no longer carless

a week ago i bought a car to replace my nearly defunct '91 mazda miata with 180K miles.

the new car is a white honda civic, 2003, and it's a hybrid.

after driving a miata, it feels like a boat. just doesn't have the "road feel" of a 2-seater. it is like driving in a bubble--quiet, air conditioned, good CD player.

i got to experience being mostly carless this spring, and i enjoyed all the bike-riding. and it's nice to have a choice, particularly when it's really hot, really humid, raining, i have to get cat litter or take my cat to the vet, or haul home more groceries than i can fit in a backpack.

plus, i can get to places like kathleen's in wimberley, the NLP meetup off rundberg, and eNLP in dallas that would just not work with a bicycle.

i can take my granddaughter places too far for her to walk when we're spending time together, and she can't ride a bike yet (nor would i want her riding on the street with me).

it's nice to have a car in emergencies as well as for spontaneous trips to visit a friend or go to a store. Austin CarShare, which has been helpful on several occasions, requires reservations in advance, and it's not feasible to take one of their cars out of town or overnight, plus no pets allowed.

so i guess i am a bit spoiled. it's been an adventure, and i'm glad i did it.

the best part of driving this car is watching the current gas mileage displayed on the dash. you can learn how to maximize it from watching the gauge. it also shows average mpg per trip. right now it's getting an average of about 42 mpg on this tank of gas after about 300 miles of both city and highway driving. the tank is still over half full.

another gauge shows whether the battery is being charged (going down hills, decelerating, braking) and when it is assisting the gasoline engine (climbing hills, accelerating).

it has a feature called auto stop. instead of idling, the gas engine just stops running when the car comes to a full stop. the car gets very quiet. you might think the engine died, but it hasn't. it's just conserving gas.

i'm looking forward to my next trip to dallas and seeing what kind of mileage i get on that.

this will be my last post with the label "the carless life". i'm still planning to ride my bike often and feel much heartened about what the city is doing to make austin friendlier to bicycles. click the title link to read more.

dream: work, on the roof

also may 25.

i'm working at my laptop in my office, which is more like home because it has several beds or futons in it. i'm very engaged in working.

a woman from my waking life job comes in and says it's time for the wellness fair, to get a partner. i ignore her, but then i see a dear friend who is a teacher (and a role model for me) spreading a blanket on the floor in a big room, and i decide to go.

i hesitate about looking for a partner, and then go in search of a man i like to be my partner for the wellness fair.

the scene changes. it is night. i sit alone on the roof of my house. i hear and see fireworks and see my neighbors setting them off. they see me. i think it must be a mexican holiday or something, but it's may 16th. i hear firecrackers from further away.

i get down from the roof. it appears that my house is a different shape than i thought. it is smaller, and there's a shed on the side that is larger.

message: i am engaged in the work area of my life, but unsure about partnership. i look forward to being in a relationship, and i've also changed significantly since my last relationship. i haven't integrated this yet--it has implications for how i do relationship.

dream: i spend the night with the dalai lama

dreamed on may 25.

i am spending the night with the dalai lama. two other women are there, one older, one younger. we are in a big bedroom in a private home. there's a large bed in the room, neatly made with a white bedspread, but he sleeps on the floor, and so do we.

i like looking at him. he's dressed in his tibetan monk robes of burnt orange and saffron. he sits cross-legged on the floor. he is talking, sometimes in tibetan, sometimes in heavily accented english. i can't understand a lot of what he's saying. his voice and face are very expressive. it's more of a discourse than a conversation. he doesn't ask questions. he's expressing his concerns about tibet and its future.

i am tempted to lie in the bed, but i don't, because it would be very bad manners, for some reason. the older woman gets up and walks around while he talks. the younger one and i sit on the carpeted floor and listen.

