I've had a blessed life.  Every single time I've gotten it into my head/heart to do something, I've manifested the resources to do it.  I can't tell you exactly how it works, only that it does.  When I had to move across country, I did.  When I wanted to start writing books, I did.  When I went to Cuba (paid for) and came back ready to reenter academia, I did.  And that without any money in my pocket and only 2 weeks before the semester started!

And it rolls round again.  I'm up on what may be the singularly most frightening adventure of my life: graduate school.  See, I like it when things are easy, and just sort of roll into my lap.  Grad school's not like that.  You have to actually work at it, just to get the application (and all the stuff one entails) in on time, and in the right order, and to the right department, and and and.

I haven't been here in months.  I just read my profile, and found it to no longer be true.  I'm not a professional pervert anymore; it has retreated to avocation.  I'm a student.  Well, sorta.  I'm not in school right this minute, but I did finish a second BA in only 3 semesters while holding down TA work and other things.  I think I might be a scholar, but school's always been so easy for me that I wonder if I'm not just bluffing my way through because it's so easy.  On he other hand, I understand it to be true that its the things we love that seem easy that are often best aligned to our path-work.  I love being in school.  I love teaching.  I think religion is a huge issue in our world, and if the traditions do not learn what the other is made of and how to dialog--not in spite of differences but HONOR of them--we'red doomed to a world that will rip itself apart.  I can't sit by and let that happen.

So grad school it is.  I don't see how it's gonna work out yet--no idea who will accept me, or how I'm goin to pay forit. Seems irresponsible an un-adult to be so seat of the pants lassaiez-faire about it, but there it is. The magic of my  life.  Just like the line in Better Of Dead, when Cusac is being taught to ski y the cute French girl:

"Go zat way.  reeeeely fast.  If somesing gets in your way, turn."

My friend, Blessing Conspirator, has been going through a rough patch.  See, her mom just died, and there's a whole buncha stuff in that package for her to unpack, soert, and place.  She's had to leave our lovely home in the woods to brave the wilds of Las Vegas with its screaming lights, buffet of human experience and constant onslaught of tangled energies.  It's not her favorite thing.

Even though she's in Vegas baby, she's here with me.  I took a look at her profile her on Gaia.  I haven't done that in a while.  hell, I spent part of yesterday asnwering messages that have beein in my inbox here (which I'd forgotten I had) for over 2 years.  Some "Zaadsters" are going to get a surprise email.  :)  So I read her proflie, and I look at what she's done.  It's an impressive resume.  This shy, delicate, loving woman has woven the threads of compassion together into a life of service.  She's given herself to something, and I hear tell that the secret to happiness is to find something more important than you and then give yourself to it.

Which is what I'm trying to do.  Thing is, I'm not yet convinced that the thing I want to give myself to wants anything to do with me.  It's kinda like having a crush on the love of your life and having them set your emails of love and devotion to the spam fileter on their hearts.  I never really saw Blessing Conspirator as partiucalry brave, other than the fact that she actually managed to get out of bed every morning and face a world that's always felt like snadpaper on her soul.  I didn't understand what she was doing a decade ago.  I do now, and I am humbled before it.

I realize that no matter how I present, no matter who I manage to get people to think I am, Who I Am is embedded in my actions.  I'm compling my CV at present, as part of my grad school application process.  In my opinion, it doesn't look like much.  I know where I say I'm interested, but when I look at my own resume it forces me to examine where it is I've actually put my chi, my ruach, my spirit.  What it that's easy for me, the natural extended doing that comes from my beingness?  What is my work that is not work?  And why do I have this sinking feeling of despiar that I'll never make a living wage or have a financially comfortable life doing what I love?

Carolyn Myss says that god [insert your term ofr the Divine or wahtever you call it here; I like god cuz it's easy to type] loves a verb.  I think god loves nouns, too, hbut a noun is being, and a verb is doing.  How I spend my chi is proof of what's really important to me, becuse it's what my verb self does from my core of being, no matter what delusion of self I might be operating under.  Who I Am becomes observable in What I Do.  Sometimes, when I look at that, I feel sad and ashamed that I haven't done more, been more.  On my better days, I have a lot of compassion for the self that never got told that life is changeful, and who you think you are will change many times over the course of a life.  I got a late start.  :)

I've never had to take such a good hard look at that self.  It forces me to seriously consdier who I really am under all the doings and saying of who I am.  I find that I have a well of insecurity and self doubt that seems to be bottomless.  If we could figure out a way to power appliances and vehicles with my self-doubt, there would be no energy crisis.

