"Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia." ~Judith Viorst

This post was inspired by a project my dear friend is launching on her fabulous blog mypixieblog.com and will be featured there in a few weeks. Please stop by and show her some love. :-)
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Online dating is a daunting journey, full of trickery and confusion...  I'd had my share of digital bullshit and disappointment. It was May, summer was seemingly minutes away, and I was fully prepared to take a breather and get out of the dating pond for a while. 

All things considered, my online dating experiences really hadn't been all that bad. It was more that I just didn't meet anyone I really clicked with. Charlotte had mentioned that OkCupid had a lot of "cute boys with tattoos" so I mentioned this site to my co-worker, who is recently single and back on "the scene." She took a quick peek at the site and sent me four photos of incredibly good looking guys, none of which were bare-chest shots taken in the bathroom mirror... 

Interesting. 

I decided to make a really quick profile, copying/pasting from my Plentyoffish.com profile. I only wanted to poke around and goof off with my friend. We were sending pics and profiles to each other. 

And then I came across one in particular. Physically, all the right elements: the right height, the right build, seemingly handsome (if his photos were legit)... His profile was well-rounded and informative. We had things in common. We were calculated as an 88% match. And he lived literally the next town over. So... I decided to write. And then he wrote back. And we wrote lengthy emails back and forth for several days. Turns out, he did not live in the next town over, but on the other side of the Hudson River. (There's a Ridgewood in NY AND NJ. Ooops. Bad editor.) But I was so intrigued, and we were corresponding at such a great level that it seemed worth the shot to keep exploring. Within those several days, we graduated to text messaging, and then the phone. We spent hours on the phone, as if in high school again. We agreed: We had to meet. 

May 21st: Judgement Day. I was excited, but crazy nervous.... I was waiting to be disappointed. And he was too. We had "other shoe" syndrome. We pored over each other's pictures and profiles, looking for a clue, a flaw.... nothing was jumping out. We even told each other what we thought our own "deal breakers" were. All livable. We were certain this was too good to be true. Meeting in person would finally reveal the problem. Both of us figured we wouldn't be attracted to each other in person, that the X-Factor would be missing. That was the only remaining possibility. 

It was a beautiful day in Manhattan, a little warm and humid, and it did eventually rain, but it didn't matter. We finally met face-to-face, and it was as adorably cliche as it can get: better than we hoped for, exciting, there was blushing and grinning. We talked non-stop. There were moments of inadvertent closeness and touching. He took my hand and we both got fluttery inside. Nine swift hours later, we found ourselves on a train headed back to New Jersey because we didn't want our adventure to end. He met my dog. We talked until 3am, until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore. He slept in my spare bedroom. With the door open. A first date nearly 24 hours long. No kiss. All respect.... And we've been inseparable every weekend since. 

The resounding awwwww is not why I decided to share this story. There are plenty of puke-inducing tibits I could share... but they are not for you.

What I do want to share is, when we set aside the excitement, the strength of the feelings that have evolved, the desire to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after, what we have before us is something that both of us want to succeed. We see the value in this, why it's so special. But this isn't Hollywood. No one has scripted a guaranteed happy ending. Only we can do that. And it can't happen in 90 minutes. Or even 90 days. 

One thing that connects us so strongly are the experiences and the past relationships we come from. We both acknowledge the mistakes we made in our pasts.... We know how we wound up with some of the scars. We talk at length (even now) about our exes... he's a divorced father of two. I'm almost divorced, too (no kids, but we still share the dog). We both wanted out of our marriages, and for many similar reasons. We have both spent a lot of time reinventing ourselves, taking care of ourselves as individuals. We both believe that you have to be whole as an individual before you can be in a successful relationship, that you can't rely on another person to complete you. They can add happiness to your world, but they can't be your sole reason for happiness. We know what kind of relationship we do, and more importantly, DON'T want.

