Her Safe Space; 1

I started this a few days ago. Like Laura 11/27, I would like to see where it goes. It is based not so loosely on my meditation room, where I've found the giant door locked against me more than once. This story in particular has a special place in my heart, because it reminds me that I'm creating my reality as I go along instead of reality creating my perception.

This is the first installment:
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1

Here, she is naked.

This wasn’t always the case. When she had first built the place, she had slung rags about her. Once, she wore a toga, and sandals of the highest quality leather. Organic chemistry byproducts, at least from a clothing standpoint, are not allowed in the room. Artificial dyes are a no-no, plastics of any kind are prohibited. No cars, and especially no drugs.

Everything here is natural, so why shouldn't she be?

Nobody can see into this room but her, anyways. It is locked away by imagination, by dream, shielded from view of others by virtue of being hers and no one else’s. It exists because she has continued to utilize it over the years, has continued to carve its essence deep into her psyche. She didn’t find it. She made it. It is hers.

She takes stock.

Here, her name is Sarah. This is because she had used a character named Sarah in one of her books, one which seemed to take far too long to complete and probably still isn't even close to finished. Here, she is the embodiment of a woman in her early twenties, a perfectly constructed figure of human anatomy in the most desirable form of which she can conceive.

It is who she believes she is.

In life, she is thirty three years old, slightly overweight in the stomach, the back of the arms, breasts, thighs and buttocks.

All the right places, she tells people. Guys like fat. It means vulnerability.

She is pregnant, has been for about five months if she has timed her last period correctly, and it has been a long time since she has been in this room. She misses it, and knows that the energies will be good for the baby, whatever sex the child may turn out to be.

Father is absent and for the better, hard as it is for her to admit that to herself . Now she doesn’t worry, anymore, and she can dedicate all of her energy to nurturing her womb, birthing her child and being the best parent she can be, if only from a distance.

Katherine has Asperger’s Syndrome (like me!).

She jokes about this with what little company she does keep. She views having been diagnosed at the ripe old age of seven an accomplishment for some reason, even though she secretly hates herself for it.

The trophy sits atop the door frame at what she deems to be the beginning of her “Safe Space.”

Presently, she pulls her eyes from it, struggling as though it has more of a physical hold upon her than an emotional one.

She steals a glance to her left down the long white corridor with white doors lining either side. To her right is a plain white wall. She has never been to the other end of the corridor. She thinks it may go on forever, which scares her.

Besides, the only door she needs right now is the door with the trophy, along whose entire height, twice her own, boards have been staggered crudely, held in place with railroad stakes instead of nails.

In the original model there were no boards, just a door with her name written across the top, but she had felt the need to seal it off when things had started to...well, turn over wouldn’t exactly be the right term. More like tip over.

Presently the door swells and shrinks. She still hasn’t trained her heart to prefer one size over the other. The door knob never changes size, though. It fits in her palm and is always within her reach.

The plate upon which the door knob is mounted hangs loose, and falling in through the crease above the plate is a warm orange glow, the likes of which Sarah has never seen before. It's hard to explain. It's more of a residue or a seance than a glow, but it is a glow just the same. Deep orange, like a red sunset after a thunderstorm.

She has felt this glow before but she hasn't seen it until now. It fills her with love and ecstacy.

The door knob, she thought, I tried to break in.

She tries the door, and for the first time in the eight years she has had it, the door is locked against her.

“Huh?”

She catches herself speaking aloud and reminds herself not to. Distractions from physical reality alter the experience. They always have.

She tries it again.

Locked.

She draws a deep breath and relaxes into a thoughtful sigh, her hands on her hips, looking up at the enormous door before her. The trophy peers over her line of sight, just far enough for her to catch a silhouette cast against its profile.

Sigh, sigh, sigh....

It’s an echo, her sigh of resolve, toward which she now turns, bouncing door by door down the long corridor. The echoes do little to quell her fears that the corridor might not have an end of which to speak. The sound never comes back. It bounces off in one direction, Out There, to be gobbled greedily by whatever force lies in wait beyond the limits of Sarah’s courage.

“Screw you,” she utters, deliberately fortifying, then cracking, the barrier between the two dimensions, perhaps more aware of her piercing gaze than the nothingness on the other end, if there is an end. Presently, the corridor disappears, to be replaced by the door with the trophy.

Sarah hears heavy chains coming alive on the other side of the door, locks unlocking, latches unlatching, until with a creek, the door with the trophy lurches open just far enough for Sarah to lay a grip on it with no more than a finger.

Now we’re talkin,’ she thinks, comedically using her superhuman pinky strength to swing the door open with enough force to watch it bury itself in the wall to her right. A bulb, which had lit the corridor, falls to the floor behind her and shatters. Sarah turns around to see the shattered glass lighted with that same orange glow she had seen falling through the crease from the loose plate upon her arrival. The corridor is dark save the shattered remains of the bulb.

She giggles. The glow sends her into a high that never touches physical reality.

She wants more.

The door is open now. I have all the time in the Universe, screw Out There.

She sits down, her back to the door frame and watches the shards of glass take up a life of their own and begin to rotate in unison, a perfect rendition of the solar system she's so afraid of.

She can't look away, even now, now that she's decided she hates the way this whole trip is turning out. Twice trapped in eternity and she hasn't even stepped foot in the room yet.

Then, darkness. Perfect, total, all consuming darkness.

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Laura; 1

This is the first in a series of installments I plan to release over the next several weeks. I'm not sure where it's going, and that's the fun of it! I would love feeback. Don't be shy, and the look for the next installment next week.
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1

Laura’s Got a Gun just didn’t feel right.

