Seeking

The snow storm in time lapse

watching the weather in time lapse on MSNBC
we are so temporary
little screen lemmings beeping away
heart ache is only a jump cut long
true love is a light blinking in an apartment window
in the afternoon
the atmosphere just a pixelated blur
a light white dusting
riding the bus looks so easy and quick
an empty parking lot
the sky has a melting quality
work is ending early
the street is bare
there is nothing to arrive home early for

-02/24/2005

Last night I was reminded by someone of the wonderful world of
Abraham-Hicks.

Esther Hicks, a mid 50's female, is apparently a channel (that is right, a channel) for the infinite knowledge of an other worldy group of entities called Abraham. She apparently dialogs with these entities and then speaks and sells books and tapes about the wisdom given to her by these sentient beings.
So, it is totally hokey and silly. Regardless, I have for years been obsessed with channels and the kind of wisdom they are apparently transmitting for our benefit.
I have spent countless nights detoxing from heroin listening to Abraham-Hicks tapes. And when one is detoxing there is nothing that brings any comfort or relief.
Abraham-Hicks did however provide some hope.

So, here are some Abraham-Hicks quotes (I am prepared to be made fun of):

You are here in this body because you chose to be here.
You wanted the opportunity to experience this delicious contrast in time and space, and with great anticipation you came to co-create with other joy-seeking beings, to fine-tune the process of deliberate thought. (What, where, when and with whom are your choices, too.)

You are a creator; you create with your every thought.
You often create by default, for you are getting what you are giving your attention to wanted or unwanted but you know by how it feels if what you are getting (creating) is what you are wanting or if it is not what you are wanting. (Where is your attention focused?)

The Universe adores you; for it knows your broadest intentions.
You have come to earth with great intentions, and the Universe constantly guides you on your chosen path. When you are feeling good, you are, in that moment, allowing more of that which you have intended from your broader perspective. (You are Spirit Incarnate.)


You may appropriately depart your body without illness or pain.
You need not attract illness or pain as an excuse to leave. Your natural state coming, remaining or leaving is that of health and of Well-being. (You are free to choose otherwise.)

Another cool channel:
(The Original) Seth, channeled by Jane Roberts

A freaky description of Channeling

I thought it might make sense to actually address the inspiration behind the title of this blog and hear a little about how others define the concept.

post·mod·ern
Pronunciation: "pOs(t)-'mä-d&rn, ÷-'mä-d(&-)r&n
Function: adjective
: of, relating to, or being any of several movements (as in art, architecture, or literature) that are reactions against the philosophy and practices of modern movements and are typically marked by revival of traditional elements and techniques
- post·mod·ern·ism /-d&r-"ni-z&m/ noun
- post·mod·ern·ist /-nist/ adjective or noun

Postmodernism is many things to many people. I see myself as a living example of the term as a result of being a product of an American society that is essentially re-doing everything again and again.
This could apply to music, literature, film, general media, philosophical thought etc.
I quite simply am a living reaction to the world around me.
Although, really brilliant people debate the subject everyday using really complicated terms and examples, I still plan on attempting to address the subject on and off in my blogs.

I guess my favorite example of postmodernism currently is The Grey Album mixed by DJ Dangermouse. This album is known as a mash-up. It is essentially a album of Jay-Z's called The Black Album, mixed in a highly sophisticated way with The Beatles' White Album. It has recently been banned due to copyright infringement laws. Regardless, if there was ever a human example of this innovative musical "mash-up", it would myself. I have felt for a long time that musically I reside in the grey area. The grey area is a familiar world for those who grew up in the 80's when hip hop was emerging but touring with the Dead was still a requirement for those of us with hippy-dippy parents. Dangermouse's intricate sampling is a great metaphor for my personal artistic challenges. When filmmaking and writing I am constantly trying to figure out the best way to express the "grey area".

Another great example of postmodernity is these blogs themselves. They seem to be a reaction to the stream of consciousness writing form as well as a positive venue in which to process our rapidly booming technology.

Love to hear everyone's thoughts or favorite postmodern topics.

Also, I asked a friend for blog writing suggestions, I decided to include their response:
blog topics: that's tough because for me i usually don't write unless i am inspired or otherwise driven to write about something. or if i have a story or idea in mind that i am trying to put into words. maybe you could write about how the city looks in the aftermath of a storm on your way to work at dawn, a cold, grey haze reinforcing the already cold, artificial environment. everyone freezing and moving quickly with cold stoic fixed gazes as they trudge robot-like barely awake on a monday morning, on autopilot, to their jobs.. not smiling and not interested in anything or anyone but their destination. how different it is from, say a warm, spring afternoon where young couples are smiling pushing their babies in strollers, people are walking their dogs and joggers are everywhere, everyone is happy and instead of grey, everything is warm and colors are saturated..

I've been wanting to write about some examples of the synchronicity phenomena for a few days.
Although the past few weeks have been really challenging, and I've had a bad case of the blues, I've still been able to recognize some of the tiny things that remind me I am connected to everything around me in a really special way. I guess this could be called God, the moon, irony or just coincidence, but whatever you call it these small occurrences have been keeping me afloat:

I get an e-mail from a friend from high school that recognized me from myspace who I have not heard from in 8 years. The same night another friend tells me she works with someone who knows me from high school, a totally different person but from the same grade, who I also haven't seen in 8 years.

I am in the middle of an e-mail conversation with a good friend of mine who gets a phone call notifying her that her Dad has cancer. My dad has cancer too.

I run into someone who I normally would not see because they have the day off for jury duty. Her and I have a great night together as a result. That night I had a jury duty notice in my mail.