We have been incredibly honest with each other from the beginning. Even if it's something that might not be so great. We talk openly--about everything--even if it makes us uncomfortable. We know that, at the end of that discomfort, understanding is waiting. And likely a hug. 

Balance is something that we actively strive for--relishing in the newness and excitement of it all, but not getting so carried away that we make rash decisions. We joke about running off to Vegas the minute the ink is dry on my divorce decree. We joke about being old together. But we also acknowledge that those jokes mean we're just really stupidly happy together and that we hope it all works out. Because when it's time to get serious about these ideas, we bring the lessons of the past into the mix. We absolutely want to do what is right for us as a couple... but also what's right for us as individuals. Balance. It is possible to be giddy with excitement and to swell with emotion and still make good decisions. We take things day by day, and enjoy what we're experiencing now. We're letting the universe drive. We're just along for the ride. 

So, the moral of our story is: By all means, fall in love. Just don't land on your head.

"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world--that is the myth of the atomic age--as in being able to remake ourselves." ~Mohandas Gandhi

It’s been nearly three months since I have produced anything worthy of a post, and the reasons for that vary. The primary reason is that my brain seemed to be on hiatus, able to only accomplish auto-pilot tasks, and barely squeeze out the remainder of last quarter. Summer months and a budding romance have also been tremendous distractions, but I do not see these as the primary reasons for not writing. One can be dizzy with glee and still concentrate.

I had also promised to begin a soul-searching journey, a quest for an understanding of my own spirituality and consciousness, and while I did begin and have been poking around in a few books, I have not even broken the surface, and thus, have almost nothing new to report on that. Disappointing, I know. One of the library books I have has been renewed 27 times by now.

I have once again found myself at a crossroad.

Call it burn out, call it exhaustion, frustration… whatever name it goes by, but the end of last quarter couldn’t come fast enough. Grades were due on June 24th. I viewed that day as my parole. This quarter was not typical in it’s ebb and flow of satisfaction and frustration. I had four classes, two of which were great, one of which was okay, and one of which was abysmal. So, the majority of my students really were good. But still, it seemed to not be enough. I was still unhappy, dreading every day I had to go to class. One of my “great” classes was observed, and I received 5’s (on a scale of 1-5) across the board. Rather than restore my faith and drive to teach, my response was, “Great. And that gets me what?”

I was fed up—with everything. More than ever, I resented the fact that I was teaching a full-time course load, but not reaping the financial benefits. I had 75 students, and I still needed my part-time job to fill the gap. I also needed it in case I didn’t have four classes over the summer. What if there was only three? Or two? No job security. I had to do work at home, grading papers in my free time, checking mail and corresponding with students. I couldn’t “leave my job at the office.” No benefits. No paid time off. Vacation? What’s that? The last “vacation” I had was my honeymoon. My ex and I have been separated for two years. I was really starting to feel cheated. I worked SO hard. But the return on investment didn’t seem worth it.

My students, as many of you know, make my life crazy. It was funny for a while. Then it started to become downright frustrating. And disgusting. They don’t want to learn. They just want a “letter.” They’d be thrilled if there was some way they could just print out their degree on fancy computer paper. No respect for education. No appreciation for it. Or for me. I’m not someone who imparts wisdom, someone who influences perception, understanding, or world view. I’m that lady who passes or fails you. I’m the unfair bitch who doesn’t care if you “tried really really hard.”

So, what was the solution, then? Well, get a PhD and teach at a much better institution, of course! I loved school! I would LOVE to go back! I could get grants and loans and stipends! Real academia! YES!

No.

