you can't always get what you want...

I've moved to New York City since the last posting. I think when I last wrote, I was very much in denial that this was actually going to happen. And now it has. So here I am.

Many strange things have happened to me since I've been here. More on that after some background information.

I read "Expecting Adam" by Martha Beck, and in it she talks about sometimes feeling as if events in her life were being controlled or influenced by Bunraku puppeteers. She felt as if there was this great invisible force, or forces, that helped her through very tough decisions, life-threatening situations, and the discovery that the child she was expecting was a downs syndrome baby.

And in "The Artist's Way" Julia Cameron talks a lot about synchronicity. Jung, I guess, coined the term. Wikipedia says: "Synchronicity is a word that Swiss psychologist Carl Jung used to describe the "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events."" Cameron writes about it in terms of getting what you need. For example, you decide that your heart's desire is to become a classical pianist. Then the next day you discover that your next door neighbor is a retired pianist with the London Symphony Orchestra, and wants to give you lessons for free.

Personally, when I read "The Artist's Way" for the first time some ten years ago, I thought that the whole thing was bunk. Of course, I was 21, and I thought that the concepts of faith, spirituality, and god were bunk as well, but that can be forgiven. Right?

Eventually, I started to notice synchronicity happening in my life. Probably the best example of it happening when I was least expecting it was when I decided to leave my boyfriend of four and a half years. I remember standing behind the cash register at work and making a very conscious decision to do it. Then I started freaking out about all the minutia. How was I going to afford to move out? Where would I live? What would I be able to take with me? On a 15 minute break, I walked across the plaza to the library, sat down at a public computer, and somebody had left the off-campus housing website up, with a room in an early 20th century farm-house (huge, gorgeous) for a whopping $185 a month and no deposit. It was just sitting right there. I wrote down the phone number, called, and two weeks later I had somewhere to live, fully furnished, within my budget (I was making $5.83 and hour) and full of beauty.

With this move to New York... things have just been going right. All over the place. I haven't found a job yet, and I'm getting a little bit stressed about that, but I also know that I can't really expect such things to happen on the timeline that I want them to, you know? And I also know that I need to hold out for a job that will fuel me, not kill off another piece of my soul. Although, I think I am getting stronger than that.

I want to write for a living. I want to write books. I'm trying to work towards that end. The problem that I'm really facing is trying to figure out what I want to do between now and then. Trying to take positive steps towards my goal. Trying to make this happen. Especially when I've spent the last week of my life being a 24/7 concierge to a 16 month old child, who admittedly, is one of the two lights of my life. The other one being a stressed out 35 year old in Christiansburg, VA.

Things will go right in this regard. I know it. Can feel it...

The Lab Rat

So I've been reading Rob Brezsny's book Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings and in it he details the conception of his Beauty and Truth Lab. Which is genius. He's conducting experiments on how to create a utopia, but not in the creepy Orwellian sense. I decided to offer myself up to the sacred giggling science of The Beauty and Truth Lab for experimentation. Hell, if this can work on me, then it can work on anybody.

Plus, I had to do something to counteract the negative bitching and ranting of my other blog. And this will be the last time it's mentioned here...

Anyway, go read about Pronoia on Brezsny's home page. The link is in the post below. I'm sure I'll also put in my links section as I get this blog up and running. Hopefully, "Beauty and Truth Lab" isn't copy written, and hopefully Mr. Brezsny will be forgiving of my pretty blantant (yet fun and exciting) transgressions on his ideas.

So here's my write-up thingo on this experiment. I can't remember what it's called. Oy.

Objective:
To conduct beauty and truth experiments on myself and those in my general environs for the purpose of, oh, world peace, mass enlightenment, the betterment of the human condition, my own personal happiness, and various other good stuffs.

Hypothesis:
That I'll quit being such a cynic and start becoming a happier, more open person. Oh, also to get off my ass and start taking active steps towards what I've always dreamed of doing (traveling extensively and writing for a living).

Method:
Perform the activities set out in Pronoia and write about them on this blog.

Tools:
Pronoia
Sark
The Artist's Way
and anything else I can get my hands on.

Well, that's all for tonight folks...

First Line...

"Reality is what you can get away with."

-Robert Anton Wilson


(and I just have to admit that I'm liberally (oh and joyfully) borrowing from the brilliant Rob Brezsny here. He's the original founder of the Beauty and Truth Lab, found here on the net.)