He played with his fu manchu, still not long enough to make him look more than twelve.

The story was incomplete, but that could come later. It could always come later. The title could not. He wanted her to understand that he had been listening to her all along, that despite slip after slip, something she said once upon a time had finally resonated, and would now be the cornerstone of his recovery.

What the hell was it?

He had always been a lover of words, a sapiosexual and an artist. Laura was everything that made him feel grounded when he was sober, so damn right.

He listened when she spoke.

For the life of him he could not remember the exact diction. It made him bite his tongue in concentration and to recede into some part of his memory that he could jog loose.

Nothing. Nothing but a string of blackouts.

He wished he could forgive himself but found the task to be impossible at best, the memories of their acquaintance buried deep within drunken mumblings, expressions of adoration and dedication and love that never seemed to melt the icy walls between them. Brief periods of latent sobriety would occasionally wear the ice thin enough for him to catch a glimpse of her before freezing over again, either by his mistake or hers, layer upon compounding layer, like icicles.

Finally, he wrote To Laura and the date next to it. Perhaps he could title it later, and as long as he stayed sober for as long as it took to come up with a title worth having, he would remember how he felt that day.

He jotted down words like ‘humility,’ ‘loyalty’ and ‘moments lost’ before setting his pencil on the bright yellow paper, pushing back from the desk and stretching.

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Alright, time to take a risk

I've been running this blog for awhile now, and I've decided that it's been lacking the oomph I would like it to because I haven't given myself the opportunity to fuck things up with it yet.

Sure, I've drawn certain conclusions and said certain things that might put people off, but more often than not, I try to play it safe to keep the fans I do have coming back for more.

So far it's been working, but lately I've grown bored with maintenance, and I feel I would be a hypocrite if I didn't take some sort of risk at this point to pique my own interest at the very least.

Ideally, I would like to be more engaged with my readers.

I've tried this on occasion by asking for requests and comments, and by participating in the Power Box project (at least one other person made a box of their own).

But engaging with my readers means, well...putting myself in their shoes.

I started a short story the other night, a request of sorts. The person I wrote it for noted that I write about altered states a lot. She said it often makes my writing difficult to relate to.

Right now, the piece is titled Laura 11/27/16.

Thing is, I have no idea where to take it, so I have about as much foresight into the ending as the author as you have as a reader.

For this reason, I have decided to write and release one section of that story per week, giving you, and I, the opportunity to watch a story unfold.

The risks: writing my readers into a plot I can't write my way out of, writers block, losing loyal fans to the process.

The pay-off: a feeling of connectedness with my readers, writing a story I can be proud of.

I am extremely open to comments, suggestions, ideas. Please feel free to reach out to me. Ask me questions. For all intents and purposes, you guys are my feelers for how well I would be received on a professional level.

I need honest feedback.

My next post will be titled "Laura; 1"

I'm going to try isolation again...

I don't have time to write out a long post at the moment, even though I really want to. After what happened yesterday (that was certainly interesting) and with working my first shift since my surgery, I figure it's time to reset. I look forward to getting back in the saddle tonight.

I miss the warehouse.

I told people on my chat apps that I would be hibernating in a sense, but also told them to relate my absence to Apollo 13. Houston knew they would lose radio contact with Apollo when it slingshot around the moon. They also knew they would get it back once the maneuver was complete. I guess in a sense I'm doing a spiritual slingshot...

I don't know how else to put it, but I think most people get it. I'm heading into a period of temporary radio black out.

And I do mean temporary. I hope to reacquire contact with what little company I keep in the cyber world within a few weeks.

I will continue to post every day or every other. I have __ sober. I feel that I'm ready to take a step back and to work on myself having secured company that promotes my wellbeing.

It should be noted here that comfort in the full understanding that my friends will be there on the finish line waiting for me to cross in a few weeks time has given me the momentum I feel I need to go through with this.

I can't do it alone.

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We write in the voices we read...

Either this is happening with me and I'm emulating King or reading King is simply making me a better writer. I got part of my shipment today, an order for four King short story anthologies. I'll be compensated for them on the condition that I don't open them until Christmas morning. Over 50 short stories for free? I can live with waiting for Santa!

I went to the library today and did a little bit of creative writing. I had to leave early to address some things back home but kept working on the story using Google Docs on my phone. One thing I'm learning from King is that I don't need to color every single sentence with my own amazement. Sometimes the simplest, most direct sentences make more sense.

In The Stand, King is describing a monitoring system keeping tabs on all the dead people in areas of the facility of particular concern. One of them is the cafeteria.

"He liked this monitor least of all. 

He didn't like the man with his face in the soup."

This is straight forward, very clear and direct and allows King's readers' minds to run free with those words only, filling in the blanks from each of their perspectives on death.

I'm trying to do that in Safe Space. Also, I think I'm putting more effort into writing because King enjoys his own writing. He said that one of the short stories in this latest anthology is one of his favorites. It reminded me that I enjoyed reading my writing before I lost it all.

I actually enjoyed it. 

Hopefully reading King will help me to rewrite the stories I lost. Wish me luck!   

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A welcome to my new hangers on, tradition, I caught my disease in a lie yesterday, a bedtime tale...

A warm extension of gratitude and welcome to those of you who have decided to follow this blog in the last few days, and as always, deep appreciation for everyone else's continued readership. For whatever it's worth, my readers keep me writing, and writing keeps me sane.

