Merry After Christmas

I'm cleaning out my closet, so to speak. It's time for a room reno and new ways of space saving in my tiny room.

I saved every note, every picture from my camp days so I've been going through and reminiscing. I loved camp very much and I had forgotten what an impact it had on my life. I had forgotten the people who were so dear to me. I laughed a lot while reading all of the drama that surrounds intentional community living.

I have a problem.

I never finish journals. I write in about half of all of them and then it's on to the next one. I can't explain how much that bothers me. It is so hard to track my journalling throughout the years. Gah I was so scattered.

Have a favourite Christmas present? Tell me about it.

Mine was calling my family in Saskatchewan. TREAT.

One thing I love: dying to the old and making room for the new, in many ways.

Happy Holidays?

I hate Christmas songs.

You know, the lame ones that they play in department stores. The cheap imitations of the good Christmas songs.

I've heard them way too many times in the last couple of days.

OR. What's worse is the 'I'm gonna miss you a lot this Christmas' song. I've had just about enough of those as well thank you very much. I have enough things reminding me these days, I don't need every blinking song in the store to tell me as well.

Contrary to what I just wrote, I'm feeling great tonight. Reading a new play and heating my aching muscles after an intense two days of yoga. Tomorrow is running...much easier.

I realize I just wrote an entire blog post about nothing. Give me a break, I'm on a poetry hiatus right now. I just write down other people's thoughts nowadays. Which is just fine by me.

"Man's real power lies hidden in the agony which makes him cry out to God: and there he is at the same time helpless and omnipotent".

- The New Man, Thomas Merton

Christmas Times

I don't think I understand the concept of Christmas shopping. Oh I go into the store with good intentions alright. I have my list in my mind of what I have to get for each person. I walk in the store and all is lost because I see these great deals and since I haven't been to a mall in ages, never mind seen deals like this, I just go crazy. Gah I just end up buying for myself. How selfish of me.

I'm in the middle of a million books right now. One of them is called The New Man by Thomas Merton. He has a great way of putting together Kierkgaard's Sickness Unto Death and Fear and Trembling. Great book.

Come Away with Me

Come away with me in the night
Come away with me
And I will write you a song

Come away with me on a bus
Come away where they can't tempt us
With their lies

And I want to walk with you
On a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high
So won't you try to come?

Come away with me and we'll kiss
On a mountaintop
Come away with me
And I'll never stop loving you

And I want to wake up with the rain
Falling on a tin roof
While I'm safe there in your arms
So all I ask is for you
To come away with me in the night
Come away with me

Self Against Self in the midst of Despair

Fists growing cold
with larger inhibitions
Fantastic Four, Five, Six.
Count your enemies
label them one by one

You did nothing wrong.
Don't ever change your mind.
Stand strong in your beliefs.

Touch me not, feel me not
Stand in a corner
weak and tired
my muscles collapse
yours fade into oblivion
we are done
no more can we endure
It is done.


I don't remember what this is about but it must have sucked. I have a really bad memory which is part of the reason why I write, so I can look back and remember. This doesn't work as well when your writing is so obscure you don't know what it is in reference to. Whatever the reference or story behind this, I can relate to it right now.

Back to the Drawing Board...

I am reading a book called Seeking God by Esther de Waal. It's about her understanding of the Rule of St. Benedict. I think my next read will be the Rule.

I get so excited for Christmas Break because I get to read read read. And write.

Shows: A good friend of mine is in Suessical at Carousel Theatre. It runs twice a day, six times a week until January.

Christmas on the Air by Lucia Frangione is playing at Pacific Theatre right now. It is side splitting.

Have I been Dreaming?

I have been having the weirdest, craziest dreams I could ever have imagined. I often wonder how much dreams are telling us about ourselves and what we are processing in our sleep. I think my dreams are healing my past relationships, of all sorts. I dream about the people who have fallen out of my life for one reason or another. I think this is good, it is healthy.

I recently had a mini meltdown and deactivated my facebook account, decided to go on a popular music fast, look for a spiritual mentor, and write every day.

It's hard. Go figure.

Starting new habits and unlearning old ones is a birth of sorts, a growing pain. It follows the Rule of St. Benedict's paradox: when you strip away down to the minimum of anything it seems sterile at first, but then creativity grows out of that longing.

Creativity and strength of character are growing out of my longings and it is beautiful. The new habits are starting to feel normal and I am reaping the benefits of these changes. I want to overcome my self. To take away my worthless material things, my careerism, my comfortable lifestyle. I want to be uncomfortable in this temporal world, I am searching in my loneliness for self-worth and joy that is divine.

Be aware of your dreams. Be aware of your self. Be aware of God.