Blue Snails, Purple Elephants

So headaches make me think about things, unfortunately, like the fact that I missed the 4:30 ponder over purple elephants. Damn, I'm pondering it now. *I hate you Jackie*... *not really, you're awesome*. But I find myself thinking about little things like not being able to find the asprin, and, the fact that although all the lights in the house are comfortably dim, I find myself staring at the blinding computer screen. Don't worry, I don't understand it either.

And I keep thinking about my dream last night. It is infinitely better than the last one I had, I'm glad to say.

The last one I had (that I can remember) was the other night when I dreamt that, while on my way to work, being driven by my mother curiously in a mini-van and running late, we got on the topic of Jason Mraz. And as we're talking about him, there he is, right outside my window. We've pulled into the shopping plaza where my dream Starbucks is and he's walking toward the building, right there in front of me. So, of course, I gawk. He notices and waves. So I hop out of the car with the pretext of going to my job, but of course I could care less about making coffee at that moment, besides I was late anyway. So I stroll not so casually over to where Jason is meeting his buddies, everyone from San Diego. Billy was there, so were Aaron, Justin, Keith, Toca, Jessie, and so on. So I say hello and am recognized by a few of the Hot Monkey Lovers, who introduce me to Jason. We're chatting and things are going spiffy when I notice a spot in the sky over Jason's left shoulder. I try to ignore it but as we're chatting it is getting bigger. I finally point it out and ask, "should I be concerned about that?" Jason turns and sees it and says, casually, "That's just a falling star." But by this point it looks like a volcano vortex has opened up in the atmosphere and lava and sparks are defying gravity and flowing out from this thing, spreading across the sky. Then, suddenly, the sparks shoot straight down on top of us and I wake up in a moment of intense searing burning pain. Not so great.

However, in the dream I had last night, Jason and I ran into each other at a party/get together type thing. It was really mellow and fun. We were chilling on the couch. My dream Jason was absolutely hilarious being very ADHD and easily excited. We were talking about something, to which he said something and I stuck out my tongue at him, laughing. He then gasped "You have your tongue pierced?" and grabbed me and the rest of the dream was pretty much us swapping spit. Dream Jason is a mighty fine kisser if I do say so myself. ; )

Despite this great night's sleep I had, I find myself with mondo-headache from heckle. I blame the psych and calc yesterday. Or it could have been the stats this morning... or the humanities this afternoon... or for that matter the bio tonight. Or I could simply be stressing about work this weekend. Afterall, the last time I went to work the sky imploded.

This is my moment of Zen. This is when and where I was truly happy for the longest I have been in my memorable life. I am selfish and want this happiness always, now that I have tasted it. So far I have had no success in keeping the feeling, but uncomprehensible success in finding it in me over and over again. I know it's always there, I just have to figure out how to see it when I really need it.

So, tonight I had a revelation. I took an exam in Calculus for which I didn't study. I failed, miserably. While walking back to my car, a little bummed because I thought I understood the material, I noticed that the grass was an amazing shade of green. The sunset was sepia, pink, and vibrant blue, and the crickets were singing a concerto just for me. I realized that in the big picture one exam didn't really matter. Yes I was going to study and try harder next time, but there was no reason to be upset over a simple test. There are so many more important things happening in the world right now. Soon after I realized this I felt a calm I haven't felt since I took this photo in July. I think I'm just starting to understand what this calm, this Zen, truly is.

I think this calm is God. Now, I need to get something straight. I am not, and never truly have been, a religious person. I have never believed in a creator. I've tried desperately to believe because I wanted something to tell me that if I did this or that I would be happy. All I really crave is happiness. But God, in the denominational sense has always been like a myth to me. I was brought up thinking that God is like Santa Claus. You believe in him because it makes you and other people happy and brings you closer together, but in the end you truly know it is a simple story. It's not true.

Now wait another second before you judge me. I have never thought anyone was wrong about their religion. I simply have never accepted religion into my own heart. I believe that when you die, you die. That's it. It's not nice to think about- but it really makes you appreciate what time you have alive.

But in the back of my mind I have always noticed little things. Little questions have popped up for which I don't have any answers. When I went to the Sistine Chapel I felt something in the air, some palpable electricity. When I sat in science class and was told that negative charges attract positive charges I wondered why. "That's just what happens." I wondered what we were made out of and then learned about cells. I wondered what they were made out of and learned about atoms. I wondered what they were made out of and learned about protons, neutrons, electrons. But I still wonder. What? Why? I fell back on science because I had no faith. But even Einstein said that the more you learn about the nature of things, the more you have to believe in a higher power. It's all to simple in its complexity to have no meaning.