Upon further investigation, getting a PhD in my area of expertise would require the following:

• Relocating. For some reason, all of the schools in this area only offer PhDs in Literature. Not composition or rhetoric. The closest one was Ithaca, New York. Brrrr. Hawaii? Aloha! South Carolina? Arizona? New Mexico? Maybe I could live in those places. Nebraska? I’m fairly certain there’s no mascara in Nebraska and I can’t date a corn husker. Put “relocation” in the con column, except for Hawaii, because it would be amazing to live there.
• 5-7 years of education. Well. I didn’t see that coming. My Masters took 3 years. I figured 4 or 5, tops. Take Hawaii, put it in the cons list. It’s thousands of dollars to travel to and from Hawaii. I would never see my family, and I don’t know anyone out there. That’s far too long to be isolated. Other locations would be doable, but again, 5-7 years is a long time.
• Teaching. While earning said PhD, I would likely be teaching at whatever school I was studying. Now, given the frustrations I was feeling with my current situation, I figured, I’d have this level of frustration plus the added pressure of working on my own education. I couldn’t even keep up with my blog… I was going to withstand the pressure of earning a PhD WHILE teaching? In another state? Away from everyone and everything?

 Hell to the no.

It dawned on me that I would be pursuing a MAJOR degree for a path I wasn’t even sure I wanted to BE on anymore. Another very poor return on investment, I’d say. A risk not worth taking. Too much upheaval for me to handle. I JUST got my life more or less back together… now I’m going to turn around and topple the blocks again?

Now I was faced with a new question: NOW what? What am I going to DO? I had to figure out where my “greatness” lies. I had to figure out what I was going to do with my life, what was going to fulfill it, and make it everything I wanted it to be.

So, I went back to book editing full time. Not because I think that’s where the greatness lies. But I needed stability. I needed calm seas. A regular schedule. PTO and benefits. I needed to stop burning at both ends because I was dwindling. There’s more to life than working.

And there it was.

What if my greatness, my talents, my purpose is not rooted in my career? What if it’s in a hobby, a personal endeavor, something else besides my career? Where is it written that your career HAS to be great? Can’t it just be the bill-payer? The security-maker? I’ve been hearing a lot of, “I/we just don’t want to see your talent go to waste…” But who says it has to? Is it necessarily wasted because it’s not applied to how I earn my income?

I think my “greatness,” my purpose, whatever you’d like to label it, is something more. It has to be applied to another place. I’ll be honest: Every time I’ve gotten a new job, I’ve “loved” that job. For a very short time. And then I hate it. My expectation was always to find that dream job, the job that makes you want to bounce out of bed in the morning like a spry little worker-elf, ready to take on the day.

I have not sprung out of bed for a job. EVER.

The only logical conclusion, to me, is that the sparkle, the brightness, has to come from something else. I’m still working on that part, but for now, the seas are calm, the bills are getting paid, the little messes in the divorce aftermath are being cleared. I go to work, and I come home. I’m still adjusting to my day job schedule, but I’m starting to feel crafty again. I’m starting to feel the urge to reinvent and reorganize. There are books to be read. Ideas to be explored. Sparks to be lit. And what the feeling comes, I know the creativity is soon to follow.

Vanity, Thy Name Is Tori...

Thanks to two fellow Tori Amos fans, I saw the cover of her upcoming album this morning on Facebook. Before I even had a chance to read anything about it, I was completely shocked and appalled by what I saw: her face. It looks... Plastic. Botoxed. Plump. Some, such as my best friend and "blanket girl", think it's simply makeup and PhotoShop trickery, but further inspection by the rest of the Girl Zone is leaning toward more drastic cosmetic procedure. Perhaps that is true. But regardless of whether it is permanent or digital alteration, I still find it bothersome. Before I dive into why, I will provide two photos for your evaluation. To try to be fair, I used the cover of her previous album as a basis for comparison. I figure, both are enhanced in some way and comparing a candid street shot to an album cover seems skewed. The first photo is from an album released in 2009. The second, an upcoming September release. We're talking two years in between...

Granted, our relationship over the past several years has been strained. I find it difficult to connect with much of her music after a certain point, and a larger part of her work has become almost nothing more than nostalgia for me. However, I cannot forget the impact that her music had on me as a teenager and young woman. And I wonder if there are no new little Tori-philes being brought into the fold, or if we're just all "Original Sinners" who are growing up and aging along with her. But if there are new youngins, I have several concerns.