Some friends assure me that they feel this way too.  But I see them in houses, with stuff, and I can't compete.  I live very, very simply.  Most of it I don't mind; some of it I really love.  But damn--sure would be nice tohave living space big enough in which to swing a flogger or do some yoga without needing to go outside!

Then I think of BC again.  I don't know that you could say she's done anything extraordinary.  She's raisde kids, went to school, had some jobs.  But that's the whole thing, right there, right under my nose where I'm most likely to miss it.  She's living an ordinary life in an extraordinary way, and she inspires the crap out me becuase of that.

On the surface, there's a big gap between my decade as a Professional Pervert and going to grad school in Religious Studies so that I can become a professor who teaches religious literacy and by so doing creates an intterreligious dialog that can foster peace in the world.  Underneath, I'm not conviced the leap's all that large. 

As a ProPerv, I went around talking to people, encouraging them to use kink as a way to get to god--though often infar less direct language than that.  I've managed to get god into the room during a fisting class, or a roleplay class.  It isn't hard, since the presnec eof the divine is in all th ings, and it's only an adjustment in perspective that allows people to see it, like those pictures with an image that only emerges once you see it "right."   I got to wear a lot of balck leather, fancy frocks and finery.  I got to meet tons of fascinating people--some locked into the symobism and externalia of peviness, some actually walking the pervy path to Paradise.  I'm rather extreme in appearance, by most normative social standards; that lent me a lot of chacet in the leather world, and may prove to be an impediment in my adventures in academia.  So, really, from my perspective at preent (subjec to thcange without notice), going to grad school with the idea of becoming a PhD so that I can teach is one of the singularly most perverse things I've ever done in my life.  It's easy to be on the fringe for me; it's comforatble.  Academia isn't.  It has its own language, its own way of being, and a loud, foul-mouthed, belching, opinionated pervert might not be welcomed into the hallowed halls.

A man I admire, Randy Pausch of belessed memory (see below for a link to his must-watch Last Lecture), said that obstacles or walls that we find in our lives are what help us tell the difference between tourists and the people who really want it.  I am pretty sure I really want this whole grad school teaching thing.  If someone came up to me tomorrow and offered me a spot in a program, I'd leap at it.  Seems like I'm afradi of a little hard work.  I tend to give up too easy when daunting challenges come my way which is entirely a self esteem issue.  Some deep part of me doesn't think I'm actually good enough to walk those hallowed halls.  Some deep part of me is convinced that I'll be rejected out of hand.  My saboteur uses this agasint me, covincing me that even so much as trying will be a painful exercise in futility.  Another part of me says that it's selling out to even want 'those things."

"Those things?"  Like what?  A comfortable home and a vehicle that doesn't eat a gallon of $4.50 gas every 10 miles?   The financial stability to travel, to donate, to create things that might help bring peace to the world?  A new pair of yoga pants or, for that matter, enough money to support the yoginis who teach becuse it's their bliss, too?  A new pair of shoes for my beloved, magnificent partner who always seems to have the grace to put other things beofre his onw needs?  A life in which I can face some upper-chakra challenges becuase I'm not stuck in the lower 3 dealing with maya issues???

It isn't the stuff, it really isn't.  It's the idea of flow and accepting abundace.  It's the idea that my dream is within my reach, and that if I am rightly alingned with self and what this self can/must do in this world, then it all just rolls.  The idea that my thread in this tapestry matters as much as any other, and that I can use my superpowers as a force for good in the world is one I'm trying to accept while I dismantle the notion that succes can only be measured in very specific, material ways and that I'm going to be a lonely, old blue-haired lady eating cat food during my twilight years..

I have gifts.  I can take complex notions and translate them into a variety of huma dialects in cler, concise, understandable ways.  I serve my fellow humans by being a thing against which they can hurl themselves in the attmpt to figure out who they are.  I'm a fair artist.  I'm great with getting people to open, expand, try new things.  I can write well enough, and I have a quick mind that can syntesize information, presneting the result with clarity.  I am abundantly creative even though it seems that I've not had enough courage to create to my fullest cpacity.

