Write This On The Blackboard 100 Times

I'm still pretty volatile. Every time I think I've made friends with the beast, I seem to drop a little deeper into my anger, right up to its hard and terrifying edge. It occurs to me as I write this that massage works by the same principal, namely that it takes far more effort (and far more pain on the part of the recipient) to force your way through tension than it does to drop in gently and wait until the topmost layer of muscle lets you in, then drop in deeper and wait again. Yet another reminder that we truly do have all the information we need. The catch is that we can only apply that knowledge to ourselves, and not to anyone else. To force it on someone else renders it useless.

Someday I will not need to write these messages repeatedly on the great cosmic blackboard of experience. I sense that day will be soon, as this particular message comes within range at least once a day lately, and I am catching it sooner and sooner. I am my own guru. I AM my own guru. I am...

The other notion with which the universe is beating me about the head like an old lady with a handbag full of cat food cans, is control. Or my total lack of it. This one I may need to tattoo to my eyelids: control is a fairytale. Like happily ever after and Donald Rumsfeld's heart. I am a slow learner when it comes to surrendering control. My mother taught me well. Once when I was about my daughter's age, in the midst of a heated battle, she said "when I was I kid I thought 'one day I will grow up and be in charge' and I grew up and I'm STILL not in charge!" If there is any question that we learn by example, let us put it to rest now. I live this same drama, 25 years later.

The sense of feeling powerless in a world in which every one but you appears to have power is unquestionably frustrating. When I search for the roots of my rage, it seems to be the taproot. It's like having a computer without a functioning mouse. But, to continue the metaphor, if you get creative, you can navigate perfectly fine without the mouse. Eric Francis over at Planet Waves nailed it in this week's Gemini (my rising sign) scope:

"Creation involves the surrender of control. If I may reduce the world to a one-dimensional model, think of a line where control is at one extreme and creation is at the other. As you move toward one you move away from the other. The perfect balance is necessary to get anything done (and usually the perfect balance moves around quite a bit), but they are basically opposite factors here in the world of opposites. This fact does not thrill some people, who would rather keep a grip than go with the flow, and you had best know those people when you see them..."

Admittedly, I am One Of Those People right now. Except that I'm done being One Of Those People. I want to be one of the Flow People (like, who doesn't?). I am exhausted, both physically and emotionally, from trying to keep a grip. And on what, after all?

The truth is probably closer to the idea that nobody's mouse is really functioning, we just move it around pretending that it is, and we look anxiously, enviously over at everyone else fiercely mousing away, totally missing, as we sneak in an furtive keystroke, everyone else's surreptitious keystroking. If we could all just own up to our vulnerability, we might actually be able to manage collectively the notion of "power with" instead of "power over". We might even teach each other a thing or two.

But I don't guess I can cram that down anyone else's gullet till I've swallowed it myself, huh?

I am creative. I AM creative. I am...