underXposed

I’m a crazed writer who’s trying to make sense of this disintegrating planet. My avatar there on the left depicts me, luminaria, hanging on to reality by the fingernails, disoriented as the world tilts in a billion crazy angles and fractalizes before my eyes. The virtigo is intimidating.

There are nearly seven billion people all vying for resources and attention. Yet if we could somehow shift and raise our consciousness to the next level, what a golden age it would be! How are we to process this?

It seems clear to me that many people have been leaving the planet and that this energy of transformation is on a global consciousness level.

About eight years ago we all lost our compass. I’m amazed that anyone can still walk around pretending it’s business as usual. Which is another way of describing denial. My special dream that humanity will somehow pull this thing off and listen to the intuitive voice that tells us to cry our eyes out, to wail and grieve until we’re soft as the rain, and then when we’re done wailing and grieving, roll up our sleeves and become like raging wind and with beating hearts repair ourselves, our communities, and the planet as if our lives depended on it…because they do. Literally.

All I can say now that bush is gone is that the world hangs in the balance and it would be foolish of us to lay our trust in any single person, regardless of his or her excellence of character–I’m referring to President Obama, of course. We’ve all got to work long and tirelessly to turn this disaster into survival.

[avatar courtesy slidewayze, just about the most awesome amateur photographer on the planet!]

What are luminaria?

Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light.–Spike Milligan

Luminaria are candles set in sand inside brown paper bags that line entrance-ways and walkways. When lit, they give off a beautiful caramel glow in the night as they offer a path. They remind me to listen to things that really matter–my heart, my intuition, my body, and the natural world, the greatest teacher of all.I sort of ripped the header photo, so let me know if it’s yours and I’ll give credit. Anyway. the fact that it was taken in a graveyard at night in the snow seems very metaphorical to me, in this world right now.

I live in Portland. I’m garrulous, dubious, genetically skeptical, and wayward. I adore trees, forests, animals, honesty, and acerbic wit.

My psyche is bruised with every instance of injustice, cruelty, dehumanization, objectification, imposition, gentrification, authority, domination, institutions, ignorance, fearmongering, lies, privatization, and secrecy. I also die a little more each day from the incessant roar of traffic, the loss of wildlands, and the careless and oblivious treatment of what’s left of the natural world.

I support any steps taken to enact a journalistic shield law that includes bloggers. Blogging should be protected by the First Amendment.

I also support anyone and anything that helps to bring down this cancerous system that demands rapacious growth and profit at all costs, and claims to own natural “resources” and human beings. I don’t belong to any group, party, or organization, and I don’t believe in anything except life, the power of connection, and intuition.

I’m one of those wanna-be fiction writers who suffers from occasional mind lock and uses that as an excuse not to do the hard work. I have something like twenty unfinished manuscripts languishing in drawers, shelves, folders, and boxes. I figure that if I don’t write or finish a project, I can’t fail. Not good. Not good. So I’m trying to teach myself how to “write what I know,” although that directive is maddeningly ambiguous. I went to Goodwill and bought a stack of spiral notebooks for $1.50 (good deal!) and am getting down memories of people and places and attempting to form them into stories. I’m not so sure keeping notebooks is helpful. I rarely return to them to dig out “treasures” of things I didn’t want to forget. Mostly these notebooks just sit around and collect dust while my ADHD goads me on to ever-newer (unfinished) projects. Good lord.

Anyway, thanks for your visit. I encourage you to leave a comment on your way through so I can visit you.

Sincerely,

luminaria