I am getting closer

clips of a mid term,
3. “Okay I hear your point but, I think what you call ‘suffering’ is just another way of being human,” she continues. So I went on to inform her, “again I agree, it is one way of being among the many, but I hear you saying it is just another way of being. I hear you saying it as if it isn’t any more important or worth taking a deeper look at. If we are as a human race to just say.."Oh suffering, yeah we all do it, so let’s just say that is the way it is and be happy with it." I would have to point out a few fundamental things we are going to overlook. Do we want to just be a society of suffering, or do we want to work towards integrating suffering in a way that understands why we suffer? There are different ways to suffer, and if we just accept it as a way of being, we over look this fact. This leaves us less room to study and come to understand suffering. Already as a culture we are able to see some people suffer because of forces they create (inner desires) and some because of the world we are in (collective desires). Knowing whether we can control a certain kind of suffering changes the way we react to it.
If we take it in as just a way of being, then how will we know (or would we at all) those who are suffering so much that being isn’t worth it. Suffering can be so evasive that it hinders life to a point of paralysis and even death. I am not able to just say that is the way of life. We need to be able to say suffering is one way of life, but also a way of (towards) death. I believe we need to be able to isolate the way of sufferings in order to learn what types are for our benefit and which have gone so far that they are not longer willing one to be. In this, not all ways of suffering are a way of being. Like I said, some are a way of (towards) death. If certain suffering makes life unbearable, I have a hard time as accepting it all as just a way of being.
In our time suffering is pervasive and present. If we are to accept it, we forget why it is there. Suffering first comes when we make choices. Because we choose we suffer. Suffering helps us to learn what choices to make, as well as which ones not to make (when to avoid choosing at all). Suffering commonly points in the way of anxiety, guilt, shame, and other emotions of something we are doing that is not in alignment with our way of being. For us to say it is just another way of being is to overlook the importance and voice suffering has. Suffering for me is not just another way of being, but might be one of the most important ways of being.”





and ANOTHER
7. “Our suffering _________ a new relationship with life.”
~compost, rebirths, perceives, scars (in that we can hate or love a scar), complexes, transmutates,
The idea of “Our suffering compost a new relationship with life,” is a metaphor that rings true to my ways of being. In the world of composting, what you put in it is what you get out with time. In the ideal world, you put in a bunch of organic green and brown matter, it breaks down with the help of the sun (heat), and you end up with a highly rich and nutritious soil. If you have too much of one or the other it takes longer to break down. If you put in “fake” or not real objects such as plastic, then they can’t break down for a long time. If you fill your compost pile with to heavy of objects, such as metals they won’t break without extremely heavy heat. When composting you also need help from the other creatures of the Earth, such as worms, rolley-polleys, and centipedes. However, maggots are a sign of too much water, and not enough sun/heat.
If you have a plant that is suffering and you want to see it grow a new relationship with life, make some compost. Take a few damaged leaves off of it, cutting it back a little. Add to it some of your old pile of compost, here your Earthly friends and past microorganisms already exist and can help break it down. Don’t forget you need to add some brown to your rotting green, maybe some of your class notes might help. Be careful you don’t add any plastic, metals, or work too wet. Then, giving it some time and light to break down will leave you with a nutritious substance. When you return this matter to the root of your plant, you will see a new relationship with life grow towards the Sun.

<3 O's

---->This image Chilly comic'd of the second <3 circle.




And, this is A little something I wrote in class online discussion about my recent heArt circles with the RAdical FAiries.

I can't recall if I actually said this out loud in class or just repeated it many times in my head. I have been wanting to talk about our outside groups. I fear bringing this up because I don't want to put those on the spot who haven't "done one of their six yet," or make them feel like I am judging them. I have been in situations where it just wasn't right to do a class assignment, and I heavily support you. I also support pushing the guidelines a little in order to satisfy the "request or maybe recommendation" while getting something that is good for you. (this is in a whispering voice..If you need to call together a family dinner and call it group, as long as you went in with some group intentions and thoughts. I think this is justifiable. Especially, if this meeting would of never happened without Larry's request. I feel that having one or three dinners versus not doing the request is well worth not fitting into the "guidelines." Part of me is saying, go ahead, fudge a little. If you tried to follow the guidelines, and they don't fit your situation, than it is better to adjust the guidelines to fit and make a move towards action. I might even say this about ethics.)

