I’m sitting here trying to work up the energy to shower. I have people to see and places to go, so the shower thing really needs to happen. I’ve had company for the past few days (my wonderful mother!), and now I have all sorts of interneting to catch up on. The next two weeks will be about grading. After that, I have more work and obligations. Then, I fully intend on enjoying myself for the weeks that remain (about a month) before I have to start teaching summer school. It has also come to my attention that this is the last year as a college student! For that reason, I want to partake in as many college student-type activities as possible.

…this thing about a shamanic lover. WHICH, I don’t know. This awareness and thoughtfulness regarding energy is extremely important and widely ignored in popular depictions of sexuality and relationships. So, yes, I get that, but I’m not so sure we need to appropriate the term shamanic.

www.youtube.com/watch

This is based on a conversation I had this weekend in Atlanta: The universe knows what it wants. It knows the best, most harmonious biological combinations, which is why what we sometimes call "love" can be so terrifying. Just like seeds find dirt and grass reaches for the sun, we are thoughtlessly hurtling toward each other at uncontrollable speeds. Trying to change or alter this trajectory is futile. The terrifying part is the lack of control we feel as we rush toward and slam into each other–the overwhelming sensation of connection (and I’m not just talking about sex, I’m talking about the connection on a cellular level and the urge to dwell within one another). In these instances, creation can be nearly unavoidable. In fact, we have to do everything in our power if we want to avoid it. Even though that collision is overwhelming and makes even the least sentient beings wake up and take notice, it does not necessarily mean that a conventional relationship must result. That means our baby daddies aren’t necessarily our partners, and our lovers aren’t necessarily our husbands. Our husbands aren’t necessarily our lifelong partners, and are lovers don’t necessarily need to be fleeting. The important thing, I think, is not to assign too much meaning to things that are meaningless and not to ascribe too much future planning to things that are impossible to plan for. After all, the universe knows what it wants, and if we don’t get in the way, it might be the best and most natural thing.

It has been brought to my attention that perhaps these moments when I feel this "trance" are really the brief moments when I am not my ego.

Last night I had dinner with yoga friends. (I love having yoga friends that have dinners!) After, we watched Baraka, which I had not seen. Suffice it to say that yesterday? I desperately needed a distraction (in dinner) and some thoughtfulness (Baraka). I’ve been thinking a lot about trance lately, and I’m not sure if that’s the word to use because trance makes me think of trance of the trance music genre, which is really not my thing. I prefer to experience trance by other means. For the last year or so, I’ve found myself wanting to escape from my analytical mind. I think that grad school has fostered this hyper analytical mind in me, which is great, but because of the intensity of it, I feel imbalanced. Somewhere in between the first and second year of the PhD program, I couldn’t even listen to music because I didn’t feel I could spare the psychic energy. That still may be true, but in the past year, I’ve been letting myself go there more. 

The first time I really started to learn and think about a trance-like state was through yoga. The movement of the sun salutations and the pranayama (ujjayi breath) takes me out of my analytical mind and allows me to be more fully in the moment and experiencing my body, movement, sound–thinking and the need to think dissolves. This feels important to me, and it is part of why I have pursued yoga in a significant way. Yoga is one of the few things I’ll spend money on. My part-time job is as a yoga teacher. Some of my most recent friends and last boyfriend came into my life through yoga.

As I began to practice yoga, I also started to learn about meditation. The two go hand in hand. Later, I was asked to teach meditation, which meant I had to learn a lot in a short amount of time. There is still much to learn about meditation, but my meditation classes are based in yoga philosophy (I haven’t ventured beyond that too much). The point of most of my meditation classes is to let go of thinking. We do that through the practice of Om and through some chakra balancing movements. But we also do it through a quiet, motionless meditation. It is not always hard to achieve, and even harder to maintain. But in those moments of meditation, I am out of my analytical mind and at peace.

There is more to say about music, sex, and drugs, but I will leave it at that for now.

I fell asleep late last night in tears. I woke up four hours later crying and couldn’t get back to sleep. I’m usually not this emotional, but crying is always so cleansing and worth it.