Faithful

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love." - Rumi

This is another one of those posts that has been a long time in the making. I have so many thoughts and combinations of ideas I want to pack in here and it may end up feeling very disjointed and lacking in flow. Well, that's a doozy of a sentence itself!

Why did I choose Faithful for the title of this post? What are you faithful to? Who are you faithful to? Is doing something over and over again faithfulness or addiction, a mere dopamine fix? What are you looking for? Has anyone found it yet? Is it able to be found? Profound. Right?

I use the word "you" very broadly. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, just as I am not talking only about myself. People. Why do people do the things they do?

I'm not a researcher, so I don't have clinical answers, but I look around at other people who are and I try to figure things out based on their findings.  And then there's wisdom. Do you really need a PhD to have it?

My damn dog is barking again at 5:00 am waking people up. This is another mystery of life that I haven't figured out yet and it's starting to piss me off.

I'm supposed to be breathing with Sandy now on YouTube, one part of all the routines that I start to help me manage my stress and anxiety and emotions... and my weight, which is an extension and a reflection of my stress, anxiety and emotions, I believe.  See, I told you this was going to be all over the place. Next I need to get on the treadmill.

But again, I say, this is like my brain, or at least it feels like my brain. Trying, trying, trying...to figure out how to get the chemicals that it needs to feel calm. Like a treadmill. BDNF.

Dopamine. Serotonin. DMT. It all ends up being a "fix" of some sort. Interesting how words work. I really do just want to fix my brain. Calm it down, control it and find some peace and get some sleep at night. By this time I have been around a few blocks and it's time for bed again... A sequel to yesterday's song.

What are the 12 steps in a recovery program? This question has been sitting in this post since September...I don't remember what day.  This is what I wanted to talk about, my brain, being addicted to these chemicals.  How am I not just like any alcoholic? I need help. I realized that.  I mean I REALLY realized that. So I figured the 12 steps could help me too. You know what a fixer upper I am.

The following is an example of the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Admit powerlessness: Admit we are powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable.

Find hope: Believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Surrender: Decide to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him to be.

Take inventory: Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Share inventory: Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human beings the exact nature of our wrongs.

Become ready: We’re entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Ask God: Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings.

List amends: Make a list of all those we have harmed and make amends to them all.

Make amends: Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Continue inventory: Take a personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

Pray and meditate: Through prayer and meditation, we improve our conscious and connect with God. We do this to understand Him, praying only for His knowledge to give us the power to carry that out.

Help others: Having a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles.

 "Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant"- Socrates

I am there for you and you are here for me. 

Faith vs faithful 

Can an atheist be faithful?... Can I?  Can I be faithful to others? Can I be faithful to myself? Can I be faithful to you? I'm working on it...All.

Lesley Dill (born 1950) is an American contemporary artist. Her work, using a wide variety of media including sculpture, print, performance art, music, and others, explores the power of language and the mystical nature of the psyche. Dill currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. (From Wikipedia).

The cover image for this post is one of Lesley Dill's installations. It speaks to me, as did her work that is on display at the Weatherspoon Museum of Art here in Greensboro. 

• Alchemy of Language: Lesley Dill explores how words act as a physical and emotional substance rather than just flat text.

• Kafka's Metamorphosis: She is heavily inspired by Franz Kafka's themes of alienation, bodily transformation, and inner turmoil from works like The Metamorphosis and his personal diaries.

I was introduced to Dill's work at the Weatherspoon Museum of Art last month when I visited, before I applied for a job there as an Exhibition Designer/Preparator.  It had been a long while since I had been to the museum and I wanted to see what the latest exhibit was about (Body & Soul), and I wanted to get a feel for the energy of the place.

Well, I liked it, the exhibit, overall and I loved the energy. The image for my September 26 post was from that exhibit (Hotbed), and the other piece that literally moved me to tears when I saw it was by Lesley Dill. I don't remember the name of it. It was about transmigration of souls and a reflection on Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis.  It's been a while since I read that.  Time to pull out my old literature textbooks. 

There was something about not fulfilling your potential...Kafka was plagued by it, and at the time of my first visit, I was in a very similar headspace and heart space and I could feel his pain and my own and the emptiness that sucked the life out of the haunting, clenching suit that was Dill's work of art.

Research it if you want. Hopefully you will have more luck finding something about it than I did, hence no photo for your viewing pleasure.

But I do have a link to the prayers that I try to do every morning. They put me in a positive headspace and heart space. I want to share them with you. If there is any part of you that could use some peace, this gift is for you.

My Prayers and Beginners Guide to Conscious Creativity   It gets you to the place where you can download it if you want to. I can get you a direct link in a future post. I have to find it on my laptop.  This is not a trick, in case you were wondering.

Clearing Prayer 🙏 

It's late. I work early. I'm am relaxed and ready to sleep.

Good night. Angels watch over us all...

This is my prayer.