Back on my note about talking about our outside groups in class. I also, don't want to seem un-empathetic in saying I am getting gifts from my out of class group while others are having trouble engaging.

I will have my third session tomorrow night, and I am sitting here thinking well this is going good; but what should I be doing in this third session. I have a feeling this assignment isn't about being in the moment only.

To tell a little or maybe a lot of my group. It started with three radical fairies (a self-identified group of individuals, whom choose not to categorize their sexuality [as straight, gay, bi, or beyond] and are trying to understand the lines of intimacy and sexuality beyond what has been created in a religious man and woman monogamous love history [a history that is better not even seen as religious man woman blah blah, but as seen as history, so that we can see what love is saying/wanting in our current world order]. Of coarse this means many things to the different fairies, and I am sure just like all humans some ways are not agreeable to me. So this might be how the term radical came about. Oh, and usually we are seen as more willing to show our bonds through touching. Commonly, fairies sit closer, place hands on shoulders to show kinship, and hug for long times.

Now as to Fairie, we the radical fairies usually are found dressings, homing, and communicating differently than your average human. I like to identify with the word fairie since there is a sense of mythology around the way we/ I live our lives. I could spend much more time on how we like to sustain ourselves through solar power, growing our own food, staying close to the trees, and living in community settings across the US and even world together, but back to my meetings.

So we had the first with four of us. Than, I caught wind of having a whole Atlantian fairie opened heart circle (For those of you who don't know about it, a heart circle is a round-robin style conversation/theraputic session where you are given open and warm space to let us know what is happening in your life. It will be a calm and tranquil space for us to deepen our bonds and come together as the friends, family and faeries that we are. It is also not common to respond to others, as you are giving a space of pure acceptance, therefore response might represent thinking while others are speaking "and even judgement")

GOSH, I feel I have said so much and yet nothing about my experience. So before over 25 Atlantian fairies went to the Short Mountain Sanctuary (literally 1/3 of a mountain owned by fairies in Tennessee) for the two week Fall Gathering, 8 of us met for a heart circle. The intention (sense of what should be discussed till it is talked out then we have more free space at the end) of the circle was to discuss fear, thoughts, expectations, and the like about going to the mountain.

Tomorrow, we will be having up to 15 show and I am thinking, what am I suppose to be engaging in for class? I am being asked to open my heart in listening and not responding (which is so hard, and not like many groups we talk of). There is also not a facilitator, only group members. For the first session a lot of the how to questions before the meeting were turned to me (since I am a master in a psychology program? since I was one of the three who got things going?, because they trust me? because I am seen as a facilitator prior to?), where as I just said ask the group. The intention of this meeting is to discuss how the mountain was, fears, guilt, celebrations, lessons, love and the like. Then, like i mentioned we have more open free time, sometimes even stopping use of the talking stick by the end.


(Stepping into the NOW) I am scared because I just gave you the shortest over view of what a Radical Fairie is that I have ever gave..and it is so commonly mis-interpreted and judged as a gay sex thing. Even by those who I have spent multiple occasions explaining it to. I wonder of those of you who will wikipedia it, knowing what a joke their interpretation is. If you really want to know what a radical fairies is, look at me, not an image in your head.

Also in the now, I feel drained of all I have said, but feel I haven't even said many of the things I intended when I started this post. In this I ask for your questions, thoughts, and comments. So that I can return to this post with more energy next time.
And try imagining yourself in a group session where your role is to only listen, other than expressing from the heart when you want to talk. What does this make you feel?
Reply

Take a deep breath and go slowly (The hunter's moon)

