Hip Halloween

My contribution to happy Halloween-iness!

All is better here today, the energy of that last week is subsiding.... I have a good book and all is right in the world (for tonight at least!)

Dangerous

So today it has all started.

The diet began at breakfast. My organic fruit, meat and veg arrived yesterday. So there was organic sausages with our healthy bacon and poached eggs. The last of our shrooms were cooked up with an organic onion. Then there was a glass of rice milk and a couple of little cheeses for my dairy and some toast for fibre.

I just hope I can keep the momentum up.... these breakfasts will only occur at the weekend so I have to find another way during the week and that is always where I struggle.

Now I have to plan the menu for the next little while so I can freeze the rest of the meat we don't need. And over all this looms the gym and I can feel myself start to get a bit nervous, even though the person doing my induction is a mate and F will be there too....

Life is also prompting me to get a swimming cosi. Well in fact I have no choice. A hen night in arrangements will contain a trip to a spa. I have found these things called swim dresses and I am going to get one, even though they are not overly cheap. I need to feel like the nasty skin at the tops of my legs is not fully on view. Of course losing weight should help my skin condition too. I have deformed sweat glands that get blocked easily so rubbing is enough to cause problems. i can't imagine having legs that don't rub.

Mel has been talking about dangerous thoughts and it was immediately obvious that this is one of mine. I can be thin, fit and healthy. That thought, taken seriously just requires so much. So much pain, so much effort, a good dose of misery too, in the short(ish) term at least. Oh and deprivation.... my poor sweet tooth!

On another note. Saw this video earlier and was just so impressed with the way the words have been used.

Soul Music

So I like music - I always have. F and I have way too many CDs. In fact I have too much music to fit on to my ipod - all 120G! More than I can ever really listen to...

I played instruments at school. I played the recorder. From soprano to bass. I reached grade five on the descant and three on the treble and I can't remember what grade in theory. I dabbled with the guitar. I could find my way around a piano. I picked up the flute and clarinet and put both down again very quickly. I love to sing too.

I lost music for many years. I know that may sound strange, but I truly did. A lack of working stereo. No working tape or CD player in my car. A lack of music that made my heart sing and a lack of money to correct that. So many reasons, but truly I lost myself for so many years.

F alsways laughs at me when I sing because i forget the words. I make them up. But I always remember the tune. Don't get me wrong, I love words, but mostly for what they can do, the stories they can tell, what they can communicate, not for the words themselves so much. I am coming to realise that I have been trained to think in words but my strengths lie elsewhere. i think words themselves have been blocking me somewhat.

I talk myself through journeying. I talk myself through thinking - I barely listen to the non-verbalised thoughts in my brain any more. I have almost forgotten that I have thoughts accessible by my conscious self that are not verbalised. Journeying had been a little foggy for me because of this, but drumming really, really really helped. Even then I still verbalised. This makes it very hard for the words of the other to come to me. In meeting with my Magpie, I found it so hard to follow any meaningful conversation. It was meaningful of course, but so much detail was lost....

Although a friend advised me to find a drumming circle. I had already been prompted in this direction sometime previously by a dream. I don't remember much from the dream but very clearly there was Florence and the Machines Drumming Song.

The chatter in my head is much quieter than it used to be, but it is still there and this leaves much more space for other things to come through. My whole being and spirituality is taking me in a different direction now.

Another night I woke with James Ring the Bells in my head. A song I have not heard in so many years. Listening to his music now, again, with a different worldview, I am convinced that his spirituality is similar to mine. The song shouted in joyful tones that I am walking the right path....

So I have been having many chats about dreams recently and in talking about new types of dreams, to me. I commented that I had a recent experience of images flashing quicker than I could register or even properly see them. I was referred to hypnagogia. Which made me realise that I am aware of this falling asleep time and have been for most of my life, but for me hypnagogia is not generally visual as I fall asleep, for me it is musical.

So last night I woke with a song and the realisation that music is where I receive so much guidance and truth. The precious songs that have played at important moments in my life and helped me through, or tell me I am loved, or make me just plain happy.... And last night I was gifted another song.

Fix You by Coldplay.

Reading the words this morning almost made me cry. I know it is probably about some relationship difficulties or some such but the words for me right now have a very different meaning. The offer of help and guidance and reassurance from whatever you wish to call it, that I am doing the right thing, right now, in trying to change my health completely. Now is the time.....