Whether this alteration is permanent or digital is irrelevant. The fact remains that she made the decision to make herself appear younger, so much so, that she's barely recognizable. The reason doesn't matter either--the pressures of being a famous woman, vanity, blah blah blah... If there is one thing that Tori has always been about, it's natural beauty, embracing life and time, and while sometimes isolating and difficult, being true to whomever is in your skin. Her "quirky" beauty has always been part of her trademark, combined with that famously aflame red hair and incredibly unique wardrobe choices. But this "transformation" sullies all of that. She's fallen victim to the very pressures of "typical" beauty that she has so passionately rebelled against.

She's betrayed the raisin girls... and although it's not adolescent pressure, she's seemingly succumbed to the Hollywood and societal pressures she's stood apart from as a figure for those of us who did not (and still don't) fit certain criteria. There are countless songs that come to mind, threads of lyrics that I can point to that I suddenly feel have been completely shattered and lost all depth and meaning.


"I remember / yes in my peach party dress / no one dared / no one cared / to tell me where the pretty girls are/ those demigods / with their NINE-INCH nails / and little fascist panties / tucked inside the / heart of every nice girl... these precious things / let them break / their hold over me" ("Precious Things").

Knowing as much as I do about her, what she stands for, what she believes in, and how she's been an icon for women and girls who just don't "fit the mold", this is infuriating. Has she really become another Barbie-doll faced, middle-aged woman who just can't bear the idea of looking a bit older or aging? What is she telling her younger fan-base by appearing this way? It's okay to celebrate your unique beauty until a certain age, and then you have to hop on the Botox-wagon? Her daughter will see this one day.

I'm disappointed in her, especially because it's so drastic. I'm not saying a little nip here, or a little pull there would be a horrible thing, but this... it's like a betrayal. I expect this from Hollywood, from actors and actresses who make (or don't) their living based on the youthful (or lack thereof) appearance of their face and body. But not her. Her talent is not attached to her face.

What's worse is that she still looked amazing just two short years ago! I am--or was--of the opinion that she got prettier as she got older. She seemed to give off a sense of sophistication and grace, evolving naturally with time and maintaining her quirk while allowing it to also mature. But again... that idea has been destroyed.

So, while I'd hoped that someday I'd once again find a resonating chord in her music, that it would somehow return to me and bond with a now-grown Toriphile, I am going to have a difficult time having the same respect for her as I once did, with that puffed up, expressionless face plastically staring  at me...

And to the raisin girls: Ten years from now, if I ever talk of stabbing myself in the face with botulinium toxin... shove this post in my face, please.

"Saturn comes back around to show you everything. Let's you choose what you will not see and then drags you down like a stone, or lifts you up again." ~TOOL

Quite a while ago, I wrote about my quest to learn more about my spiritual and philosophical self. I was enthusiastic about the idea at the time, but quickly became distracted once again by "life" and all the little comfort zones I'd crafted. But once again, that unsettling urgency came roaring back. Putting my world in order, while helpful and fulfilling, was only a temporary fix.

A conversation that I had with my aunt quite a while back bubbled into my mind. There is an astrological event known as Saturn Return (you can read about it here: http://www.newage-directory.com/saturn.html). Whether you subscribe to astrology, this makes brilliant sense to me, and many psychologists even support the theory. It is a time of complete transformation and reformation occurring between 28 and 30, when Saturn returns back to its position during your birth. It can last into your early 30s. I've been in Saturn Return for a while, and perhaps it's been lingering because I've not completely addressed it. I have repositioned many aspects of my life, cultivating new perspectives and ways of living, accomplishing new tasks, achieving new goals, but Saturn is tugging at my pant leg. Part of Saturn's function is to promote growth and change, even if it means you must endure pain and fear. Uncertainty, pain, fear, and doubt are not obstacles, but, from a Saturnalian perspective, ways in which we are shown there is need for change.