Thanksgiving was modest this year...has been for a few years now with the aunts gone. Recently, the last of my grandmother's generation passed on, leaving my mother's generation to take the reigns and responsibilities of preserving the traditions carried forth from those warm holiday gatherings in Everett.

The best thing about tradition, though, is that nothing is set in stone. From this year forth, my generation gets to contribute, both to new traditions for my mother, and for my daughter. As Olivia approaches the years where she begins to develop clear cut social boundaries and beliefs, I want tradition to offer stability, and I won't settle for anything less. If I want things to happen, I need to make them happen.

Yesterday I posted my phone number on my Facebook page for anyone who might have been struggling with the urge to use or drink to contact me. Thanksgiving can be tough. Any day can be tough for an alcoholic, but the triple crown--Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years--has a tendency to send many newly sober alcoholics into hysterics.

So I thought I would help.

A number of people liked the post, prompting me to strike up a conversation with one of them. When I did, I caught myself offering this person the mechanics of a craving.

Isolation is the single most precious advantage that the disease of alcoholism weilds over the alcoholic. When a craving hits me, I hyperfocus on every drop of alcohol in the room until everything, and everyone else, disappears from my consciousness. My disease sweeps me from wherever the hell I am to an island in my head, where it challenges me to a duel I can't turn down.

Since I cannot fight a disease that centers in the brain, single-handed combat is stressful, exhausting, and ultimately futile.

The only way to beat it is to turn the craving on it's head by offering assistance to those in need. In reaching out to another alcoholic to make sire they had all their supports in place for one of the most difficult days of the year, I was able to get off my island, and make it through the holiday sober.

And because I got through the holiday sober, I had the chance to reconnect with my daughter. We had listened to music in her room and when I went to leave she told me not to. I stayed, perhaps not knowing why, she snuggled up to me, and for the first time since she was a child, Olivia fell asleep in my arms. I listened to her breathing become softer, more rythmic, and slipped away into my room, content that I had resumed the place in my daughter's life where I needed to be.

This is what remember about sobriety...love and trust.


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Sustainable satisfaction...

Instant gratification is something with which I have struggled for many years. Every emotional combination that you can think of, China can make it.

Have a problem? Take this pill! Eat this pizza because that's what Patriots fans do. They eat pizza and watch football. The most basic 99 cent chocolate covered pastries are described as "decadent."

Really?

Yeah, no, but that doesn't mean that on occasion, Ho Ho's aren't vital to my sanity. They might as well be the air I breathe. I panic when I don't have direct access to them the moment a craving hits.

I used to hate on myself for this, but I've realized that I have the same problem with everything else...nicotine, my inhaler (God forbid I don't have it on me when I'm in the midst of a psychosomatic asthma attack), energy drinks, time alone...the list goes on, the insanity of it all stemming from the wail bellowing from deep within my stomach...

Don't feel.

The problem with all of these things is that every single one of them gives my brain a swift hit of relief, and my brain starts to think for itself.

Hey. that Ho Ho made me feel better, that pill laid your problems to rest, ooooh yeah, I love that numb empty feeling that you call satisfaction.

I can't tell you when it started, but I can tell you that over the years, I developed an addiction to running away, an expensive, often dangerous (I had alcohol poisoning once) and ultimately futile effort to reconcile the world around me with the chaos within.

Lately, I've begun to incorporate sustainable satisfication into my life. I enjoy cooking because I can interact with the ingredients I'm using (I challenged two onions to a sparring contest--Bring the pain motherfuckers! Subsequently I burned the chili...twice, but that's neither here nor there).

I've gotten into the habit of reading a short story every night out of Stephen King's short story anthology The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. It continues to make me a better writer as time goes on. I think I feel more free to express myself because another writer has done it, if that makes sense.

I've been playing the piano more frequently because I enjoy the satisfaction of organizing my work in a way that I can understand, memorizing it and hearing it played back to me.

Or I could hire a team of Ho Ho sniffing dogs, but how long does the taste last? How good does my soul feel when I give in?

Up next to long treks through the world of art, Ho Ho's just seem...flavorless.

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"Are you a psychic?"

This was a question posed to me by someone to whom I had given a business card at the grocery store this morning.

Yes, you. You don't need to imagine my surprise. You must have seen it, the look of having achieved a point of singularity in a Universe that doesn't have one. For a moment, time stopped.

For what it's worth, I'm glad our paths crossed. The Universe had a message for me and it came through you.

In answer to your question, yes, but only in the sense that I have, let's say...a greater understanding than most of the energetic channels to which everyone has access on a regular basis. The mere thought that intention can create reality, which it most certainly can, arouses within us something other worldly.

Or does it?

The concept of having powers that lie outside the realm of physical reality is one with which we are not entirely unfamiliar. As babies, we relied solely upon instinct until our brains were developed enough to begin adopting the physical and social constructs of the world around us. It was during this time that we often confused reality with dream.

As a toddler, I remember laying in my crib, becoming extremely dizzy and falling up into the corner of my room, where I would search for myself in the dark.

I don't remember seeing the green rope connecting my soul to my body as many people claim to see while astral projecting, but I remember feeling safe. Even though I didn't know what 'reality' meant at the time, seeing myself always made me feel better because it meant I was still tethered to it in some capacity.

This happened more than a few times and hasn't happened since. I truly belive that if we look back to when we were children. we will find that we shared a much deeper relationship with the earth, and with the Universe as a whole, than we do now, clouded by distraction like sex, fear of death, and the presence of evil.