message: well, i sure wish i had some words of wisdom to report from this dream! i would have liked to hear some stories from tibetan buddhism rather than politics from him, and yet i realize the dalai lama is a spiritual leader whose practice is visible to all. he's a man of peace at a time when the country he's been exiled from for most of his life has been co-opted and populated by a different culture that wants to repress his culture and religion. difficult position.

dream: future/past changes

dreamed on may 23.

i am at barton springs with my friend colleen, only it's different. the part of the creek just below the dam ("the dog beach") is under a roof, and the enclosed pool, which is like an extension of the original existing pool separated by the dam, has stairs that go from the dam downstream. i'm not 100% sure it's barton springs, but i have the same affection for it that i have for barton springs in waking life. one of lela's old childhood friends (male) is there too.

i walk a few blocks, and i'm in fort scott, kansas, where i lived in 1962-63, when i was 9 and 10 years old. i want to go see the house i lived in. lela is there, and she's with this old childhood friend. they've gotten together romantically after he realized what a dick he'd been to her and recognized his true feelings. i feel happy about this. i'm glad he's come out of the closet. they seem to be a good match.

i walk over to my old house and see the national guard is doing some exercise on the street in front of the house, complete with uniforms and rifles pointed at the old school across the street. i can't get close to the house.

message: hmm! it occurred to me that the change to barton springs might happen in the future. what if more swimming pools have roofs built over them to prevent sun damage to human skin as the atmosphere changes with global warming?

about lela and her childhood friend, i realized something about his inner emotional conflict and needing to set a boundary. i told her his behavior had nothing to do with her. i think she needed to hear that.

about the national guard: i wondered if there has been or is going to be a SWAT team type incident in fort scott, or what reason there might be to have such defenses around that house. i don't know.

dream: working and changing houses

dreamed on may 22.

i'm at someone's house visiting and have brought work with me. the house is brightly lit, cluttered, and active with life happening. i'm working in an office, working on a project, researching, writing, pulling material together, moving around, doing some computer work, talking to people. i'm really enjoying this work. it seems to be flowing smoothly, and i'm getting a lot accomplished.

the doorbell rings, and i answer. an unknown man is standing there. i realize that it's midnight, and i've been caught up in this project later than i had intended. i let the man in and begin gathering my stuff to leave.

i go to my ex-mother-in-law's house in cordell, oklahoma. it's day time. workmen are there to do some remodeling, but she isn't there. my daughter and a couple of others are there. i feel at home and comfortable in this house, even though her son and i have been divorced for years.

a workman asks me what she wants done to the house. i don't know. i start showing him what remodeling she'd already had done--changed the entry way, converted a large bedroom and bathroom to a huge living room, enclosed a porch, and so on.

he and i begin speculating on what she wants changed. i start counting how many grandchildren and great-grandchildren she has since she last remodeled and speculate that she might want one large back bedroom divided into two rooms, but i tell him he'll have to hear it from her. end of dream.

message: two houses, neither mine, working happily, a remodeling project. a mysterious midnight visitor. this could be about healing the past.

dream: people sort

catching up on blogging dreams. this was on may 18.

i am in a room full of people gathered for a presentation. the presenter is fiddling with papers and a PowerPoint presentation and computer/projector at the front of the room. he is totally oblivious to the gathering audience.

a woman next to me asks if i think the presentation is going to be any good. i look at the presenter and then ask her if she's done Master Practitioner NLP training or is familiar with metaprogram sorts.

she indicates she is, and i say to her, "there are people who sort for people and those who sort for information. what do you think?"

we left before he started on his presentation, still up front fiddling around.

message: when presenting, connect with the audience as soon as they start arriving. they are the reason for you being there.