Health, an ever changing direction (space) in the temporal (time). Something that from the starts requires an other, something different from oneself. The original paradox which first gave life to time and space (our uni-verse).
If I want to be able to define health, I need to turn to the space I am in, the present. Here I ask what is health. Right away, I can see that at different times it has been different things. Then I ask myself, what is health in this present time only. Here I start to see multiple directions (space) of health, even contradictory statements.
The definition of health, for me, can only come from this living paradox. I say living because both sides are growing. Maybe a better word here is expanding or moving. The paradox is almost always living; I say almost because for the “disordered” there is a sense of the paradox closing and dying. The present space in which I hold the past and the future is rarely ever the same. Each time I bring the present into a moment of trying to answer what is health (even healthy), the answer is different. Sometimes even radically different or having multiple answers at once. So when I am trying to define health, I get stuck in that it has meant almost everything to me at one time or another. How can I place a moral judgment on what is healthy?
John Rowan in Ordinary Ecstasy, talking about what John Kekes says on morality states, “there are three basic attitudes to morality: monism (the one big truth or the one big ordering of truth); relativism (the proliferation of many little truths, each good in some area or other); and pluralism, where we allow for more than one truth, but want to know precisely how the various truths relate and make sense in relation to one another.” Relativism might say there is one right answer to every situation; where pluralism can say, there might be more than one right answer to any one situation.
If we find anything that feels like the answer to the question of what is health; then you must feel there are no more questions. I have a feeling we're no where close to the one monistic definition of health. If we feel that there are many little truth, thus all of our truths about health are right in some area or other then this is relativism. If we go beyond this and feel all of our answers are right to the same one question, then we are seeing moral judgment with pluralism.
Now that I have helped myself to understand morality a little more, I might be closer to another definition of health. It is this act of having many different, and even the freedom to create a new definition of health that is most healthiest.
Health is a way of being, that stands in a pluralistic relation to the paradox of time and space. When I want to know (morally judge) based on time, I am ultimately asking how is my present in relation to past and future. When I stand on the other side and want to know (morally judge) based on space, I am ultimately asking how is my present in relation to the direction of my current. The more options and room to create (freedom) we have, the more time and space expand, the more our universe becomes. Defining health can be a form of pluralism. The expansion of our truths of health, and the freedom to create more, is a way of being that requires us to hold more potentialities towards health while still creating other ones.
I don't have a definition of health, but many of them at the same time, even in the same situation or space. I won't say this is health, but these are healthy. I am also willing to read your definitions and create them as my own and help you to have one more.

2:4

Vixen: Do you have glasses?
Unicorn: Next to the stairs.
V: to use them to get up in heights?
U: Next to the pictureframe.
V: oh, the one of the stars?
U: The one behind you.
V: I see it behind you too
U: Where are you?
V: Only asking questions are we?
U: Why are you?
V: I am not sure why I am.
U: break in the page // we won't let us...?
V: Let us Be // we will let us!
U: Dance Dance Dance (omg this blog post...)
V: What blog Post? Am I asking again?
U:girl we on blogger...
V: Who the vixen and the Unicorn or US?
U:Look around....
V:(swish, swish)
U:Splishy Splashy get those dirty shirtys clean.
V: But I am just his daughter, walking down an icy grave.
U:Where are you going miss sassy? Are you off to visit your grandmother?
V:Every body just hold hands. They don't come back? And I went to check on the tombstone. Mother of the grand yard
U: Yard over the ocean, yeard over the sea, you wont be a yard over me.
V:ya heard, the yard over there is a ocean you sea.
U: Sea before you in back make sure not to krack the back!?
V: it is in the back of your of seeing that makes sure before a kracking.
U: Krack over the star and into the basics.
V: Down the stairs and again with the picture frames!
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How fast can a big ant pile eat to the skeletal.

We will start with this. Both the sacred and the deserving. Gathered fur.









And for the Fit:





Muh Pimp Ride:
















It is hard not to Dissociate what has happened here.

I was told, "Your one of those who less is more"

-So my next post for class is either on Dissociative Disorders or OCD. I mean how could I not choose Dissociative d/o? Well, I just can't

-I can't remember the last time I didn't have to pack a bag for the weekend. I am over it!

-Always has so much time to get ready for the night then is rushing into the shower and then has to throw on his make-up (I just made a fb slip..it is as if "Bryan C. Crook is" will randomly come before this last sentence as on fb.)

_ is trying things a little differently

Rooting, stemming, can't bloomin' in wintah.

Brothers in other times.































Still Growing


Here are pictures of my test pieces before they were fired. I found them still on the shelf.



Bue-cannon












Gone with the wind, the novel. A mural by "escapeacritter.com"

Blessed B

the may pole



What I got from the mountain



























His name is the Temple, soon mushrooms will march from his insides to claim the top of his head.
I started testing some colors..lots of oxides and carbonates. some titanium, bone ash, toads belly, cobalt, magnesium..and my personal favorite rutile. and a masonry stain or two. I didn't take any pics of the tiles before hand, but ill have some from after.