Most people need to put forth an exceptional amount of effort in order to partake of even the shadow of this type of this relationship with the world around us. To me, it comes naturally.

It didn't always. There was a period of passively suicidal apathy toward life preceding my introduction to more earth based ways of living and viewing the world. The result was being able to view these two states of being as separate, and learning to incorporate elements of the spirit world into my walking life, bringing the two together like two sides of a zipper.

My goal is to eventually achieve a perfect balance, and to achieve mastery over my physical body and spirit wings in order to advance to the next level of spiritual growth. Hence the title: A Practical Approach to Spiritual Living, the union of two entirely different dimensions, and the ability to live in both.

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What being a pianist in the future means for my life now...

About a year and a half ago I had this crazy idea that I would start training for the Boston Marathon. Whatever had gotten into me then is into me now, only this time it's about music, and firmly rooted in reality instead of amphetamine-induced psychosis.

I'm ready to put everything I've learned about spirituality into composing music that I enjoy hearing played back.

On a hunch, I pulled out my journal today thinking I would find an entry in it that I could reproduce here. In the limited amount of time I had before heading off to a sobriety meeting, I didn't find one. What I did find were similarities in the ways in which I had embraced training. Many of them were unsuccessful. Of those that were, all included delusions of grandeur and no reasonable plan of action.

There was something else that jumped out at me, though, something I wrote that didn't stick but applies to everything I need in my life right now. Paraphrasing, if I wish to meet a goal, everything in my life needs to be condusive to the realization of that goal.

This applies to my goal of hearing my heart played back to me and of being moved by it. The food that I eat, the quality of my sleep, the music I listen to, the books that I read, the people I talk to, my general outlook upon life...my goal of composing music that I enjoy hearing played back, music that speaks to my soul, not my head, hinges upon how well I address each and every one of these areas.

Every decision that I make in life must be made with these things in mind. To clear an action, I need to ask myself a very simple question. "Is this going to get me closer to my dream, or is it going to set me back?"

Will Smith said: “I want to be the person that is the first person there and the last person to leave. That's who I want to be, because I think the road to success is through commitment, and through the strength to drive through that commitment when it gets hard. And it is going to get hard and you're going to want to quit sometimes, but it'll be colored by who you are, and more who you want to be.”

About an hour ago, I got a taste of what was possible for me in music, simply by thinking outside the box, and having the courage to take a risk. I think that whatever lies in store for me will reflect the effort that I've put into attaining it. 

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Why do I keep this blog?

Because somebody somewhere might read something I've written and respond to it in a way that changes their life.

I used to delete posts that didn't perform particularly well. Tonight, I realized how selfish it was for me to have done that. Who am I to say that a post has no value? Who am I to say that that one person doesn't need to read that particular post? Once something is brought to realization, especially something like this, it should remain vulnerable to utilization, even if it's ultimate purpose is to be ignored.

If I needed to write it, someone else probably needed it to hear it.

The Universe doesn't make mistakes. Everything is lock and key. Bugs gather just above the surface of a softly flowing river because fish feed on them. Bait fish swim away from bass because bass are biologically programmed to perceive movement as a food source and pursue it.

Shouldn't it make sense that if I have a love of words, a way with them, and I'm compelled to bring something to someone's attention using that gift, that there should be someone on the other end waiting for me to use it?

As I continue to generate readership, I need to remember that I have the best chance of getting the right message to the right person through readers who continue to check back on a regular basis. My page views have continued to increase exponentially as new readers latch onto something I've said and decide to bookmark this page in their internet browser.

To my regulars: please share any post that strikes you on the social media app of your choosing. As of right now I have 67 posts that you can choose from, lined up on the right side of the page in the archive, and you can expect a lot more.

All I'm communicating are my perceptions of the Universe. Talk to people about what you read here. Strike up conversations with strangers. Talk to friends you don't think would be interested and have them take a look. There has been a ton of forward momentum with this blog lately, due in large part to Facebook but also to you guys spreading the word!

I said in the very beginning that the karmic armies will support us in the best of our intentions. So far, that rings true. Let's keep this going!

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Deleting my chat apps to force serenity...

They say that energy cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed. The same can be said of serenity, but in order for us to experience serenity, it needs to be invited into our lives. 

Serenity exists when our soul is in harmony with the energies around and within us, which is why we are more apt to experience it as we sit alone outside sipping our morning coffee and watching the sun come up than we are at a rock concert high on pot fumes, beer and excitement.

Serenity is available to us at practically a moment's notice, but it can be elusive. I used to think that my chat apps brought serenity into my life because the people with whom I regularly communicate have core energies that reflect the way I think. At some point in their lives, all of these individuals have experienced life through the same filter I use to make sense of my world. 

That's saying alot.

But lately I've begun to realize that regular asssociation with people through instant messaging keeps me trapped in my head so that I don't have the opportunity to interact with the world around me. I effectively sever the rest of the world from my perception so that my inner coul can heal. When I do this, I shut my soul against the prospect of harmony with the world around me.

Serenity is agreement between the way I see things, and the way things are.

So as comforting as it may be to go into my shell (as Cancers have a tendency to do) and to embrace what is familiar, it will never move me forward in life, and it will never afford me the opportunity to become accustomed to sustainable coping mechanisms rather than instant gratification.

For this reason, I have deleted Kik and Facebook Messenger so that I spend less time on my phone and more time cultivating with my daughter the type of open communication which is so essential to childhood development. Call me naive, but I eventually want parenthood to come naturally to me so that I can experience my daughter's serenity and begin to develop my own.