Some others:

I make a personal pledge to work on my cultural literacy and start reading the newspaper again. What do you know? My sponsor gets me a subscription to the New York Times magazine as a graduation gift.

I keep thinking I should do more yoga or take some dance classes again. My younger brother calls me and asks if I would mind taking Capoeira classes with him. Do I need to mention that I was also trying to find a way to spend more time with my brother?


The less blatant:

People keep calling me right before I am about to call them.

My mom keeps instinctively calling when I am at my lowest moments.

I keep running into people I know from living in the half-way house. This is amazing when you realize how few people have survived from that house.

I know it may seem like I am digging here, but it feels good to know that the universe may be responding to me even if it is all just irony. This blog itself has manifested due to a turning point in my world.

Also Lyrics to The Police Synchronicity:
Synchronicity I

With one breath, with one flow
You will know
Synchronicity

A sleep trance, a dream dance,
A shared romance,
Synchronicity

A connecting principle,
Linked to the invisible
Almost imperceptible
Something inexpressible.
Science insusceptible
Logic so inflexible
Causally connectible
Yet nothing is invincible.

If we share this nightmare
Then we can dream
Spiritus mundi.

If you act, as you think,
The missing link,
Synchronicity.

We know you, they know me
Extrasensory
Synchronicity.

A star fall, a phone call,
It joins all,
Synchronicity.

It's so deep, it's so wide
Your inside
Synchronicity.

Effect without a cause
Sub-atomic laws, scientific pause
Synchronicity..................................


I'd love to hear about any synchronicity anyone else has been experiencing lately.

This evening I decided to read over all of my old journals, something I have not done in years.
I found two writings that I thought would be interesting to share.

The first is a poem I wrote living in a half way house not even thirty days sober:

Everything consuming into itself,
the cycle of rebirth in reverse,
infinite inside out.
Seeing backwards inside our heads, inexpressive, detutionalized, ungrown
unprone, despun.
Deblooming flowers,
roots pulling up from the ground rising to the imploding atmosphere,
growing an umbilical cord.
Blowing milk into a mothers breast,
sinking rapid into rest.
Bullets running into barrel's.
Vinyl playing sublimial, defunked, ungodlyness, unsunk.
Unzipped, unhung, derect, unclimactic and no effect.
Itself consuming into everything.
12-15-2000

This next piece I found written exactly a month later in my journal, I hope it sounds familiar to some, it was part of Nelson Mandela's 1996 Inaugural Speech written by Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond all measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? You are a child of God, your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; It's in everyone. And as we let our own shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Marianne Williamson -Read by Nelson Mandela in 1996
Journaled for personal reflection 01-14-2001

I also found an entry inbetween these two where I jotted down something my lover at the time, J, had said to me that day:

J said:

"sometimes it seems like your view of the universe is bi-polar, that one day you are passionate and in love with everything and the next day you are almost fed up, and when it comes down to it, you still really know it's all just a huge collective dream".

I think these old journal entries perfectly express how I have felt the past few days.

In my office at work hangs a printed flag, the print is of a window pane set in stone. It's adorned with a lovely flowery window box. This flag hangs where a window would go, if a window was in my office. I didn't put it there, a co-worker felt I needed it.
This is how I have been feeling recently, it is as if there is a printed image where the real Emily should be: Clearly, I'll be riding the identity crisis roller coaster for the rest of my life.

This kind of mental image masturbation reminds me of when PETA ran an add campaign in 2003. The campaign called "Holocaust on your plate" compared holocaust victims to slaughter house victims (chickens and pigs). I was pretty sure I was Jewish the day I saw that add. It was the first time I was angry enough to actually write multiple letters to the PETA people, their response was of course a generic e-mail sent to anyone who ever made a PETA related complaint. I obsessed about the differences in the two scenarios. I kept thinking about how chickens are not haunted by their own images. I am pretty sure they have no ability to recall either. I kept envisioning myself as one of the few remaining holocaust survivors staring at an advertisement comparing my experience at the camps with that of pig in a slaughter house. In one of the campaign posters (which has magically disappeared from all internet searches) there is a picture of a shell of a man staring into the camera wearing his concentration camp attire side by side with a inserted modern day picture of a pig in a cage. Did I mention I don't keep kosher?

I am not sure how the fake flag window, my identity and "Holocaust on a plate" all connect, I just know my head is filled with images weighing me down.

My name is Emily, I am 25 years old and was suffering from severe blog envy until today. I've spent a significant amount of time, maybe 25-30% percent of the past 4 years trying to decide if I am either a hippie-dippy, kind of flaky, artsy, super-liberal filmmaking freak or a label wearing, even-keel, average-liberal research assistant suffering from OCD. I also have a really hard time determining if I am actually Jewish or not and have spent maybe 5 % of my time contemplating Judaism related issues.

I guess something else I plan to explore in my new blog is my musical interests. For as long as I can remember I've been obsessed with gospel music, specifically gospel music about Jesus. Kind of Trippy. I guess my musical tastes are probably what most noticeably distinguish my character from all the other blond-haired, blue-eyed American 25 year olds.

-Did I mention that I am slightly resentful that I have the all-American girl look, yet even with this resentment I tend to play it up.

I guess a few other things that may slip in with my thoughts include:
My experiences as a drug addict (now sober 4 years)
My father's prostate cancer (now in remission 1 year)
My classic romantic's bleeding heart
My confusion about the Higher Power concept
Therapy

I'd appreciate any constructive criticism, as I am new at this!