This has to be the missing piece of the puzzle. It is the only aspect of my personal growth that I've admittedly neglected. The fear of not knowing where to begin is easily solved by simply starting somewhere. There is no rule that says I must begin at a specific point. I have a literary mind. I know full well that most books have a bibliography, so if I simply pick up one that seems like it might be of interest to me, I've opened the first door. And I'm eager to begin because I think it will also allow this blog to finally take a more pointed shape, which is something else I've been struggling to solve.

Today I compiled a list of books that I think are a good starting point, and gave it to a co-worker who has a library connection. It's time to begin. Mercury may be in retrograde, but I think Saturn and I are about to kick his ass.

"In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse." ~ T. S. Eliot

It's been a while since I've posted anything and the excuse that I've been too busy is a lousy one. Yes, I was incredibly busy, but as I've been thinking about it, I realized that it has more to do with the fact that my world was in complete disorder.  And although I have a lot going on, that disorder has a lot to do with my own action or inaction. This is my first Saturday morning in a long time when I am neither running around like a madwoman nor comatose on the couch with no initiative to get things done.

Last quarter was a terribly difficult one for me. My students were absolutely horrid, and although the schedule was disrupted by snow and illness, I was intensely frustrated with them, their lack of initiative to help get things back on track, and their general attitude towards class. But, as I am prone to do, I began internalizing it as my own fault. Was I not working hard enough? Was I on autopilot, as I had taught this material before? Was I allowing the other things going on in my life to affect my teaching?

I found myself upset and frustrated with the way my days were going, what I was and was not accomplishing, but the truth of the matter is that I allowed that. I got lazy. I was procrastinating. And I was disturbed by the fact that I wasn't trying all that hard to right the ship. As with anything I do, I set incredibly high standards, and I was not meeting my own expectations. I thought about all the things I wasn't accomplishing, working through, or putting back in order. I let the gym slack quite a bit, I was still plagued by the hole left in my heart by Mr. Doe, and I had no sense of pride in the work I was doing. I was fighting myself.

Last Sunday, my aunt and my mother completed a half-marathon. They walked the 13.1 miles. I ran it last year, but this year I did not train. The excuses were my schedule and being sick a few times, but again, the truth of the matter is, if I worked hard enough, if I tried hard enough, I could've done it. And as I watched the runners come through, and as I watched my mother and my aunt cross that finish line, I had a conflict of emotions--insane pride for my mother and aunt for accomplishing something so amazing, and intense disappointment in myself. I loathe the feeling of regret, and I am fortunate that I have relatively few regrets, but this one hurt. And although my aunt and my mom didn't come down on me for it, I was disappointed in myself. I felt I had let them down.

The realization is this: Each day, a fair and reasonable balance for accomplishment needs to be set. I am the type of person that needs order in my world. Yes, I recognize that it's not always perfect, there are curve balls, there are surprises and disruptions in the universe. But these days belong to me. I can and should decide what is really possible each day. There were days in the months of disorder where my "to do" list was Olympian in nature (go food shopping, go to the gym and do three days' worth of working out in one, grade papers, clean my bathroom), and if I didn't accomplish everything on that list, again, disappointment and frustration. Balance, by definition, is reasonable. Are there days when it's go-go-go? Of course. But, the tasks I set forth for myself need to be reasonable so I can accomplish them all.

So, as I sit here at my clean and neatly organized desk, in my clean and neatly organized apartment, I feel a sense of renewal. I have a new quarter and a new batch of students now. So far, they seem great. Will I feel that way at Week 10? I hope so. But I also know that I might feel otherwise. The point is that I have to simply do the best I can with what I've got, and recognize that what I need in my world is order and balance. I'm simply that way. When it gets out of hand, I have to stop, think, and revise. And it only takes a minute to do.