FYI, metaprogram sorts come from NLP. metaprograms are programs that guide other programs. they have to do with patterns in the strategies used by individuals, groups, and even cultures. they define our approach to issues.

some metaprogram sorts are moving toward or away from something, perceiving situations in terms of details or generalities, orientation to short-term or long-term, orientation to past, present, or future, internal or external reference, focusing on similarities or dissimilarities, and orientation to task or relationship.

the latter is what this dream was about.

heavenly bliss

i spent the night in heavenly bliss, at kathleen's place (owned by alec and karan) outside of wimberley.

the sound of cars was absent. in its place, a steady breeze, grasses and leaves rustling, birds, cicadas, and occasionally the bray of a neighbor's mule or a distant dog barking or chicken crowing. just the sounds of pure nature.

i was going to camp but ended up staying in the house, cooled by a solid breeze coming in through open windows.

kathleen, as always, was a delight to spend time with. we had lovely conversations and spent some time together yesterday evening going over our eNLP reading and homework assignment.

she spoke of her vision of being able to spend her days in silence, only coming together with others in the evening. we didn't exactly adhere to that, but we had long spells of comfortable silence and independent investigation.

kathleen, may all your dreams come true.

i feel deeply refreshed.

poem: Life Is Not What You

expected — cows
ruminate by the highway
even in rain or bat their
ears forward and back and how
you thought the story of your life
would get told: the children you thought
you’d already have by now partially grown
books and other accomplishments — houses
owned cities seen lakes traversed — and now
we’re stuck in traffic
and it’s not even rush hour
with the hurricane storm
moving slowly north from Alabama.
How come it’s raining here already
somewhere south of Albany — just one
damned thing after another and those
injections you’ve had to give yourself and
your dad’s bypass surgery. Just look:
Evening primrose all along the roadside match
the painted line and Queen Anne’s lace
on the other side rows of young corn
joe-pye weed blurred to Scottish heather.
When you go for a walk blackberries have started
ripening you pluck two
from each bush notice tadpoles suck air
along the fountain’s rim. Such small swishings
of joy maybe
this is it — every day puts forth a new song deer flies
dive-bombing your head when the breeze
lets up —


~ Sharon Dolin ~

(Realm of the Possible)

Courtesy of Panhala. What a perfect poem to follow my dream of not being limited by my expectations.

workshop: eNLP and healing stones

I attended the second of four eNLP weekends a couple of weekends ago. Drove with Kathleen and Karan, stayed with Katie and Keith's at her father and stepmother's. All were gracious company.

One highlight of the weekend was having Steve Daniel play his didgeridoo while we did stone cleansings with a partner. Tom let us use his stones. I cleaned Keith, and he cleaned me. Steve's dij added a powerful dimension to the process, which was pretty awesome!

Tom gave everyone a stone to keep. Mine is my shamanic starter stone, from the high Andes of Peru. I keep it in my room on an altar, wrapped in a Guatemalan mola cloth, with a couple of other stones. I'm developing the relationship with my healing stones by keeping them near where I sleep. I unwrap and hold them sometimes. They need to get to know me as I get to know them. (And I'm wanting to ask Mother Maui and Pele to guide me to a healing stone of lava rock that I can take with me, next time I go to Maui.)

I cleaned Peggy's energy with it for her birthday. She said her feet were all warm and tingly when I finished. It feels very loving on my end.

There was artwork to be bid on, and I forget the artist's full name. Dave ? I met him at the nightwalking workshop last fall. He's got quiet deep energy and has a twinkle in his eyes. He started doodling at work and then got serious about it. These are magical pictures made with markers!

His art was up for bid. I bid on two pieces that I really resonated with, using them in my medicine wheel. One was on the back of the picture I had selected for my 7th arrow. I had a relationship with it before even seeing it, and it was even better than the one I selected.

If I get them, I will try to post images of them on this blog.

