me that it's quite alright. i am allowed to sleep and be still for a while. there is nothing i need to do, nowhere i need to be but here.

it is in this quietude that i recognize there is much within me from which i have been running. but running from my own inner world is like trying to run from air. not only is it impossible, since it is everywhere, but it is fatal. we need our inner world. it is all we have. it is literally what breathes us.

there are aspects of my own inner world that i have fought against, hid from myself, ignored, loathed. most recently i have come to acknowledge and accept my true sexual nature and desires. even writing it down like makes me feel a little nervous, because i have this fear that it will create a definition of me in the minds of others, and ultimately change the way i am perceived. this may be so, but i now have to make a choice: would i rather be honest and loving with myself? or would i rather cater to the fickle preferences of others, real or imaginary?

of course i will always choose the former.

so, without further ado, here it is. the unveiling of my bisexuality.

i'm not sure what else to say about it. part of me felt like it wasn't really so important that i should make an announcement. then again, a lot of what i write about is simply personal revelation expressed with the hope that my honesty will inspire even one other to be more honest with themselves.

it's interesting... to put a label on one's sexuality seems strange. sexuality is an energy, a feeling, triggered within each of us according to our personal experience, thoughts, images, culture, etc. sexuality is sexuality. it's not something that can be fit into a box called "gay" or "straight." it is an energy, an attraction that arises within. the Spirit does not have a gender. just because we as humans have genitals that are either matching or complementary (or anywhere in-between) doesn't mean that the sexual energy that arouses those genitalia is different according to each person. as a woman, i breathe air that is of the same molecular makeup as a man, or a hermaphrodite. in the eyes of Source, there is no difference.

energy is energy.

sex is sex.

one of my resolutions this new year was to have this be my year of sexual freedom. no more rules, games, or worries. no more doubts and fears. no more attachments. just pure enjoyment of pleasure in every form it comes in.

another resolution, that seems to go hand-in-hand with the first, is that i will not back down from my desires. this year, i will own all of my desires and cherish them, for they make me who i am. and Who I Am is unique unto the entire Universe. my desires keep this Universe expanding, growing, breathing.

anything i desire, i have the absolute right to desire. desire is a treasure. a crack through which God flows to us and through us. it is not necessarily the physical thing we want. simply the pleasure of having a desire burning within us, lighting us on fire and fueling the Creation of All That Is.

Life.

i have said this before, and i'll say it again. sex is not about having an orgasm. it is about experiencing fully the pleasure of desire. in the same way, life is not about having the things (the orgasms). it is about experiencing the pleasure of the desire.

of course, withholding oneself from their desire because you think it's not okay to have the thing you desire (whether it's money or an orgasm) only makes the desire painful (ever heard of blue balls? kind of like that. and yes, women get blue balls, to). when that desire feels so big that it is filling your entire Beingness, that means it's time to fulfill it. that's when it's the best time to get laid. that's when it's the most satisfying to eat a great meal.

there is nothing we are here to do except desire and enjoy. that's it. nothing more. no "purpose" or "lesson" or "karma." just pleasure, bliss, enjoyment.

love,

pH.