A slice of the present and hopes for the future. in Das Book

It’s overwhelming to write in here because I want to catch everyone up but that is impossible because it’s been years since I was a regular. And then I think about how few people will see it. And then I wonder what the point is. But then I remember undergrad. I remember writing almost every day on opendiary. I remember the sense of support, of being seen, of release.

Graduate school is incredible. I’m exploding with growth, and not just intellectually. I’m going to a buddhist university, I’m in a counseling program. There’s so much emphasis on the wisdom of emotions, and the wisdom of the somatic experience. This has been liberating and terrifying, as I grew up in a home where I was routinely told to stop crying and that I shouldn’t come back to the discussion until my emotions were finished.

When are your emotions finished?

Yesterday, I was sitting in my social and cultural foundations class, listening to a guest speaker. The speaker was a female rabbi who sits on several interfaith councils in the state of Colorado. She was speaking about “God” as a deep river of divinity that we all long to access and that goes by many different names - connection, love, power, energy, Allah, cosmos, etc. She spoke of each religion or form of spirituality as a well that accesses this divine river.

I felt my stomach flood with warmth. I felt my chest release, my heart swell. I felt lightness in my shoulders and neck.

“Is this divinity?” I asked myself. Maybe it was.

It was definitely emotion, though. It was definitely emotion, and I let it flood me instead of dissociating immediately, as is my habit when such strong (positive and negative!) emotions are experienced.

This is progress.

I am so excited to be a therapist.

I’m planning on leading a series of outdoor mandala-building workshops this summer. The first will focus on the act of building mandalas using nature-based materials, making it personal, connecting to it, and then letting it go (dispersing) back into the world, while simultaneously carrying the impact it’s made on you. The second will focus on the layers of shadow and light that we wrap around ourselves to protect our core/ego/buddha nature. The third on integrating both masculinity and femininity into our selves, our relationships, our strivings. And the fourth will be using the process of mandala construction to set intention and vision for our futures. All of these will be a day long (8 hours). They’ll include lots of time for contemplation, grounding, self reflection, group connection.

It feels ambitious. But also it feels so much like something I am capable of guiding people through. It feels like something that I will grow through as well. It feels like an authentic offering to my community.

I can’t wait. I can’t wait to see what people discover. I can’t wait to see myself as a leader again. As a baby therapist.

In other news… we have acquired two cats! :)

The first (my favorite… shhhh!) is named Sequoia. So named because she is coy. And I like names that end in -a. And if you add two letters to coy-a, you can come to Sequoia, and I am a tree-loving hippie at heart. When she gives you some love and requests your attention, it feels like she’s handing you a hundred dollars. Here she is:

And the second is Tiny Cat. Alex was in charge of naming her. I was calling her Tiny Cat in the interim. Three weeks in, and the name has stuck. She is rambunctious and spastic and aggressively affectionate. I do adore her. When she gives the love, it feels like she’s handing you a chocolate gold coin. Delicious, but easy to come by. :) Here she is:

They make everything better.

<3