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I

Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Lost in Music

Can you imagine my relief when last night we got directed in to the very first car park? The one furthest away from the pit. The one they never expect you to walk to.... *grin*

Last night was so very beautiful. We kinda knew it would be. We knew it would be more chilled. We took a rug, wore lots of clothing and carried more with us. We took a picnic. We managed to find a spot on the grass slope at the back and from our rug we were lucky enough to have a good view of the stage inbetween standing people. We were able to stand when we wanted to...

So we sat (well I mostly sat, he mostly stood but we both did a bit of both) and listened to the beautiful sound of the Fleet Foxes. They are not a visual stage act. If i had had no view, it would not overly have mattered. They have a sound and live, it is just so full. They just stand on that stage and merge with their music. And I sat and blissed out and watched the domes change colour to the sides of the stage. Beautiful. Best of the three concerts as far as I am concerned...

Pendulum was great. I danced all the way through even! But that me is an old me... It's like I was there chasing a memory, having a holiday with an old me and while it was good, I won't go back too often! They were not on stage long enough though for the money and I felt short changed....

The crowd was mental! We were quite near the front at the beginning but as soon as it started the crowd kicked off. I expected to be pushed forward but we were pushed back as the young things started moshing and doing their best to maim themselves and others. But we had nowhere to go, we were to close to them, sandwiched between them and the crowd behind and unable to even raise a hand and in danger of much pain... So we moved back and had space to dance and a better view.....

The Flaming Lips were mad. More F's choice than mine so much of the music was unfamiliar but they were incredible, such stage presence. A good concert and a good show....

The crowds varied so much. Pendulum crowd was pushy, a bit rude. Waiting behind the barriers to get the park and ride and people were pushing through and it was a crush and no one could move when they got to the front.... Flaming Lips was fine, a nice varied crowd... but the Fleet Foxes crowd! This concert was rammed but yet the area emptied the quickest because everybody was being orderly and polite. There was no pushing, no shoving, and the only person running through was catching up to her mates after taking a photo.... The queue for the bus was genteel, an orderly queue with no pushing forward and plenty of space around each person.

But all this, what does it all say about me? Maybe I am not really a raver or a rocker any more. Maybe I am not very alternative either.... Maybe I am getting a bit more folky, maybe I have become a lot more chilled...... Maybe my kids won't believe I was ever cool.... but I will understand enough to let them be cool and dance to their own drum....

Fat Beat

We have been to a couple of open air concerts this last week... Last weekend was a cloudy night with patches of fog drifting across the land between the seas... In the pit the cloud and fog served to keep the warmth in and I was almost wearing too much, an unusual happening for me! But then I guess I was dancing too....

Last night in the pit was different, not as dancey, a beautiful clear evening that quickly got cold. I froze. I was not even warm by the time we got home.... What made it all worse was this. I can handle walking up and down the walls of the pit. It is tiring but I can do it. What I can not handle is there being no park and ride buses at the top. The road and the car parks spiral out from the pit, getting higher and higher as they go. Our car park was close but 600m uphill is too much extra for me, when cold, tired, sore. F had to go get the car and come down for me... And I was still cold by the time we got home....

Last weeks concert was so well attended that the very furthest car parks were full and the park and ride was going all night....

We go again tonight and I shall be wearing a lot more for sure. But now I am worrying about the walk etc.

Yesterday we went to see a friend and we briefly talked of weight in relation to health programmes etc. I said I was happy with my life but I won't mind being thinner and fitter but that I wasn't unhappy. I would like clothes that fit better and I would like not to face the health issues coming my way but the rest of it *shrug*. Yesterday evening kinda made me look at this again....

Am I happy? Being obese is a silent disability. One ignored. Glossed over. If we had stopped and said to the parking steward, could we park further down, closer because my good lady is fat and can not handle the walk would he have let us go further down? How embarassed would we be if we have to do that?

A wheelchair and no one blames the person. They might patronise, pity, avoid or any other number of discriminatory activities but there is a silent blame in being obese. You bought this on yourself. Get on and do what all these other people are doing and you will be less obese.

Thanks. That makes me feel great. Pain and misery are so motivating!

Not....