Maybe that's what this whole grad school thing is about: finding the self-esteem to be able to create at a level comnsurate with my innate creativity.  Maybe I'm being called to step up in a way I haven't been ready for til now.  Maybe, as I release my need for external validation more and more fully I get to beocme that which I truly am, and move through the world with compassion and loving kindness.  Maybe I desreve to be part of a community of like-minded people, who see a blending of bliss and 'success' in the world that I have yet to actualize.

Or maybe it's about humbling me so that I can see the miraculous conspiracy of belssing all around me.  Maybe it's to get me to see how much insipration I have in my own backyard.  Maybe it's to get me up off my lazy cracker ass and be a verb in a way that conrtibutes something to this aching, heartsore world.

Or maybe--just maybe-- it's an extraordinary conspiracy of belssings that conceals itself in an ordianry life.  I had always envisioned myself as some sparkling glittearti, no matter what world I was moving in.  I think it's time to see me as I really am, and get on about the busines of beocme a conspirator in my own right.  Thanks, Coop.

Chuang Tzu said, "A path is made by walking on it."  Think about that for a minute, just sit with it.  You'll feel your brain latch on and go boom shortly.

My Note from the Universe the other day said, "A question to ask yourself each morning, Deborah, that really lights fires, gongs bells, and summons resources is, "What little, mortal, baby steps can I take today that will demonstrate expectancy, prepare for my dream's manifestation, and above all, place me within reach of life's magic?"

Please, Deborah, ask this question, and then answer it with those little, baby steps, even when they're sometimes the same steps you took yesterday. I promise you, you'll go down in history as a giant among your kind.

It's never too late,
    The Universe

In December of 2006, I went to Cuba.  When I got home, with less than 2 weeks before the beginning of the semester and after a 12 year hiatus from academia, I decided to go back to school.  I had no money, no plan, and no idea how much bureaucratic paperwork for me to wade through had been generated 12 years ago, when I left the academy.

I feel like when I got back from Cuba, I picked up a torch, a baton of some sort, to hold on to as I set off on this path.  No sprint, this, but rather the closest thing to a long-term planned life goal that I've ever engaged in consciously.  I started strong.  I have the best support team in the whole entire universe.  I've lost my breath a few times, had some muscle cramps, had to lie down by the side of the road for a second to catch up with myself.  I've also passed markers.

Think about driving in a foreign territory.  You have good directions and a map, but things seem to be sliding awry, and you start to wonder if maybe you missed your exit, or took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.  Suddenly, you see a marker that you're on the right road, that you didn't miss anything; you're right on track.  Imagine the feeling of immense relief that comes in those moments.  Let it was over you right now, that feeling of being held, directed, lofted along your way.  That's a damned fine feeling, innit?

I'm on a path.  I'm making it by walking it.  A year and a half--almost two--into my long term plan and I have a value for thinking things through and being well-prepared that I never have before.  As a proffy friend of mine is wont to say, "Failing to plan is planning to fail."

The first roadsign that I passed on this trip was graduating with the 2nd BA.  I set out to do it, I defined my time frame, I met my goal (with a 3.93, no less).  When that happened, I felt the washing sense of relief and restored faith you get when you see the traffic sign a bit after you begin to worry you took a wrong turn.  It was my first big milestone on this path.

I'm set to run into another one tomorrow.  It's called the Graduate Records Exam.  Most schools want to see your standardized test scores before they deign to let you in.  I'm game, I can play along.  I've been studying since late May/early June and I'm about as ready for this as I can be (even though my math skills still give me the willies).  I'm hoping that as I pass the roadsign of the GRE tomorrow, I'll feel that same sense of relief and blessing.  I'm also hoping I get to pass that marker with at least a 500 on the math and 800's in language.  A path may be made by walking on it, but that doesn't mean I can't walk it in style, sashaying right on by with a wave in my hand and a smile in my eye. 

And that's where you come in.  If you're reading this, you've merged into my lane for a moment.  Share a breath with me, and send me some of that being held-ness, some of that assurance, the knowing of rightness that comes from seeing a milestone.  Love me up good, and tickle my left brain so it's wide awake tomorrow.  And maybe, just maybe, if we're doing this according to plan, you'll have read this silly blog post and seen something in it that gives you that sense of, "Whew!  I haven't missed my turn after all!"