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Per Request: My Meditation Room: A Deeper Look at the Construction and Subsequent Utilization (Part 2 in the series)

Just as a quick update to "What are my horses trying to tell me," a good friend of mine last night proposed a really good answer. She reminded me that water represents change and adaptability, which I obviously need to embrace.

I was afforded the vision two nights before deciding for Olivia's sake, and for my own, to pull the trigger. I will not be having anymore children, and have taken certain measures to prevent the possibility of any 'accidents' that may have occurred in the quantum field prior to yesterday morning.

I like how I said that. Spiffy.

So yes, Cannon was trying to tell me that I needed to prepare for change and to embrace it.

Let me just note here that I don't believe that Cannon exists anywhere else but in my imagination, but by asking for symbolic representation, I can gain direct access to my subconscious. The subconscious speaks in symbolism for me, and it just happens to be easier for me to ask a mystical black stallion what the fuck is going on in my life than it would be to beat rattles or ask smoke from my vape or candles or whatever.

You get the idea.

That being said, I received a request from a regular reader. He wanted to know more about how my meditation room came to be. I'll start by saying that it wasn't my idea. Someone else gave it to me. She would go into her meditation room, a safe place in her head with rivers and trees and underwater sea creatures and rainbows, strobe lights...she had it all.

I wanted a safe space of my own.

The first thing I saw was trees. I had found myself in a forest because I believe that wooded areas are the most natural state of things. I cultivated a small space, maybe 30 feet in diameter, added sand and a huge boulder onto which I could climb, relax and look up at the stars, which I'm proud to say I made myself by filling a salt shaker with the lid still on, dropping tiny granules in the little holes...actually no. I didn't really make the stars that way.

I just...thought them into creation.

Yeah, it was that simple.

I added a waterfall, an ocean and a tree house, the one that I have in there now. I added a room with a fire and a row of pine trees along the back. I liked that one the best, even though it was always winter in there. I forget when I found the library full of all my dark thoughts but I remember burning them book by book in that fire.

Eventually darkness flooded my entire meditation room. I can't remember using gasoline but I did strike a match and closed the door behind me.

I needed it gone.

The remake was even better. I started in the white corridor with the door with my name on it, and opened it into a garden that I think I stole from the wizard of oz, the scene where Dorothy opens the door from her black and white world to find herself in Munchkin Land wearing the same ugly dress.

I figured fuck it, right? It wasn't illegal. I wasn't selling anything and hey, the Wizard of Oz is free domain anyway (writers know that sort of shit). After that it just sort of came together.

I added different things over the years...a factory where I could make cigarettes composed of tobacco, chamomille and passionflower--all of which I harvested myself--and store in Altoid containers. I really only ever needed one cigarette in there because it never got any smaller, but I had multiple tins full of multiple cigarettes lined up along the wall above the conveyor belt.

For that matter, the factory was capable of producing anything I ever needed in that room, including shoes. Eventually I moved it across the street. It's now an abandoned Walmart that has an infinite supply of everything I would ever need. It was from this store that I would purchase (ha, yeah no) plywood for the updated version of my tree house.

I remember feeling the weight of the hammer in my hands. God, that felt good. I could hear the hammer striking the nails, I could feel the impact going right up my arm.

I have a rough sketch of what the room looks like at present if anyone wants to see it, but I would encourage you to use your imagination and to create your own room. If you would like to use mine as a template, feel free, but personalize it, make it safe, embrace your inner child. Let it be a world into which you can deposit your stress and have it put to good use creating your paradise.

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Making good use of time off...

Most of you know that I had minor surgery yesterday that will put me out of work for the next week. Yesterday I did hardly anything but recover, but today I spent three hours shaping, polishing, perfecting and writing my first composition on the piano. It's fun to play it from start to finish, even though I can't quite play it perfectly yet. It reflects my emotions, including my frustrations, but also tremendous amounts of joy. 

To me, it represents what can happen when I take things one brick at a time. I still listen to that Will Smith motivational video where he opens with advising listeners not to set out to build a wall, but rather to lay one brick perfectly. Watching this piece come together day after day is more rewarding each time I sit down to play. It doesn't take long to take stock of a selection of notes and play them out, even with the volume real low so only I can hear it.

Do you have an art that you've been neglecting because you "still have time" to start building your dream?

Someone told me a joke the other night that I found almost too cute to have a practical application, but...*coughs it up reluctantly* There are three frogs on a log. Two of them decide to jump off. How many frogs are left on the log? How many of you picked 1 as your answer? How many picked 3? 3 frogs remain on the log, because two of them merely decided to jump off, and if they're like many of us, they probably haven't moved a muscle.

Stop deciding and start doing. Remember, no amount of effort in the Universe goes unnoticed by the forces that matter. Your life will get better once you decide to *ribbit, croak*TAKE THE LEAP! 

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Spiritual training regimen for the next 30 days

I thought I would take the opportunity to formulate and publish my spiritual training regimen for the next thirty days, with one value per day, starting tonight:

1. Not speaking unless spoken to during work hours.
2. 10 minutes solitary reflection
3. Being of service to someone else
4. 24-hour phone fast
5. 1 hour on my piano followed by 20 minutes of solitary reflection
6. 24-hour phone fast, 20 minutes solitary reflection
7. Falling asleep without a sleeping pill
8. Vegetarian diet, 25 minutes solitary reflection
9. Vegan diet, rereading all blog posts, 15 minutes meditation with mantra
10. 24-hour phone fast, 30 minutes solitary reflection

This is an updated list. I felt that my last regimen wasn't specific enough to be of use to me. I still plan to release the two posts I mentioned on Facebook in the next few days, but probably not tomorrow.