Distractions

Reya had a great post today (she does every day) but this post linked to a really fascinating, but pretty long article about the work of a guy called Eagleman. So fascinating did I find it that I have just ordered two of his books. His third will have to wiat because I only need so much non-fiction in my life each month and it was more expensive....

So I bought Incognito which is about all the tricks of the brain 'behind the cognitive illusion we call reality'. And just reading about him, you know this is going to be a feisty, fascinating read....

The second book is called SUM and is a little different. This guy has so many interests and spreads himself thin at times. This one looks at the afterlife and different possibilities through the medium of the short story. Apparently this book has been applauded by both the spiritual and scientific worlds. And by spiritual, apparently both aetheists and different religous groups loved it.... It sounds small but fascinating....

I then went on and bought a couple of fiction books to keep be topped up with the newest works of a couple of my favourites. Charlaine Harris's latest True Blood offering and Sarah Addison Allen's The Girl Who Chased the Moon....

Then I bought second hand CDs of a couple of bands..... Underworld and Orbital. Taking me back to my younger and wilder days, although I still love the chilled mood of much of it and it makes me want to move too....

All this serves to distract me from what I should be doing. Painting. Half of the floor is ready for it's second coat. There has been delays. I had bought a paint called Blue Babe for the floor but on tuesday I started painting and was horrified. It clashed and didn't fit at all. i called F and he agreed.

Yesterday there was much messing about with paint chips, holding them here, putting them there, folding them up and propping them against the wall. All the colours we liked best for the room ended up being grey hued and gentle with hints of green, purple or blue. Because of the sea theme we went with one called Pebble Drift which is a blue / grey.

It was mixed specially for us and I slapped some on earlier, straight over the old grey paint, the horrible blue babe and the splodges of white. I know it needs another coat, but for now the coat is befuddling me cos I can't work out what colour it really is.... but I like the hue anyway, which ever of the mottled patches turn out to be it's true colour or if it has not revealed itself yet....

As much as I now love my bedroom, I will be glad when we finish and can actually use my nice new wardrobes and put clothing away.... It is all so time consuming. but now getting out of bed is harder to, because just being in bed looking at colour I love is enticing....

In theory I know colour plays a big part in our lives, but you never remember quite how big a part until you change it.

Digging in the Dirt

Sometimes life throws you a few different strands all at one time and because they come close together they can touch and recombine and form a new piece of thread within the weave.

Thread One
I had an overwhelming urge to listen to a particular song on the way home, Peter Gabriel's Digging in the Dirt. It had been an interesting day, lots of stress flying around and I wanted a high energy song to shout out the lyrics to on the way home. I find dark, emotional, loud music cathartic. They make me happy. All that energy and release. Not sad, not dark, not to me.

and I got to wondering about the lyrics. It has two distinct emotional overtones. One angry, raging and the other softer, melancolic.

Something in me, dark and sticky
All the time it's getting strong
No way of dealing with this feeling
Can't go on like this too long

This time you've gone too far
This time you've gone too far
This time you've gone too far
I told you
I told you
I told you
I told you
This time you've gone too far
This time you've gone too far
This time you've gone too far
I told you
I told you
I told you
I told you

Don't talk back,
Just drive the car
Shut your mouth
I know what you are
Don't say nothing
Keep your hands on the wheel
Don't turn around
This is for real
Digging in the dirt
Stay with me, I need support
I'm digging in the dirt
To find the places i got hurt
To open up the places i got hurt

The more I look, the more I find
As I close on in, I get so blind
I feel it in my head, i feel it in my toes
I feel it in my sex, that's the place it goes

Digging in the dirt
Stay with me, I need support
I'm digging in the dirt
To find the places i got hurt
To open up the places i got hurt

Digging in the dirt
To find the places we got hurt
Digging in the dirt
To find the places we got hurt
Digging in the dirt
To find the places we got hurt
Digging in the dirt
To find the places we got hurt

And I started to get bits of meaning and so I read other people's interpretations online and I have a slightly different view on it.... (not veyr different but just a little). Cycles of abuse. Abused become abuser. The angry bits are him as abuser and abused both at once. The sadder parts are him as himself, dealing with and looking at himself.

Then I watched the video.



and it makes me think further on this. There are sequences with him as an adult, swatting flies around a woman, which looks very like domestic violence. There are sequences of him as a child, a victim of an adult, just like him. The child becomes buried in the dirt. There are also sequences of him as an adult buried in the dirt. At one point, mushrooms grow above him and spell out help. It all speaks so loud to me.

