Over Sharing?

In a reflection on her churning of personal emotion into a butter of Blog-banter for public consumption, Emily Gould wrote this weekend for New York Times:

The will to blog is a complicated thing, somewhere between inspiration and compulsion. It can feel almost like a biological impulse. You see something, or an idea occurs to you, and you have to share it with the Internet as soon as possible. What I didn’t realize was that those ideas and that urgency — and the sense of self-importance that made me think anyone would be interested in hearing what went on in my head — could just disappear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/magazine/25internet-t.html?ex=1369281600&en=32dd415ebcbb575b&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

There are colleagues of mine who write award-winning blogs (David Noon at UA-Juneau, for example) and college friends denied tenure over theirs (Chicago didn't like Dan Drezner's public reflections, but Brandeis embraced his full humanness as an economist and a self revealer).

All I can spout on this one is, "Be kinder than necessary, because every one you meet is fighting a battle of their own."

Five million people homeless in China, on top of Myanamar's floods, melting polar ice, and the signs of tremendous Earth changes. And "we" still care about Paris Hilton's new BFF?

It's beyond tragic.

New Moon in Taurus

The bears are growling
their post-winter empty belly hungers.
Their claw marks on the spring bark
are deep and drawing sap.

I lost a silver earring
in a cow pasture
in Costa Rica.
Along with a few other things.

No one seems to understand.

"Don't you want
to unplug
from those experiences?"
She asked.

"Don't pay
too much attention
to them,"
She said,
"They are left over
from a previous life time."

"At the beginning of Time,"
She started to tell me,
in Albuquerque,
on Copper Street,
around the corner from a church
with the Blessed Mother mosaic en blanco,
and a host of Angels kneeling, singing, praying.

That (instruction) was, like, four years ago now.
Wow.
Time sure does fly when you're having fun.
Or still unspun.

"What's time any way?" asked Ms. Stanley.
We shrugged, unsure, into the mystic.

Hey there.
Eye miss you.
See you soon.

Praying

There was a time when my dreams kept telling me to "Pray... really, really PRAY!" But, numbed by a series of shocks, I didn't listen to "my" subconscious. Complaining about the ripples and residues of this arrogance, a friend replied with the advice of writer Annie Lamott, that there really are only two prayers: Help! and Thank You!

Divine help came with its own alarm clock the other day, when the church bells rang me awake from Star of the Sea on New Year's Day. But despite a resolution to un-lapse myself from the ritual devotionalism of my childhood, I couldn't budge from my torpor to salute at that altar, less than a hundred yards from where we rested.

Doesn't say much for the genetic hauntings of "Three-of-my-aunts-were-nuns" does it? Or perhaps it says more about the way this body detoxifies itself from three nights of ridiculous raging, sacred intentions notwithstanding.

Anyway, besides this self-indulgent recrimination, I am reminding myself of Mata Amritanandamayi's prayer for us in this Got-2-B-Great-Double-Oh-EIGHT:


As we enter 2008, let us pray together,

“O Paramatman, let there be no wars, violence or natural disasters this year. Let there be no death due to starvation or lack of medical care. Let there be no children who are unable to continue their studies due to poverty. Let the music of peace and harmony be heard everywhere. Just as we decorate our houses and surroundings with lights, let our heart remain effulgent throughout the year with love and compassion.”

(EFFULGENT, btw = Shining Brightly, a somatic experience I can only partially recommend... but maybe it was just my nervous system at that particular time and place...)

"Prema mayi Dayamayi Amritanandamayi Jai Ma Jai Ma Jai Maa Jai ma"