I’m tired. Eliot wouldn’t go to sleep. We nursed for about an hour, ugh!! I think we were both having trouble shutting off our brains. And now I am back to work much later than expected, feeling tired and discouraged. It’s all too large. I worked intensively on addressing the question of what the equivalent of the 120 books, and a specialization of 100 years was for my PhD – what my comps list would be. And it’s been a challenge.

And I just re-looked at the areas of study that I developed at the onset of this work – out of the Fielding University PhD in Educational Leadership – and it feels foreign, practically indecipherable. And I made a stupid web of all the goo I am entangled in and it left me feeling entangled in goo (especially after Al reminded me that I make these ridiculous webs every so often and I’m still me doing the same things in the same way, like making colorful webs that lead nowhere)

And now I just feel lost and tired and sad and a little hopeless.

I can’t stand specialization. For one reason, because I know I can’t possibly specialize in all of the things I am interested in one or even two or three lifetimes. Another, specialization itself is problematic. It separates connected things. It’s a way of wielding power, but is rarely a way of sharing power. It’s not how I live or think or understand…

And here I am – I can define the terms, I can make the meaning… And I’m stumped. Partly stumped because my feelings are so hurt by the fact that I feel like I have to make up a whole language to explain myself, to explain things that are completely obvious…

Well, if they’re completely obvious – I certainly don’t have to explain them to myself.

Oh yeah…!!

It’s amazing the process of getting to define ones own terms…

So let’s say I don’t have to convince anyone (an operating principle that sneaks up on me every now and then), and I don’t have to translate for anyone, and I don’t have to take in to account anyone else’s rules…

Well, then the first thing I would do is assert that everything I do is connected to a set of deeply held core values. My core values are Life (which involves Change), The Sacred (which involves Life and is a special way of recognizing the unique experience of being a part of a whole), Sustainability (which involves Life and the Sacred and is a way of taking care of and treating both with respect), Family (which is the practice of sustainability), Edgewalking (which is a recognition of my particular piece of the whole which is a Queer Mestiza piece that involves Shape-shifting, Bordercrossing and that makes innovation, growth, change, options possible not only because of what I see but simply because of what I am). Life, the Sacred, Sustainability, Family, and Edgewalking. Which really, is just Life.

My goal and purpose is to embody those values throughout my lifetime in every way I can think of. Everything I have done, seems to be born out of these values. I refine the language every now and again but the energy has been clear all along.

For example, I remember talking to my parents about the theatre when I was young; my plans to be an actress. The same spirit that spoke with such light, such passion and vision, is what I name the Queer Mestiza spirit today. Of course there is a ton of cultural mythology from all over the world about the person on the fringe being the person with special insight. The blind, the artist, the crazy, the queer, the female, the very young, the very old…

All I know is that I am one of those people and so I just have to keep doing what I am doing.

And it’s hard and lonely and freaky and weird. Especially since Edgewalking and Sustainability often act like they’re fighting. They’re not actually, if the ultimate is Life, which of course, includes death. There is no conflict between Edgewalking and Sustainability. They need each other.

So blah, blah, blah – as usual the BIG HUGE picture is no problem. And the microcosom is pretty comfy too. What really challenges me is the medium view. Exactly the span I am working on right now…

Maybe it’s hard because it doesn’t matter. Maybe, quite possibly, it doesn’t matter because there is nothing I need to do. Maybe there is no need for a five year plan because there is nothing from beyond that needs to be planned…

Existential dilemma?

No! It may seem a paradox that I am both fully committed to an organized, eco-system cosmology and yet I resist the obvious logical step of determinism. My picture book suggests a certain determinism – that the seeds become certain trees and that there is a beautiful organization to the whole that the pieces of it can’t fully… But maybe it’s not finished yet, maybe I haven’t figured out a good way to get the paradox in there. Or apparent paradox. But that’s just because the metaphor is imperfect. Humans aren’t seed pods in the same way Sarah is (or, heck – I don’t know, maybe Sarah the seed pod has existential dilemmas, I don’t know). For the human to embody it’s destiny it must learn/grow /change – it has to innovate, it necessitates and relies on, variety.

So there are options. Always options. Maybe that’s what I need to do – give Sarah a choice… Oh yeah…

Okay. There. Much better. And changing ones mind always helps…

But where does that leave me. Five year plan? What would Sarah the seed pod say, knowing what she knows with the benefit of perspective?

She’d say plan away! It can be a fun way to get form here to there. The gestational period of things does require some scope and working with that is like riding the wind.

Okay, well, I need to get published a lot more.

And I need to keep doing everything I’m doing. Which is a lot. I could stand to make a big list of all that I am doing, not just in the tracking sense of my musical notation system, but by taking a step back and looking at it all and seeing what has taken shape. And then I could just use my friend time to spread it all out nice and easy.

In fact I need a good sizeable chunk of time with which to look at it and lay it all out.

So that’s what I’m going to do next…