If anyone wants to follow along, best of luck!

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

What are my horses trying to show me?

The horses in my meditation room serve as a portal to symbolic representations of whatever I need to see at the time. Last night I was freaking out about death, having cyclical thoughts. It was unpleasant. I added a piano to my meditation room but I couldn't hear it playing.

What to do?

I figured if running away from my thoughts wasn't working, I should confront them head on with a little help from the Universe. I mounted Cannon, my Black Stallion, and asked him to show me what I needed to see.

All I kept seeing were birds eye views of various bodies of water in my meditation room. Cannon turned into a pegasus and we soared high above the grass and the trees. I don't remember what happened after that. I think I fell asleep.

But I fell asleep without knowing what Cannon was trying to get across to me.

The only thing I can think of is the Universe imploring me to expand my horizons. My meditation room is constantly growing and changing, but it's huge. I could fly on my own, no need for a pegasus, and soar for miles in every direction looking down at new and imaginitive things. Save those locations which I frequent most often, I perceive everything differently from moment to moment. That's part of the fun of my meditation room.  I never know what I'm going to find.

When I was still friends with Vanessa, I would imagine that everything I saw about me in physical reality was of my own making, that my physical bedroom was the bedroom I have above my tree house (haven't seen that for awhile, wow)...basically that the entire world was my meditation room, but a solid version of it around which I could wander governed by physical limitation--this was supported by a need to copy familiar locations in physical reality to my meditation room because it was of course much easier than starting from scratch.

I find this type of moving meditation particularly rewarding when I remember to do it. It draws closed the gap between the spirit world and physical reality, and I don't need to focus as hard to see what I'm doing. I found that I was much happier when I was regularly incorporating elements of my meditation room into physical reality and vice versa, so I'll start doing that again.

If anyone has a room in their head that they use for the same purpose, I would love to hear about it!

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My meditation room...

...I've told many of you about it but I don't think I've ever broadcast what this room entails over the cyber void. It's a safe place in my head where I can go to be myself, where I can go to be alone and be okay with it, where I can go to indulge in things I won't allow myself to in reality, and to which I can add or remove things at a moment's notice.

I started in a white corridor with one door with my name on it. When I opened the door, I saw a brick path with all the names of the people who had passed on with whom I shared an emotional connection. My grandmother, a local childhood cancer poster child, and others. This path led out to a garden, and an inground pool through which I could gain access to a corridor lined with doors that would eventually take me to anywhere I wanted to go in the room.

This is not something that developed overnight. I've been working on it for seven years now. I remember, when someone first introduced the idea, my first attempt at creating the room was a huge boulder, sand, palm trees and a waterfall. The water fall still flows today with the boulder and sand long removed. I can walk under the water fall, sit down on a rock that looks like a bench and push a lever and it will bring me down into my game room, where I have darts, and a number of doors leading to still more awesome things.

These include a room full of balls, a room with a trampoline floor, a grand dance hall, and my favorite door, I can never open. It is boarded up but there is a pregnant woman screaming behind it. She's giving birth to ideas

I have a tree house that I built board by board using wood from the abandoned store across the street. The tree house used to be more elaborate, I think pentagonal with doors leading to different rooms, including a library where I kept my darkest thoughts (I've sinced burned the substance of the library in my pine room, where I will occasioanlly sit in a snow covered clearing by a fire with pine trees lining the horizon). Now it's more of a box overlooking a pasture that I've included for my three horses, each of whom, upon request, will show me exactly what I need to see at the time.

It would take me a long time to go into everything I have in this room, but to sum it up, it's whatever I want it to be, whatever I need it to be at the time, and a symbolic representation of my present mood, whatever that happens to be. It continues to grow and evolve. Things that used to be have faded slowly into the past, making way for new beautiful creative ideas.

It's freeing, and it will be a regular part of this blog going forward.

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I learned how to use the drill bit machine yesterday...

...I had bought a coconut for Olivia thinking she would be entirely into it (she could have cared less and I ended up having about as much fun as a six year old!) and I needed to somehow hammer or drill holes into the top, so I took it upon myself to try to learn how to use the drill bit machine in the garage.

In the end I only needed help twice, and now I can drill holes in my sobriety coins instead of waiting for my dad to do it. I think when I get 90 days sober I may drill a hole in my sobriety coin as well as a quarter to signify one quarter of a year of getting my life back, but I think that has less to do with sobriety and me just wanting to drill a hole in something else!

Anyway, I was so impressed with myself that I carved some meat off the part of coconut with the drill holes in the top and put the shell in my power box with my Hillary Clinton playing cards. It signifies my taking initiative. Since my dad has been recovering from surgery I've learned how to make kindling, use the power saw, use the drill bit machine, the front end loader on his tractor and have learned the value of a day's work.

The more I try to learn, the bigger my world gets. When I drink, it just gets smaller.

I'm back on a vape pen instead of butts because it's a hell of a lot cheaper, it doesn't stink and it feels slightly more sophisticated than smoking cigarettes. The nicotine dose I got might be a little high but I have no intention of quitting any time soon. I'll just vape until I can get my sobriety under control. One of the mistakes I made last time was trying to quit drinking and to quit smoking at the same time. Then I decided to really crank up the dial and get off all my psychiatric meditation.

Dumbass.