"We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't." ~Tyler Durden

As many of you are probably already aware, a middle school teacher got suspended for venting her frustrations about her students in her blog. You can read the story here, for all the details:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_hi_te/us_teacher_suspended_blog

As per usual, everyone is "up in arms," criticizing her for her words, even citing the fact that she's eight months pregnant as a possible explanation for her rant. This particular issue rubs my nerves positively RAW. My guess is that everyone who is coming down on her has never spent one day in a classroom with this generation of students.

The issues she raises range from rudeness, to laziness, to entitlement. The Digital Generation is absolutely ALL of these things. Her attorney defended her by saying that she could be speaking about any classroom across this country. And again, he would be correct. The first major problem here is that her administration responded by suspending her. STUDENTS brought this blog to their attention. So, once again, we have reinforced their false sense of entitlement, coddling them and defending them instead of holding them accountable for the behavior that just about any instructor in this nation will confirm as a problem in his or her classroom. But they win. Again. They tattled, and were more or less told that SHE is the one who should be punished.

How bad does it have to get before the tables turn back to the days where it was not only acceptable to be strict and expect a certain level of decorum, respect, and adult behavior in the classroom, but absolutely required? How many more lazy drones do we have to raise up and send out into the world before we wake up and say, "Hey, we have a problem"? Everyone says the state of education in this country is abysmal, and while that may be true, we have to wonder if it's the quality of the actual education, or if it's because of the behavior that this instructor has complained about. And the kicker here is that it's absolutely nothing new. This has been going on for years. I would venture to argue that the quality of the curricula in many of these districts is probably sound. But how do you teach those who are unwilling to learn? This is a battle I face every day, and I find myself inevitably teaching to the three or four who take their education seriously.

I could give you hundreds of examples from my own classrooms, most recently an admission from one of my students that he doesn't come to our 8am class because he can't get out of bed in the morning. He oversleeps. But now that he knows he's failing, he "sees that he has to show up and do the work."He did not show up yesterday. And he did not submit the paper that was due.

But by far the biggest problem here is not what she said, what she did, or how it was handled. The most severe consequence is the absolute refusal on the parts of parents and administrators to take full responsibility for allowing the state of affairs to devolve as it has. They are responding with her suspension because they feel criticized. "Not my school." "Not my kid." YES. YOUR school. YES. YOUR kid. YOUR student body/children ARE a mass of lazy, disrespectful, mindless drones. And those of us who are in the trenches with these students day in and day out cannot correct this behavior alone. We may try, but the end result is always student backlash, with backing from parents and administration. On the college level, when I get strict, my students stop showing up. In middle schools and high schools, students act out instead of rising to the standard set forth. And we have no recourse. Some of us simply give up. We're exhausted. And we're tired of being the only ones who care.

By the way, I'd love to know when there will be outrage over websites such as Rate My Teacher and Rate My Professor, where students can log in and write whatever they want about a SPECIFIC instructor at a SPECIFIC school. Who is defending us?

"To see beyond what can be seen and be beyond what we believe... In separation, we come together. It never ends, change has just begun. Believing as we release the departed."

I had a very intense, in-depth conversation with a friend about spirituality last night. If I tried to map the course of this conversation, it would start in New Jersey and wind up somewhere in the handle of the Little Dipper. But it really got me thinking about something I think I've struggled with for most of my adult life: my own spirituality.

I remember my mother telling me once that faith and spirituality become important when you get older, and you begin to exercise or explore it more as you age. I tend to think that has something to do with dealing with our own mortality, but in my own case, I was made more fully aware of my own mortality far earlier than I believe is typical.