We have a way of getting very intensely nutted up about things that resonate with Importance.  For example, the GRE.  Technically, at least in the maya, things like GRE scores are supposed to be significant to receiving acceptance from the schools of one's choice. WE focus on the scores as the central point of the intensity, and experience the pressure of performance, the drive to do well.  Thing is, it isn't about the scores themselves; that's just the symptom.

I studied for the GRE.  I've been studying at a gradually increasing pace since late May, preparing myself for this experience.  Good scores are not a guarantee of acceptance, but it seems that they help--or can.  My top four choices are Stanford, Boston U, Harvard, and UCSB; these places are not known for their lack of selectivity.  I was thinking that I really, really need good GRE scores, because without them, they might not see me as being a good fit for their respective programs.

See the problem already?  Might not see me, as opposed to who the hell am I and how is what I'm doing a natural extension of my being?  A fine line, perhaps, but one very, very well worth noting.

I created a good bit of tension around the test.  Some of that's wise: You want to be on your toes for important hings.  But I knew something was wrong with all this.  I was too focused on the scores, not what they might mean.  Then I realized: the tension I was feeling was the approach of a choice point, a pivotal juncture.  It isn' that the scores will either secure or ban me from the high holy halls of academia.  The real deal is that when one approaches a nexus of energies created by the conglomeration of previous choices, one comes to a fork in the road--a for with, sometimes, several options leading off into several possible realities. I've been up on theses culminating choice points before, but never quite so consciously as this time.

It isn't that the scores themselves matter.  They don't.  They're just numbers based on averages, tested in ways that not all people--even the brilliant ones, do well with.  What matters is that this choice point will open some paths and close others, just because of the chemistry involved.  This point will influence the next leg of my journey: How I take the test--NOT the scores--will tell the Universe how serious I am about my statements of intent, and create opportunities to express the truth of my being, and opportunities to learn more about who I really am under all the ego crap that tries to tell me what it thinks I am.  If I approach this situation from an integral place of maximum intent and involvement, if I am rightly aligned to this experience (or any other) then the result will automatically be aligned rightly, too.  If I'm misaligned, the whole situation is still perfect and will allow all kinds of opportunities for growth--but most of them will be the hard way.  All I have to do is my authentic best.  And if I don't do my best, I still get to be willing to accept the consequences of my choices as they stand.

When I realized tha it was my relationship to the GRE as epitomized through scores and not the scores themselves that mattered, I felt instantly rightness.  I felt liberated.  I did the Snoopy dance.  I realized in that moment that I had already aced the GRE.
________________________________________________________________

I took the GRe yesterday at 9 am.  The writing above occurred the night before the test.  I did practice runs of the full test, and noted my scores.  My scores from the real test were higher than any of the practice runs I did at home.  I went into the test ready; I even got up at 5 am so I could have breakfast and go do some yoga before the test.  Believe me, yoga at 7am is not the usual fare around here.  I'm not what you'd call a morning person, really.  But it was called for, and I believe helped enormously; at the elat, it diffused the physical body tensions created by the coming together of energies at a choice point.  I'd practiced a good bit at home, so sitting down in front fo the computers in the test center was no big deal.  I kicked off my shoes, crossed my legs in the chair, and created the comfort of home as I dove in to the test.  I had a goal for the math section; I beat it by 10 points.  I did about 10 points less well on the verbal that I'd like to have, but still perfectly acceptable.  I was actually kinda surprised when I reached the end of the test, like, "Oh, that's it?  I'm done?"

The choices have been made.  I reached the highest concentration of choice point energies, moved through them, and now the landscape is different.  Sure, the scores matter, inasmuch as they're one of the fronts on paper that people ill look at ino order to decide if they want me at their school.  But regardless of where I think I want to go or what I think I want to do, the way I handled this is what matters, because now I can have no doubt in me at all that I was rightly aligned, and the results of this alignment will be what moves me forward on my adventure.  Whatever happens now, it will be the right thing; it can't be anything else.

My dream position is Tool.  I want to be a good servant.  I want to be a good rock, drop myself in the right places at the right time, unconcerened about the ripples, focused only on being a good rock.  My dream context to do this in would be training teachers how to bring the discussion of religion back into the classroom, creating greater religious literacy in all traditions which will lead to the possibility for a truly plural culrture.  My job descrition would read something like "A good tool who helped create a more peacful world for everyone."

Okay, so I might be a simp, here, but I just realized something (yes, please do picture me like a South Park character at the end of an episode; an image is provided for your convenience in so doing).  Please note: my use of the terms good and bad are for relative ease in reading; the use of the terms are not value judgments.