I really love being able to participate in this work/play. Perhaps by choosing to do this, I am growing myself into becoming the spiritual teacher I'm (supposedly) destined to be!

note to visitors

just want to add something to my previous note. i set this blog up for public viewing, but when i run google analytics on it, it doesn't tell me who views it, just how many unique visitors there are.

so i don't know who is viewing it unless you either tell me or leave a comment. your privacy is maintained.

i don't mind if you want to read stuff on my blog and not tell me or leave a comment. sometimes i read other people's blogs and they don't know. sometimes i leave comments--but usually not.

the internet is pretty amazing, or maybe i should say the blogosphere. a lot of people put big chunks of their lives out there into the ether for public consumption. it's a little scary, but so far, it's been cool, revealing my taste in poetry, my dreams, events in my life, my opinions and practices, photos, family stories, etc.

and if you make comments that are irrelevant (like someone did just now, 3 times), i'll probably just delete them. i'm not interested in advertising.

dream: news of difference

i have long written down my dreams. i have journals going back 25 years with dreams in them! i've read a lot about dreaming, and i treasure my access to this realm.

my friend peggy, who shares this interest, introduced me to a book, dreaming true: how to dream your future and change your life for the better, by robert moss. i started reading it last night.

moss take a shamanic view of dreaming, citing ancient cultures (and harriet tubman) and the place dreaming held for them. he says dreams give us direct access to spiritual realms, allow us to travel beyong the body, time, and space, and to receive visitors, including ancestors and angelic beings. dreams give us images and energies that are a bridge to a deeper reality, and we can access them for healing and living our soul's purpose.

sharing dreams is part of this type of dreamwork, so that others may share comments and provide insight. so i've decided to add dreaming as a topic on this blog and start by sharing a dream i had this morning. i remember two scenes.

in the first, i am going to a college math or science class (not my strong suit). i either hadn't been for a while or hadn't done my homework. i wondered if i should even be there. but something was lively about it--the prof, the projects. it wasn't what i expected. it was even better.

in the second scene, i am in the front passenger seat of a van driving at night. i discover that there are three young men sleeping in the back. (i am younger too.) they wake up when i uncover them. two of them i knew, and one was someone i'd had a relationship with. i was delighted to see him. the third young man is someone knew, but he is someone i have admired and wanted to get to know. i am excited to discover that he's going to share this journey!

i awoke forming a sentence in my mind: look back at the face in the mirror.

the message seems to be to let my expectations be loose, because something or someone even better than expected may show up!

FYI, "news of difference" is a term coined by gregory bateson and used a lot in NLP. the idea is that we notice differences.

workshop: in the name of love

this past friday night and most of saturday and sunday, i participated in a workshop. technically it was 5 rhythms. in the name of love, a heart-beat level (dealing with emotions) workshop, taught by my friend lori smullin.

the topic was fear, something we all experience in many guises--caution, anxiety, panic, dread, and so on. fear can freeze us, stop us, make us doubt ourselves, and it can protect us.

we danced with fear. we moved with it, feeling it in our bodies and yet keeping moving. as lori said, flowing is the antidote to fear. just keep breathing, keep moving.

we were asked to ask ourselves four questions:

what is this [fear] as just energy?

what do i know about it?

how does it move in me?

is this true?

the latter is particularly helpful, because the habits that prolong fear comes from the stories we tell ourselves about it, or about ourselves, or about the world, and those stories may not be true.

lori taught us a sufi technique of self-soothing. brush down the sternum with fingertips to dispel fear. this activates the heart chakra (my interpretation).

she also taught us the mudra of courage: to sit cross-legged like for meditation, and to cross the arms in front of the chest, with loose fists, thumbs outside, right arm over left arm at the center of the chest.

(a mudra is a hand gesture used in meditation, like making a circle with forefinger and thumb, with other three fingers extended--the classic mudra for sobriety. google mudras if you want to learn more.)

we had a lot of fun! one thing i learned was that when i was asked to move in unfamiliar ways, it became play, and when i joined with another person moving in an unfamiliar way, it became play.

in lori's map, darkness is the mystery, light is love, and the shadow is the gray area where things are muddy and unclear.

i had dinner with lori and others last night, and lori expressed how pleased she was with how we did. she wondered if fear was going to be "too heavy". she helped us make it light. thanks, lors!

poem: Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

I want to write about the 5 Rhythms workshop I did this weekend, and while I'm still integrating it so I can be coherent, I want to share this poem. My friend Karin Carlson once had a poster with this poem on it, and I remembered the ideas--but not that it was a poem! Lo and behold, it showed up as today's Panhala selection!


Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

Chapter 1

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter 4

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter 5

I walk down another street.


~ Portia Nelson ~
(There's a Hole in My Sidewalk)

storm!

a big storm came through about 12:30 a.m. wednesday. the noise of hailstones hitting my metal roof woke me. my house was really being pounded! it was as if thousands of people were dropping rocks on the roof at the same time.

then, uh oh, i heard the sound of breaking glass.

a window in my front room had 3 holes punched in the panes of the upper sash. i found the hailstones on the floor. the largest was just smaller than a golf ball. i put them in my freezer.

found a shard of glass in my front hall last night, after sweeping up. the force of a hailstone sent that piece of glass flying 18 feet from the point of impact. these hailstones did not fall--the storm hurled them as if it were david slaying goliath with a slingshot.

i had taken the screen off when i put a window AC unit in the window and forgot to replace it. i thought of screens as keeping bugs out, and since i wasn't going to be opening that window, left it off. i just didn't think of its ability to prevent hail damage.

so now repairs are in order--and replacing the screen.

back to wednesday night: i stood on the porch and watched the storm for a while. (the porch is protected on the west, which is where the storm was coming from--unusual for austin.) the two will fleming yaupon hollies straddling my walk were so bent from the strong winds that the tops were perpendicular to the ground. the rain swirled. the hail had stopped by that time, but golf-ball size hailstones were lying around.

occasionally the wind would blow from the other direction. this might indicate tornadic conditions, although i never heard the characteristic roar of a tornado. (i lived in oklahoma--tornado alley--for many years and never heard one, but heard from others who had that they sound like the roar of a freight train.)

mother nature is powerful beyond measure. respect!

my defunct miata appeared to be untouched at first glance. later i discovered three tears in the convertible roof. oh, well--that car is destined to be donated for salvage!

my neighbors' cars had hail damage too. i imagine body shops, glass shops, hardware stores, arborists, and insurance agents will be quite busy from this storm.

i drove lela and hannah to lela's nanny job in hyde park thursday morning. (hannah's school was cancelled for the day because of a power outage.) the streets were littered with leaves and branches. i mean, green streets.

today at lunch i walked around the capitol grounds. maybe 8 trees were either completely uprooted or so damaged that arborists had cut them off at the ground. pecans, redbuds, even a red oak. the live oaks fared well.

i felt sad for the trees who died and grateful that most survived well.

hi, visitors! welcome to my blog!

oooh, this is exciting! i just ran google analytics on this blog, and so far in the last 30 days, i've had 39 unique visitors. this is up from 26 unique visitors in early march.

for april 15-may 15, 56% of unique visitors were returning readers, and 44% were new.

readership is growing slowly, and i'm fine with that.

average time on site was 3 minutes, 11 seconds. not bad, not bad!

thanks, readers! if you wish, you may leave comments. or not! you're all welcome to read and see if this is for you.

poem: The Size of Spokane

The Size of Spokane

The baby isn't cute. In fact he's
a homely little pale and headlong
stumbler. Still, he's one
of us -- the human beings
stuck on flight 295 (Chicago to Spokane);
and when he passes my seat twice
at full tilt this then that direction,
I look down from Lethal Weapon 3 to see
just why. He's

running back and forth
across a sunblazed circle on
the carpet-something brilliant, fallen
from a porthole. So! it's light
amazing him, it's only light, despite
some three and one
half hundred
people, propped in rows
for him to wonder at; it's light
he can't get over, light he can't
investigate enough, however many
zones he runs across it,
flickering himself.

The umpteenth time
I see him coming, I've had
just about enough; but then
he notices me noticing and stops--
one fat hand on my armrest--to
inspect the oddities of me.