The passing of my older brother in 2009 is completely intertwined with my spiritual struggle, uncertainty, and question. Not in the sense of "Why did 'God' (whatever He/She/It may be) allow this to happen?" but more along the lines of what to do with this experience. What does it really mean in the grand scale of things? My aunt also told me that we're to learn a lesson from his passing, that it was meant to teach each of us something. For a long time, I struggled with the various explanations of my lesson. The most immediate and obvious was not taking life for granted, living it to the fullest, doing what makes you happy, etc. But I knew it extended far beyond those base ideas.

Shortly after his death, I felt the need to seek out spiritual guidance, and I thought that the priest at the church where I was baptized and then eventually married was a nice man. I knew at the very least, he would listen, but immediately I was concerned about the guilt of not having set foot in his church since the day I got married nearly a year prior. The Christian Guilt was heavy, but something beyond even that stopped me. It isn't a belief system I subscribe to. I've always struggled with a lot of Christianity's concepts beyond the basic tenets of being a good person, living a good life, do unto others, and so on. Those are wonderful moral guidelines, but at the end of the day, they really aren't enough. I never went to talk to the priest.

Thanks to my job as a book editor, I've had the fortune of reading a lot of New Age books, Pagan and Wicca titles, and I find those paths interesting. I always said that if I was going to be spiritual, I could see myself adhering to that line of thinking. But I never pursued it. Again, perhaps I was younger and not really in need of fulfilling that part of my life, but it would peek out at me now and then, especially when I'd read a book about it. I started to look into self-education, but there are literally tens of thousands of books out there, everyone suggests something different to begin with... it would be like reading the Bible cover to cover and then going out and trying to read all of the books connected to it in any way, shape or form. Just too much to handle. And for whatever reason, I don't think I was ready to really commit myself to that level of learning. There is a lot of study involved with Paganism, as there is with any religion.

It's been on my mind very heavily over the past several weeks, almost an urgency that I have to choose SOMETHING. Last night's conversation made me take a very focused approach to the need I am trying to fulfill. We started talking about the things that make us feel particularly spiritual or connected to something bigger, and it led me to the conclusion that we all instinctively know what awakens that part of us, but perhaps it's a feeling we largely ignore because we've been indoctrinated into whatever system our families are a part of, or that our culture dictates. We instinctively know what is pleasing to us when we eat, or we get a certain feeling when we see a particular person. That's a basic response that we immediately recognize and pay attention to. So, why can't spirituality follow the same path? If I know that when I am on the beach and I experience the ocean and think about the sheer power behind it, as it is governed by the moon, and that gives me that sense of being plugged into the universe, then there is a path that celebrates that feeling. If "blind faith" doesn't work for me, but I need to think about things beyond myself, higher consciousness, how it works, science in conjunction with powers beyond our understanding, then there are places for me to nourish those ideas, explore them and my own mind, and thereby expand my sense of spirituality.

Concepts within nature-based spirituality, transcendentalism, existentialism, Hinduism, and various other mystical systems have always held a fascination for me. But it is beyond interest: It tickles nerves in me, something that I can only reconcile as a total understanding or awakening, even if it is on one point, or only on a base level. Blind faith has never been comfortable for me, and these areas allow for exploration of the self, ideas, the body, our psyche. There is no "box" to think outside of. The entire universe is the "box." And that swirling vortex of questions that evolves from these lines of thought gives me what I can only assume is that feeling of peace or completeness that some derive from prayer in a church or a temple.

This image is a design from Alex Grey (www.alexgrey.com), an artist/philosopher/spiritualist who is absolutely brilliant and has merged psychology, science, existentialism, mystical practice into this complex system of ideas that absolutely blows and bends my mind. This image represents "the foundation of our being, prior to physical reality as emptiness and awareness" (Grey). THIS is what I believe my spirituality is likely made of, at least in part. But the next step is being brave enough to wander out into that universe and see what is waiting for me. There is no "church", no "Bible", no "mass" to guide me. There are many. And it seems that my time to embrace this, to embark on this very new and uncertain path has come. Though a year and a half later,  I have a deeper and renewed sense of peace over the loss our family has suffered. My lesson has become clear.