I read through some of my old blog posts last night and one of the things that impressed me about them was that every single one of them impressed me. I genuinely enjoyed reading my own writing, and when I saw a typo, I let it be. The quality of my work remains true because I don't write about the way I hope things will be. I write about the way they are and the way I perceive them to be at the time.

If I turn out to be wrong later, so what? All life is a school and the earth is our classroom. We don't sit down in class to a newly purchased text and know everything about a given subject, do we? We study because we don't know enough of the material to pass a test. We make mistakes and we learn from them. Further, everything is in a state of change. Everything. Every molecule, every idea.

To assume that I would be write about everything would be ludicrous. Even demi Gods aren't infallable right?

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"...that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass..."

"...and small means in many instances doth confound the wise."

I remember reading this in the Book of Mormon before straying from the Church of Latter Day Saints. When someone reminded me of it tonight, I did a double take. 

In lay, people who wish to achieve great things often look at the big picture and lose faith.  Will Smith stated "the task is never huge to me. It's always that one brick...you say 'I'm going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid'...and soon you have a wall."

I have noticed that taking the attitude of attracting readers one post at a time is more satisfying than aiming to be outlandishly famous the moment I push 'publish,' because attracting readers one post at a time is realistic. I started with six followers. Now I have 20. 

Would I prefer 20M?

Honestly, yes.

My goal is to reach as many people as possible while using this blog an outlet for my spiritual stress among other things.

But setting a realistic goal and actually achieving it is 20M times more satisfying than gazing longingly at a number I may not ever reach.

This blog is a significant part of who I am as a person. I know what my capabilities are with respect to writing. I had a tenth grade reading level by the time I was eight. Words are comfortable for me, and I use them well.

Using them to help people employs my intellectual capacity and my connection to the spiritual frequency along which I travel. Small and simple steps brought to realization provide me with the motivation I need to keep going. Those small and simple steps are worth many times the satisfaction I feel when I check my numbers and notice that 21 people have laid eyes upon a post.

Because every time I sit down to write a post, I know for a fact that I've earned every single follower, and I can lay claim to having done so with a sense of humility, gratitude, and elation."...that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass."

If you have a dream, a vision for your life, and you haven't started living it yet, take the first step, a very small one, and see how you feel!

I can finally calm down...

As I mentioned in my last post (not the one I've since deleted and officially deny ever existed), my creative side is starting to filter back into my life the longer I stay sober. 

Up until this point it's been a white knuckle battle that really hadn't gotten any easier up until last night, when I remembered what got me sober the last time...breaking my sobriety down into periods of 90 days and just letting them come instead of wishing I could speed up the clock.

I'm not afraid of accumulating time, anymore. As far as I'm concerned, I'm giving myself the chance that people have told me I should give myself for some time now. I'm going to grow out a nice bushy mustache, sip shitty coffee and just relax at my regular sobriety groups instead of playing chess with my disease and getting my ass handed to me.

Last sumer, I relapsed and made sure I brought someone else down with me. That night, I took an instant knock on the chin from the Powers that Be, drinking so much alcohol that I woke up the next morning (thank God) and spent the day making gutteral offerings to the porcelain goddess. 

I'm not all about assaulting my soul in that fashion again, or, for that matter, anyone elses. I had every right to bring harm upon myself that night, but to invite it upon someone else was probably the worst way to justify a relapse that I can possibly think of. 

Whatever happens in the next _ days, the one thing I won't do is pick up a drink, because I deserve what little serenity I've managed to scrape up in the last _. The clouds are beginning to lift, my conscience is beginning to clear, and I'm beginning to see the damage I've wrought upon the people closest to me.

I want my recovery.

I've never actually wanted a drink. All I've ever wanted to do was feel better, and there are much more relaxing, less expensive and smarter ways to go about achieving that. All I need to do is have faith that I'm on the right path, stay honest, open, and willing to be of service to those in the same predicament as I, and the Universe will reward me with the opportunity to love with a sober heart. 

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

I spent the day on my piano yesterday...

I don't know what it was that prompted me to sit down and start working on my song, but once I started I couldn't stop. It's called Dust in the Sunlight on the Window Sill because I used to try to catch the dustmites as they danced in the sunlight that fell in through the windows. Never could get them all, hours of fun I wish I could have again.

I plan to incorporate the piano back into my daily or at least semi-daily life. It's such a wonderful outlet for my creative expression, which is slowly starting to come back the longer I stay sober. Last night I finally rewrote what I have of the song on the computer and broke it down into blocks of eight or ten notes so I can play it as I originally wrote it. There are no shortcuts to writing music, but it's worth it in the end.

Another result of my efforts last night is that I can play what I have completed from start to finish, which is a lot more satisfying than memorizing small chunks in the beginning and never having the chance to play what I haven't memorized. I'm just so glad I have access to the parts of life that really matter now, even if no one else has any idea what I'm talking about.

Someone sent me a video on being alone, and in the video, the writer said "if you have an art that needs practice, stop neglecting it."

It's worth the frustration if you love what you do.

See you on Facebook and Tumblr! starliper.corey@gmail.com

Why I decided to stay sober tonight...

A craving took me by the soul a few hours ago, and it took every single one of my sobriety related coping skills to stave off disaster. This was the first time in a very long time that I have implemented all of my sobriety related coping mechanisms, and I find it to be of note because it's the first time during this critical point in my life (over the last month or so I seem to have evolved into a creature of self-advancement) where I've experienced a craving that I didn't give into.