*

Some people cannot hear.
Some people cannot walk.
But everyone was
sunstruck once, and set adrift.
Have we forgotten how
astonishing this is? so practiced all our senses
we cannot imagine them? foreseen instead of seeing
all the all there is? Each spectral port,
each human eye

is shot through with a hole, and everything we know
goes in there, where it feeds a blaze. In a flash

the baby's old; Mel Gibson's hundredth comeback seems
less clever; all his chases and embraces
narrow down, while we
fly on (in our
plain radiance of vehicle)

toward what cannot stay small forever.

~ Heather McHugh ~

(Hinge and Sign)


from panhala

poem: Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

~ David Wagoner ~


(Riverbed)

merger of science and mysticism

Some of us have known this for awhile, but it's nice to get confirmation from a source like the New York Times:

"...science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation."

That's from an article in today's Times entitled The Neural Buddhists by their op-ed columnist David Brooks.

Click this post's title to read more.

lela's birthday

Today my baby girl is 27 years old. Not only that, but she's a great person, cool, funny, smart, caring. Beautiful inside and out.

Last night she went to the Saxon Pub to hear The Resentments play their regular Sunday night show, and who should show up but Bonnie Raitt! She sent me a photo of them together today. These ladies rock, people.

Scroll down to see the photo!

I didn't go because I was finishing up a freelance editing job. ;( That's why I haven't been posting much lately. It's done now, so expect more frequent posts!

hand analysis

On Friday evening, I did something for the fourth time--I participated in a group reading by Richard Unger, director of the Institute of Hand Analysis in San Francisco. Luckily, he has grandchildren in Austin and travels here several times a year. He does group readings--someone hosts him and invites 12-16 people. Each person pays $35 and gets a public reading in front of the group lasting 5-10 minutes.

Last year, after 3 group readings, I finally decided to have a one-hour private reading. It was interesting and inspiring, and this time Lela wanted to come. So we met at Clarita's. I didn't know everyone there, but Pauline, who organized it, was there, and Clarita, Lakshmi, Christine, Ammathyst, Anais, Nicky, Lela, and me.

Richard was in fine form.

Here in a nutshell is what he said about me: I have "Garfield tips"--as in Garfield the cartoon cat clinging to the back window of the car. But it doesn't mean I'm clingy--just the opposite: I'm the "gotta be free, gotta be me" type. He said Janis Joplin had tips like that.

There was a red splotch on my mount of the moon, where I have a bull's eye fingerprint on my palm (the spiritual teacher life purpose).

He said I was really into spiritual integrity, and I grade myself on a curve more harshly than others--if I'm one degree off, I notice. The red splotch comes and goes and may appear when I feel I have sold away some of my freedom. Hmm.

He noticed a bow in the line of Mercury, which is basically a curved line from base of pinky to wrist on outer part of palm. He said this is the mark of a life coach and spiritual teacher--it's a line of clairvoyance--and that my hand has integrity of life purpose--the lines, fingerprints, and hand shape all confirm this destiny or identity or whatever you want to call it.

He asked me if I was employed as a spiritual teacher. I said no. He said I was more of a "closet clairvoyant" and recommended that I come out of the closet and declare to the world, "Here I am, a spiritual teacher!"

I told him that was terrifying, and he said I was right to be terrified. I can't imagine telling people that! But it did start some wheels turning... I'm sure I'll write more about this later.

Then he read Lela's hands. She's a "big hearted sweetie pie"! I knew that! She's got a big heart, is a great mom, has found a job she loves, being a nanny to three preschoolers, and she's been studying to become a nurse. Relationships are her thing.

Others there had hands that indicated ferocity, philosopher, healer, gifted, the Midas touch, clever, achievement-oriented, in the spotlight, private, etc. I won't say who publicly--let these folks reveal what they want to whom they want.

It's a source of information, the way I see it. And of course, everything is filtered through Richard's filters, but I respect anyone who's looked at over 50,000 hands and made some sense out of them.