The chains of karma. But the thing about this song is that it is a cry for help, for change, for the breaking of the chain. It is a release. A breaking of the chain. In the video, the man ends up on top of the dirt, wearing a bright white suit. Clean. Free. I know many people find this song dark but I never have, there is a joy in that breaking of the chain, a less than shining joy, but a joy all the same.

Thread 2
And then i read the lovely Suzi's post of today. Ah karma...... breaking those chains. it helped me understand the song, put the pieces together. It made me think about my own life too and some of the things I have read about karma.

Thread 3
The Deverry books by Katherine Kerr are a fantasy series, a long one. They tell the story of a group of souls that reincarnate and slowly work through the karma of a situation that was mishandled in one of their lives together. The thing is, that original situation and it's effects has a ripple effect outwards, so there are a whole host of situations that develop as a result throughout their lives and those ripples impact others and further than that, countries and..... The stories are a celtic knot, the lives flowing through and around, back and forth.

So where does this leave me? What am I thinking about right now? I am wondering if the chain of my own abuse is alive and well or if it has been broken. I wonder at that chain, I think the link had already been weakened by the actions of us both in previous lives or maybe as a result of the ay we chose to live in this life. It could have been worse.

it's effect on me though was pretty catastrophic. I turned to drugs to disguise the fact my world had fallen apart, nothing in it really made sense any more. I eventually had a nervous breakdown and my glandular fever / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome flared up again. I got help and I read and I rebuilt my world, block by painful block. Being a logical sort, I had to reconstruct my understanding of how the world works. That narrow Christian ethic I grew up with had made my world too black and white to cope with grey.

I have reached a point where the memory no longer hurts. Where the changes in my life wrought by the consequences of it have ceased to be negative and i can see they have bought me to be a person I am happy with, living in a way I am happy with, and my life is pretty good. and I would not be here without that one singular event. Is this enough to break the chain? Is this forgiveness?

but the dirt, it clings. It is hard to let go and where does the dirt end and me begin? Am I raggedy tree climbing urchin with dirt on my chins as I climb the tree of life? Or do I need a damn good bath still, to make me clean? the effects linger on, maybe they always will. F and I feel their echoes in our relationship, the difference is love and care. Those ripples are something we face together as best we can.

I am not sure I will ever be able to listen to Digging in the Dirt in the same way again. i won't enjoy it any less. I may even enjoy it any more, as i belt out those words. release. clean. free.

Something Different

Three great songs - rather different from what I normally listen to but just soooo great....

Apple Musicini

I have spent much of the weekend playing with my iPod. I wish I had known what I know now, back when I started my iPod adventure.

I would have ensured any tracks and albums it did not recognise had their details properly entered. I would have ticked the compilation box for all those CD's with the work of more than one artist. I would have removed references to disc numbers from the title of albums so that multi disc albums sat comfortably in one slot rather than several. I now have just under 70gb of music on my iPod - nearly enough to listen to continuously for a month with no repeats... Except there would be quite a few because tracks appear in more than one place a lot of the time - compilation albums....

Sorting out my music retrospectively takes time.

I learnt that you can only sync from one computer without losing everything. So I bought a hard drive and moved all my music on to that. Now, as long as I have plenty of time, I can sync from any pc I like. It also saves me from having all that music on my pc or my laptop (not sure my laptop could actually contain it all).

but not all the music made it's way on to the hard drive so I had to wade through and find which files I had missed. I had added much music since the last time I had synced so it is taking quite a while. I have also been sorting out playlists, because the music collection is so vast now, finding similar tracks can be tricky....

I knew when I bought my iPod Classic that I would not fill it (at least, not this year) but that I needed that size.... the idea is that all these CD's will find their way in to boxes and move out of the way (if we get the attic boarded, they can go up there). Can you imagine what it was like trying to find a single CD amongst all of them? Finding a single song can sometimes be tricky but I can sort and search now!

I thought that I would start downloading music rather than being wasteful and buying CDs. This is not to be anytime soon. Buying CDs is very much cheaper than downloading music. I know they justify this by saying it is a licence for five copies but I don't want five copies. I would use up one of my licences no doubt just getting the file where I wanted it to be! I remember a friend telling me they lost all their music just by changing their computer over the years.....

