always in transition

So,
all these concepts I hold important in a classroom, I don't even know what they are, or have stopped to think about weather or not they are actually necessary. I'm speaking specifically about my recent work at north winn - improving behavior and academic performance (NOT NECESSARILY MEANING EDUCATION) through self worth. I will be the first to admit that I have a hard time believing in myself, and that is certainly an aspect of self worth I constantly am learning about - how I feel about me. This summer, I was talking with my voice instructor, and we got to this subject. He gave me a quote from Martha Graham (who I had just learned about at Luther!) that confuses the issue of self worth for me. I'll share the whole quote, then touch on the specific troubling part.

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

okay now read it again.

this along with someone telling me the key to happiness is to not confuse your work with who you are, have really confused me. I've always thought that I needed to be happy with my job to be happy with my life. What if I just was something I was good at, like a professional color coder and then did lots of other things besides my job, that were the things I actually cared about. I've always known that when I grow up (when ever the hell that is...) that I want to be a real, whole, person.

Pines of Rome is really distracting me right now. too intense. i cannot keep going. (Pines of the Appian Way)

Pop Quiz

Is there such a thing as destructively introspective?

EXPLAIN

two thoughts

1) To get out of this notorious funk.... I'm going to try concentrating on others. It seems that I am the problem, that I am thinking about myself too frequently and with too much self importance. so, that 's what i'm not going to do. I'm going to think about others more. first. positively. not negatively. i'll let you know how that goes.

2) Megan posted this on her facebook and I think it's beautiful. Just wanted to share it with some more people :)

"The world is chaotic, certainly, and is always cliched. Face it: our lives are full of stories already told. Our parents die, our lovers leave us, and surprise! begin to love others. The dog grows old and we watch our own aging faces in the mirror. What is new is not what we tell, but how we tell it. The lyric essay is one way to do this: it demands (or perhaps asks, with a knowing smile) that we stay awake to the chance associations and intuitive connections that make life bearable. Or really, to be more precise, it asks us to create those very connections as far as they will go and pinch them together at the end.

This is what I love about all braided things: bread, hair, essays, rivers, our own circulatory systems pumping blood to our brains and our hearts. I love the fact of their separate parts intersecting, creating the illusion of wholeness, but with the oh-so-pleasurable texture of separation...Poets, of course, have known this all along. They blow the world apart and put it back together again...

Bread has always been a miracle. As has poetry. And language itself, the tremendous urge to communicate. To live our lives in our shattered ways and still be happy: this is miraculous. The Sabbath bread helps us to see that an extraordinary pattern binds our days together. The braided loaf, set on a table, makes of that table an altar. Our hearts may give the illusion of one muscular organ, but think how the florid chambers converge, and of the many veins and arteries that wind their way by design to reach this fleshy core. They come together; they intersect; they beat an urgent rhythm beneath our skin."

-Brenda Miller

necessity

Whenever I have a lot to say, people don't give me time to talk, but teachers always seem to want to hear from me when i'm yet to have formulated an opinion or thought.
funny how that works, innit? (get the reservation blues reference?!)

so in contact improv today we picked a card (like a magic trick) but they were animal cards. so one side was a drawing of the animal, and the other side was a story or explanation of the animal. i got the crow/raven. it was SWEEEEEEEEET. even though i was acting like a manitee according to david. bah. hilarious.

we were paired up randomly (by drawing the cards) and did massages (both giving and receiving) and it reminded me a lot of when i received reiki healing.

before class i went to talk to jane about my chapter reviews (cause i'm having a lot of trouble with them. urgh.) and we sorted that out and she gave me her giant binder of wisdom on stubborn light so i can .... apply to the research symposium. i don't know what i expect. honestly i don't. but i have figured something out for myself. that's the best part.

sometimes i get discouraged about education and people in general - until i remember that it's just a matter of communication. if there was some sort of newsleter of "shit you should know about or consider or know exists or seomthing

i was gonna be focused and thoughtful but its really not working

Puzzle Pieces

So I've been a real big grump lately. I've been moody, upset, unhappy, crabby, and sensitive since like last thursday. Really it's been coming and going intensely since JTerm. actually i can't really put my finger on the times and span of my moodiness, but that's not really important.