I'm havin a great day.  Nothing special happened, nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary.  It's a good day because I'm rightly aligned; it's a good day because I chose a good day and have the grace to see that I got what i asked for, and that makes me happy.

It's a good day.  I'm happy.

I have bad days.  Some of them are pretty effing lousy, in fact, especially when my skinsuit acts up and I end up experiencing my life as painful.  When that happens, I tell someone about it.  I let my partner, for instance, know that I don't feel well, and this that and the other.  My partner hears all about my bad days, whatever the cause might be.  .

But today's not a bad day.  Today is a good day.  I am well.

So it occurs to me: go pounce on the partner.  A hug, a smile, a kiss.  When I feel crappy, it's all about the blah blah blah crappy blah.  But when I have a good day, my apparent default setting is to keep it to myself, to not bother to mention that I'm having a good day.

How back asswards is that?

I mean, it's not like I'm going to endure my life, "suffering" in silence.  That's not who I am.  I think what's more important is to bring the expression of good, happy, contended to fore, putting those things verbally into the awareness of loved ones.

But it's deeper.  When I'm in a good place, odds are my partner has a lot to do with it.  I am the most held, bestest cared-for person I know. 

When I'm in a bad day place, my partner hears about it and assumes that it has something to do with hir.  That's simply not true.  When I'm in a bad day place, it more often than not has nothing whatsoever to do with my partner.  NOTHING.

When I'm in a good day place, it almost always has something to do with my partner.  Some kind act, or a smile, or something.  And the assumption is, because I say nothing, that partner has nothing to do with it.

Again, I ask you, how back assward is that?

New Plan.

When happy: talk about it.  Ensure that partner [insert loved one, friend, cohort or colleague here] knows that it's a good day place, and that their existence has something to do with being in a good day place.  If nothing is obvious, exert gratitude and find something less obvious.  Surprise self with even more reasons to be grateful!  Woohooo!

In the event of a bad day place, disburse information about my state as needed in order to not lay a trip on [person].  Delivery of info only; no manipulation for emotional participation in bad day place.  Remind [person] that it has nothing to do with them (because whether immediately or ultimately, it's true that no one else is responsible for our choices). 

I think it's a good plan, and will help me learn how to move forward into the world from the happy place, instead of walking around backwards wondering why I can't see where I'
m going and why I'm not happy.  :)

When you pick up one end of a stick, you also retrieve the other end.

I don't remember who said that, but I'm finding it to be true.

I've been a student for a really long time.  I've also been a teacher for a really long time.  In an academic context--which is where I'm living now--I've been a student more.  In the kinky world, I've been a teacher more.  Still--it's only one stick.

There's an invisible line that separates a teacher from a student.  It has traits and characteristics; while being non-physical, it is observable through its traits.  The line doesn't separate the 2 conditions, though.  It unifies them.  And I'm straddling that line right now.  The line is that invisible in betweenness, like the space in between the curly and prickly parts of velcro, that holds the bond and it components in place.

A student without a teachers is hungry.  A teacher without students is a boring pedant with no friends.  Students and teachers are interdependent, one upon the other, for the fullness of experience on either end of the stick.

I'm not an academic student anymore.  Nor am I an academic teacher.  I'm in this in between place of being a teaching assistant.  I do some gruntwork, make the prof's job easier, do a lecture section or two, and mostly, I just show up and hold space.  I don't have homework anymore; now, I just have work to do at home related to the courses I'm helping with.  :)

This feels funny.  It's perfectly appropriate, though.  I'm in the middle of figuring out who I am now, so this seems like the ideal ground of discovery, the in-betweenness.  I love to teach.  It's one of those states of grace for me.  It isn't work.  It's sheer bliss.  I call that guidance.  But my saboteur keeps trying to tell me that I'm going to be in limbo (and the financial limbo that goes with this state of flux) forever.  It' always going to be like this, where I'm poor and working my ass off "for nothing."

My saboteur is not half as smart as it pretends to be.  It fails to be present to this moment, in which I am both student and teacher.  The payoff might not be in dollars, but the payoff is huge, and I miss it if all I'm looking for is dollar signs.  I figure that once I have a better idea of who I am in this place, the how and what of doing will unfold, and I have no doubt that the resources to move me along are right there, too.