I hate the thought of losing my music collection - if something happened to my hard drive... *shudder* but at least I can always go back to the beginning if anything happens and download all my CDs again. OK so it took me weeks.... But I can do it if I have to.

I have come to resent and admire apple in equal measures. They have secured their future for sure.... Would I buy another iPod? Not sure. I had to buy an iPod and a hard drive to not clog up my pc, I believe other music thingies allow you to move the music in both directions. How much easier is that? I understand why Apple set things up the way they did, they were very creative. They make millions...

I sit here and plot what gaps in my music collection I am going to plug with the help of Amazon. I am in love with music... And looking at what I like best, maybe I should have been a punk! I remember as a kid being in a town square with my Mum and staring at the punks with awe and amazement, I loved their multi-colour mohicans. My Mum would very quickly tell me to stop staring....

Oops.. I was supposed to dye my hair blue this weekend.... The purple is fading and the bleach streaks will soon show their true orangey colour.

Lost in Music

I stopped listing to music.

There are so many reasons for this. Old tapes gone bad. Splitting up with an Ex with such a good music collection that I had not bothered buying any in a long time. F having so many CDs that mine got lost amongst his (and a lot of them are toot as they were freebies). No working tape or CD player in my car. Lack of money to buy the music I wanted on CD.... and it goes on...

But then I got a new car... with a CD player... and a little socket for plugging in an ipod.

This sparked my interest in music. Finally I had somewhere to listen to music of my own, whether F liked it or not. (This isn't meant to make F sound bad but I do have a slightly less mainstream interest in music than he does and I adore hi so much that sometimes I let things slide when I shouldn't. F actually likes far more of my music than I ever suspected!)

So I bought an ipod and started filling it with F's huge number of CDs. All of a sudden I could find my music again! Then I started buying music again and I also discovered colleagues with similar tastes in music to me and their suggestions helped as well.

All of a sudden my musical world has gone BoooOOOMM! And it is really quite nice, because I always loved music and I have no idea how I forgot that.

I grew up on old style rock really I guess. Some with a more up to date slant, such as Bon Jovi, but I grew up listening to all sorts from Hendrix to Poison, Pink Floyd to Yes. So many trends in rock to explore...

Then I met a boy who was a year or two older than me, my first real crush. Unfortunatley it did not end well but he did make me a mix tape and exposed to me to some really interesting music that my sheltered life had not thrown my way.

My sister was a Goth by this time with a love for the Cure, All About Eve and the Primitives. I followed in her footsteps but that tape threw me onto the alternative side of things. I discovered the Pixies, my most favouritest band ever. They have since become a cult band to the next generation and my old vinyl is probably worth a bit now.

Then I started my A-Levels and my world opened up. Grunge exploded into life - Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Garbage, Alice in Chains. Indie was sooo strong then, fuelled by the NME and Melody Maker, before Brit pop stole it's name and it began to die. Rage Against the Machine. These were the groups I listened to as I turned into an adult. Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More and more, but I still loved gothy stuff and the Sisters of Mercy and the Cult were big favourites.

Then I left home. Other influences hit me. Rave and techno. Orbital and the Prodigy to begin with. A couple of years later i fell in love with a Raver. He had gothy mates as well as raver mates from Uni and six varied individuals lived in a houee together with additional boyfriends and girlfriends in residence. They included DJs amongst their numbers.

At this time Goth and Techno shared a lot, which may surprise people now, I don't know. There was a crossover and this spawned cybergoth. It's influences are seen in other areas such as Steampunk i think as well.

Shortly after this I left the city and moved and lost contact with my music. For a time...

..but music sings in the soul and is always waiting there for you, when you want it.

So has my taste changed? Not as much as you might think.

Has music changed? No, all of a sudden many of the aspects I loved the most have been given new life with Emo, Skate Punk, Twilight and Vampires. That industrial vibe is alive and well and living happily with cybergoth and steam punk in a huge burst of creativity fuelled by manga.

So the music that sings to me has not grown stale and old but has found a voice in a new generation and I love it all. I love the mixing of rock with dance. Linkin' Park, Crazytown, Good Charlotte.... I love the vibrancy and energy and still, my tastes are not quite the norm...

So what does my music say about my soul? That I feel intensely and I like to dance...