I have to think these things up

I am skipping a week on posting my work for Psychopathology and Health, due to not feeling what I wrote. However, The Humanistic, Existential, Transpersonal week woke me to the right.

Bryan C. Crook

From two written sources our class, and outside discussion, I have been working with some ideas on this weeks topic. Although, I am going to draw some imaginary lines that are not complex enough to stand as a theory, I do believe that they open us up to some fascinating ideas. In reading this paper I ask you to try to let you mind wander, find your own thoughts on top (under, within, and deeper than) of mine.
Recently I have been reading a paper of Jim Dillon's entitled The Primal Vision: The Psychological Effects of Creation Myth. Among many themes in the paper he is expressing a need for us not to forget the affirmative hero, due in part because our time commonly takes up the transcendent hero. “The affirmative hero acts to reinsitute or “affirm” the original order that was disturbed by the disordering event.” This is a hero in a myth that is trying to return the world or universe to the order it had before it went haywire. One can see this example in a hero that is trying to restore what was held before Adam and Eve ate the apple. I will also open the question of could this be a “Humanistic” hero. “The transcendent hero ushers in another order completely, one which transcends the primal vision from which he or she initially came.” A hero in this order might understand we can't go back to what we once had and thus there is a need to try to create a new order in the world/universe. This type of hero might seem post-modern in some light. Even, possibly a “Transpersonal” hero. For me, Jim is not saying one or the other, but both hero myths should be held. The “Existential” hero might be the person in between that is holding both, or one, and maybe even neither.
To take this to a deeper level for me, I see the affirmative hero as trying to establish what was originally there (pre-birth) and the transcendent hero as trying to establish what could be there (death). I think in our time it is more often one takes up the transcendent hero. Part of this, is because were are in existence, not pre-birth and from this we know there is a need to create our life towards something; so that something is there and not chaos in the end. Just like the transcendent hero, we are trying to create a sum of things so that by death we have a new order not chaos. Jim might say, if we forget the affirmative hero, “then the absence of myth in modern life or its neutering through dymythologization would have rather serious psychological consequences.” However, as Jim has inspired me to say, if we forget that we also came from chaos (the unknown) than we are missing great knowledge about how to create order for where we are going. Too many of us fear the nothingness and chaos after life without remembering there was a nothingness before life. This nothingness that exist before doesn't feel like chaos. It feels like there is order. It is a nothingness that leads to birth, that has potentiality, that has a sense making to it. What can we learn about being a transcendental hero, when we don't forget that we believe in the affirmative hero?
Now to a thought made articulate by Irving Yalom's The Schopenhauer Cure. Any great philosopher can tell you there can't be two different kinds of nothingness, that if you have two one must be something and the other possibly no-thing. Yalom writes that Nabokov's memoir Speak, Memory describe life as “a spark between two identical pools of darkness, the darkness before we were born and the darkness after we die.” What I am trying to expand here is that, we too easily put all our energy to try to create order in our lives for the after death (even the order we try to create in life is in light that we want it before the nothingness of after death, thus “for” the after death). But if we are able to understand that there was once order in the nothingness pre-life, what can this give to the nothingness we fear of after life? Why can we fear one and hold the other as beauty, when from where we stand as alive they are the same nothingness? What happens to the heros who spend all their energy creating order for death, when they stop to remember there was order before?
To tie up some loose knots I have in my head, I want to make this all a little more layered. In all that I have said there are three types of energies. 1. The trying to affirm a sense or order that was prior to being born, we all share, and that can still flourish in living environments. 2. The trying to transcend a sense of order now so that when we die we have order 3. The existence that allows for 1. or 2. to be present.
1. Humanistic Psychology
2. Transpersonal Psychology
3. Existential Psychology
I have so much to say at this point, but am left with little that is articulate just yet. I just hope I've tilled the dirt in you and planted some seeds.
My last quirky thought is I am not able to cite Jim's article because it is not yet published. It is not yet born. It doesn't mean that it isn't there, it just exist in its potentiality waiting to be born into (academic) existence.


and for my quest expert-ship I will be presenting:


a mix of career, parenting, and identity issues. some sort of personality disorder..but I don't have to fight what she had just present a "rare butterfly to the class"

the need to rain -dance

There has been constant rain.
However,
I am painting it.











Image of one prof. and her daught at Fall Gathering I hosted for my program and those within.