here's to now
ping ponging between hope and despair. or maybe just learning to let them both exist simultaneously. i mean it’s all here. how rilke says, “beauty. terror. no feeling is final. just keep going.”
Our brains look for patterns to keep us safe. When the brain interprets what’s going on around us through our memories, thoughts, and beliefs, it then triggers how we feel and behave. All of our decisions are influenced by this process. Our bodies send over 11 million bits of information per second to the brain for unconscious processing. The conscious mind seems to be able to process only 50 bits per second. 95% of cognition happens in our emotional, unconscious brain. Even if a person is not aware of the arising emotion from the unconcious mind, that does not mean it’s not affecting how they behave.
Studies show that people rely on emotions rather than information. Emotions are actually very rational and are part of our mechanism to reason. Emotions have great influence on many cognitive processes like attention, perception, memory, and learning. Tech depends on our hypothalamus to produce dopamine liken to chronic gamblers on slot machines and advertising relies on conjuring emotions within us that make us good consumers. We get hooked on messages of comparison as if it’s a competition. Set up to work against ourselves.
I think it’s rad that I get to be in a study group where we talk about feelings like the nuances of shame vs guilt. I see how sometimes guilt arises to let me know how living outside of my integrity and capacity feels so I might reorient, choose differently, give myself an easier or better time. What’s interesting is how I can be quick to invite shame to the party once guilt is there. Shame develops as a defense to being devalued by others. It creates self criticism and inadequacy. It’s rooted in the unmet needs around security, acceptance, and belonging. Who has successfully bullied themselves into loving themselves?
Being vulnerable and expressing shame removes its power. #coregulation
I believe every person I encounter is a sacred appointment, a teacher. What I’m learning is the longest lasting, most important contract I’m in is with myself. I accept that seeing beauty in others through a filter of comparison indocrinated into me makes me insecure and keeps me from the path of love. Realizing that seeing beauty so easily in others is a strength helps me practice confidence. “Con” from the latin root meaning “with” and “fid” meaning “fidelity”. With fidelity. With trust. With devotion. TO SELF.
Imagine if we had ourselves, allowed ourselves, accepted ourselves, thought ourselves worthy or deserving to love and be loved— if we lovingly tended to our spirits— how we might better meet many of our own needs, how we might clearly ask for what we need from each other and then be fully present to actually receive it, no longer obstructing our own nourishment.
SPELL FOR COLLECTIVE HEALING :
FOLLOW THE SOURCE OF JOY BACK TO ITSELF
BREATHE INTO YOUR HEART CENTER
SIT WITH THE PEACE ALREADY SURROUNDING YOU
IMAGINING ALL OF YOUR NEEDS ARE MET
JUST FOR THIS MOMENT
NOTHING TO PROVE
CROWN LOVE AS KING
THIS IS HOW COMPETITION DISSOLVES
THIS IS HOW WE DROP INTO ONENESS
THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE
FIELD NOTES //
the nobel peace prize was recently awarded to a trio of scientists who disproved einstein’s theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. apparently some information can and no one understands how yet. where will quantum entanglement lead us?
speaking about unexplainable magical things science is stumped by, been thinking about the magical metamorphosis process lately, symbolic of autumn for me. caterpillars get hormonal, shed their skin, wrap themselves up, turn to soup inside the chrysalis that later develops into a butterfly who still has memories from caterpillar life and only live, mostly drunk off nectar, for a 2-5 weeks. except the late summer generation of monarchs, who live for 8 months to travel down to mexico. . . friend t sent me this little short on the monarch’s significance to day of the dead in mexico—also magical because the monarchs from all over the US fly down to mexico just in time for this.
I created an art curriculum out of the book Learning By Heart, by Corita Kent and Jan Steward that I highly recommend to free creativity. (These are her studio rules)
I also am finishing up “When Women were Birds” by Terry Tempest Williams, gifted to me by friend h. poetic storytelling, variations on voice.
billionaire elon musk acquired twitter for $44 billion, opening the platform to some interpretation that hate speech is free speech (as pointed out by lebron). after 12 hours, the use of n-word went up 500%, musk responded by promising some sort of diverse board to figure out more definitive boundaries/content moderation for this “town square” to keep from resorting to hateful rhetoric or violence, saying “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
loved this chat with sustainable quilter, community builder, and humxn being extraordinare Zak Foster (who i applied for an oct 2023 two week residency with in nc, pray 4 me) on podcast “creative unearthing”
speaking of quilting, i’m thinking of offering a free weekly class/sew along on zoom for four weeks during the winter. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOURE INTERESTED
“the truth does not require your participation in order to exist. bullshit does.” terence mckenna
this issue of ALICE is dedicated to Corita Kent. A while back, I was challenged to name my chosen ancestors, one of which is Corita Kent. She was known as the screen printing nun but she was an artist, educator, and advocate for social justice. In 1936, at the age of 18, Kent entered the religious order and began teaching 11 years later at age 28. She often stood at odds with the church hierarchy in progressive and critical examination of the church and government. She also stopped wearing her habit and started wearing Marimekko dresses, which I see as a type of protest. At age 50 (1968), she left the religious community. Within two years, many had followed. 90% of the remaining sisters courageously removed themselves from the catholic church supervision to reorganize as a voluntary community free from religious authority.