What kept me sober tonight was a tool that I used about six months ago. 

At any given moment between now and midnight, an alcoholic could fall through the roof and need my help, and I need to be ready. That is my mission for this evening, to remain ready to be of service to the alcoholic who still suffers. There could be someone reading this post right now, struggling with a drinking problem and grasping at straws for that last little flicker of hope. I need to remain sober in order to show that person that it is possible to avoid taking one drink for one day.

I can always drink tomorrow...just not today. Not this one day, not in this one period of twenty-four hours. My sobriety date is Halloween, the Pagan New Year. I try not to focus on it because the prospect of accumulating time scares the crap out of me, but I've had longterm sobriety before. Four solid years once, and the reason I relapsed was because I stopped using my coping skills because I didn't think I needed them anymore. 

I need to be ready when that day comes along again, because when I firmly believe that I no longer need them, and that I can take a drink in safety, my disease has my brain by the balls and it will not let go until I pick up again.

And the last time I picked up, I wound up here.

Being sober on that day may well hinge on my continued sobriety starting now. I don't want to be back here ever again. I want out of the bog, and all I need to do to make that happen is to put my head on my pillow tonight sober. I wrote some time ago that people feel closer to me when I love with a sober heart. I'm not ashamed to write about my desire to drink alcohol. I would have been ashamed if I picked up.

And I won't. Not tonight, not today, and for that, I'll take a win on my training. The Universe wants to know if I'm ready. For something, I don't know what exactly, but something. Whatever it is, I passed tonight's test.

Fuck you, craving. 

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I had a nightmare about 9/11...

I dreamed I was there, watching the second plane hit the tower over and over. I could feel the percussion in my chest. I could feel the heat from the explosion. I could hear everyone on the ground screaming, and I could feel everyone's energy; the fear of not knowing what would happen next, and the certainty that despite hoping and praying that the first plane was just an accident, this country was under attack. 

Where were you when you heard the news?

Everyone old enough to appreciate what happened that day knows exactly where they were when they heard the news. It went down in history as one of the most catastrophic days in our nation's history since the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I was a Junior in Hgh School, in art class, and our teacher stood in the doorway, her face white, and told us all that the Twin Towers had just been bombed.

We were dismissed early that day, but not before hearing that the Pentagon had been bombed as well. Extracurricular activities were cancelled. It were as though the school itself was about to fall under attack. Nobody knew exactly what would happen next. Even the highest faculty appeared confused, rushed. As my bus pulled down the long turn out, I thought I saw a fighter jet in the skies overhead. To this day, I can't be sure whether or not that was accurate. By that time, all air traffic in the United States had been grounded; the first time that had ever happened.

Last night I felt the need to pull up video footage from that day. Somehow it was more horrific than I remember it being before, maybe even more horrific than it was in the dream. I wonder if upon hearing the news that day, and watching it, that an invisble veil had lowered itself over my heart to shield me from the reality of what was happening.

That veil is gone now.

It has been over 15 years since the 9/11 attacks, and only in the last couple of years has the event begun to fade further back into my memory than yesterday. For some, 9/11 remains etched into their daily filter, like an obscure lens through which to experience reality. 

Two people from my home town were killed in the attacks.

It is only in the sense that I watched my country come together that day that I look upon the event with a sense of pride. I remember going to work later that day. Flags flew, one from the back of a truck which drove the perimeter of the parking lot honking. The national anthem was played. I remember pausing to place my hand over my heart as I listened to the instrumentals, waiting for it to conlcude before returning to the job I was being paid to do.

I can only hope that I can enjoy the same sense of pride under new leadership, in the absence of hatred and violence. That begins with an ardent belief in the reality that all men are created equal, and in the inherent value in democracy.

Let our new president lead our country with these values in mind.    

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Update on my training, too close to call, beauty in simplicity...

I took a win on last night's training. I would give myself an 85/100 and that's not bad. I spoke up a few times in jest to coworkers and to my boss, but for the most part I kept my mouth shut, which is good because my work performance wasn't at all what I expected it to be. I expected to be sharp, focused, and I was anything but.

Thoughts of the results of this year's election plagued me, as well as recreational marijuana being legalized. I reported a few posts back that I don't like to align myself with any particular institution one way or the other, so I'll go as far as to say that both the results of the presidential election and the passing of question number four on the massachusetts ballot have their ups and downs, like most things in the political and social science arenas.

The monkey is off at daycare and I sit here before a computer that I really don't want to look at, writing because it's the best way for me to start my engines. God I wish I could go back to sleep right now. I got out of work at about 12:45 this morning and by the time I got home I had to take my sleeping pill right away. They hit me exceptionally hard, and one of those little orange pills in my system with the added benefit of less than 5 hours of sleep makes it feel like I'm walking under water. *hums Under the Sea*

Have you ever felt as though no matter where you went, it wasn't the right place to be, as though you were a tree and had been uprooted and now sleep beside the hole you've spent years burrowing into? That's how I feel right now, as I yawn my way through a quiet morning. I am waiting for something to happen, for something to come along and grab my attention by the balls, and nothing is happening...just me and my thoughts (haha, that's funny, who the fuck has thoughts this early?).

I don't know where I'm going with this. I just thought I would give you guys a more candid post than usual. Take it at face value. I'm way too tired to invite spiritual exploration into my life right now. I'll check my training regimen and see what I have on my list for today and I'll report back either tonight or early tomorrow morning.

*Thinks of Bob Ross and his quote: "There are no mistakes in painting, just happy accidents."*

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