i think i shook it today in contact. I really wasn't excited, and i haven't been for like a week. usually i leave feelin pretty good, but i never really WANT to go to contact.

today, i told jane about my thoughts on taking a year off. what she responded with was, "well that's his opinion. just one person" and continued with "Well, consider it. imagine it. you don't have to decide right now. you know at least 9 weeks of your future, since you're going to finish the semester. just be here now. then go through the humming bird, the jaguar, the snake, and the eagle to think about your options." each of them having different priorities
jaguar - at the top of the food chain, has what they want. very quick. emphasis on taking.
humming bird - sucking nectar out of good things in surrounding environment. (side note... infinity pattern of wing movement!)
snake - needs. just concentrating on what i need. food shelter love. that kind of stuff.
eagle - from a large perspective. flying above the river and seeing my path as a story.

so that's what im doing.

and. working on something that could be really exciting! :)
and looking at something kind of new?

i'm so excited.
i got my groove back.

wise

I was once challenged to describe something as "how it would look in a classroom". and it wasn't something concrete like a design concept. it was my thoughts on respect. I had quoted someone - or made a big decision by making something up for myself - and my professor said, "okay so that sounds good, but what does that look like in a classroom, emmalee?"

he recently challenged me in a new way - though a simple conversation following a recital - and has me thinking about what i will look like in a classroom (or whatever setting I end up in) because of how I spend my time now.

I am just seeing all kinds of problems - with myself, the educational system i subscribe to, the society i operate in, etc.
and i just have to keep saying two words over and over to myself - unspeakably precious.
(from my favorite quote "This natural world is all there is. We are all made of the same material as the stars, but unlike most of the stuff in the universe, we have the astonishing good fortune to be conscious for a short while. We should never stop dancing and singing in the face of that magnificent luck. We are cosmically insignificant, inconceivably unimportant - except to each other, to whom we should therefore be unspeakably precious.")

and
i'm working on seeing what these two lines from a doomtree song look like in my life.

I keep my heart to the sky.
I keep my ear to the ground.

it's always felt so good to me to say these lyrics.
and i want to feel what they feel like.
i want to feel it everywhere - both in my world and body.
i want to see it in myself and my life.
maybe i won't like it, but at least i'll understand it thoroughly through one lense...

crossing lines

in response to MEAL (meat eaters at luther) and the uproar following vegetarian night in the cafeteria

just one thing to say,
I don't think anyone is a bad person for eating meat.

alright so there's more....
I believe in thinking about what you're putting in your body
so i think it's good that you're thinking about what you want in your body and protecting it.
making accusations and getting offended won't get you and your red meat anywhere with me, though. that's all i'm sayin.
and i was never trying to change your mind or your body - i just wanted to share a meal with you from my side of the table.

my favorite

i have many favorites and here's where i'll start listening to them

1) washing my hands after i cut my nails. i often feel as though any nasty things or toxins or old stuff is seeping out of my body through those millimeters of newly exposed skin. WONDERFUL
2) feeling awesome for no particular reason. like right now. i'm kind of just thinking about things in the past, friends, and events and just feelin good.
3) golden people - those who rarely talk but when they do it's super worth it. i'm not that golden-- i talk a lot. but i really like golden people
4) your songs - you know those songs that just feel so damn right to you? good and bad kinds of right? yeah. i forgot about those and found some again this weekend.
5) sharing major things with people - sometimes this can be terrifying and negative in a way, but other times it just feels so good to release and share and talk about big things together with someone.
6) when i get a passage right - theres nothing like finally getting something that i've been doing wrong for a while.
7) home. period. my family, my pets, my bedroom, our foods that we always make and eat, sitting on the couch doin a whole lot of nothin with my parents, visiting roseville schools more than my home district. driving.
8) organizing - but only when i want to. there's a time and place to organize. otherwise i kind of think it sucks.
9) reminders of hilarious things from high school. good lord.
10) times when you feel super connected to someone - friend, more than friend, professor, other musicians you're working with. thats what i want. i want connectivity and shared weight. and damn it feels good to hold someone up every now and then.

and that's where it stops for now. i just felt like writing these things down. try it sometime, it'll make you smile and feel less tense :)