I don't believe I was created by a higher power. I don't believe in God in a Christian sense. I believe in people, humanity. For a long time, when someone would ask me about my religion, this is the response I would give- until tonight.

Tonight this calm I felt, and had been feeling sporadically since my impromptu trip to California, developed into a sense of self. All of a sudden I felt important. Not because I could do something to change the world, but because I could stop and appreciate the world as it was. I stopped before getting into my car, to appreciate the sunset; the formations of the clouds, the sounds of the bugs and birds singing, the scent of the distant rain clouds. Maybe we weren't created by a God. My faith in people has led me to think, perhaps we created the concept of God itself. Through story and myth we have created every religion in the world. I've always believed this... but tonight I find myself thinking. Well fine, we created God, but that means God exists. Perhaps God is not the diety we associate the term with commonly in Christian and Jewish beliefs, or in Muslim, or Egyptian, or Buddhist. Maybe the God I feel is simply energy. That's why God is in everything and everyone. In people, God is the creative and emotional and physical energy we are so distinct for posessing. In animals, God is the drive for survival, and the peace we see in the domesticated, and the drive to keep living in the abused and neglected. In plants, God is the adaptability, the energy to devote the lifeform to search for water and light and nutrients. The struggle to stay alive is God in all life.

In the lifeless God is present. A boulder, let's say. Anyone who has ever taken a physics class can tell you that when you stand on a boulder, it is pushing back up on you to keep you in one place. It is actually exerting a force on you that is equal to your mass times the force of gravity. And it is pushing you up at the same time you are pushing down on it. Wait, wait, let me get this straight. This boulder is pushing you? This boulder just sitting there is pushing up on you? Why yes, and the force with which it is pushing is actually changing every second. Because if you are standing on the boulder and someone tosses you a camera, the boulder has to adjust how much it's pushing on you to incorporate the mass of the camera. If it pushed too little, it breaks. If it pushes too much you go flying into the air. We all know that neither of those things is very likely at all to ever happen. So this boulder is never wrong. The boulder knows how much force to counter yours with. How? God. I can say there is energy in everything, and there is. Afterall, light is energy- so colors (our interpretation of light) are God if God is energy.

The award winning novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig, delves into the topic of what God is. Pirsig equates God with "the Buddah" or the life force. I'm interpreting pretty much the same thing. Yes, I believe in evolution. Why couldn't God have had a role in it? Why couldn't it have been God, energy, that enticed certain individuals to breed with other with certain characteristics, hense leading to variations in the population which contributed to natural selection and adaptation? Survival of the fittest- couldn't it be God which inspires a desire for survival to begin with. In fact, instead of energy, couldn't God be this desire itself. Everything exhibits this desire, even that boulder which pushes back on you so you won't break through it.

I realize I'm rambling. This is my first day believing in God, you'll have to excuse me.
Yesterday I had everything figured out. I thought I had everything back together after this trip to California shifted my entire perspective on the world. All of a sudden I'm shifted again. It's hard to be rattled like this. Maybe I think too much.

Anyway. You may be surprised to know that even with this newfound conjecture about God, I'm still not happy. I was leaning away from assuming I have a chemical imbalance for a long time, hoping it was going to be a change of heart that would ultimately be my saving grace. But even after seven years of pain and finally finding grace herself, I'm hurting. I think I'll talk to my psychology professor. Afterall he is a lisenced psychologist. He may have some insight for me.

I leave you tired, confused, and broken, trying to piece myself together again. Maybe my desire to do so is my own little piece of this God I found.

I'll say, to sum myself up, that the God I mean is the "Good" in things and people.
And before bed tonight I'll be sure to listen to "God Rests in Reason" at least twice (once to listen, once to sing along).

Reaction Paper

We were supposed to write a reaction paper for my Mythology class. The subject was Katrina. We could write it using any style we wanted. I don't know why I chose this one.

She sighs in relief because the big storm everyone worried about is going away from where she lives. But why is everyone still so upset? She doesn't understand until Mommy turns on the T.V. and they watch the bodies floating down the streets.
So she is afraid again. She knows what this is. This is death; this is pain. She felt this tension before, years ago, when she thought Daddy was caught in those pretty buildings when they burned and crashed to the ground. Really he was in Virginia and had to take a week to drive home because they wouldn't let anybody fly. She didn't mind so much because she just wanted him home safe. But when she sat with her mommy and older brother and watched all those people jump from a million stories up because it was better than burning Mommy said, she couldn't comprehend the tension in the air.
It wasn't until she succumbed to her own inate morbid curiosity a little while later that she began to understand. She looked it up online. "Death," enter. Articles, pictures, websites devoted to graphics. "Murder," enter. Blood, stories. She felt sick but she couldn't look away. Car accidents, 9/11, World War II, Suicides, Homocides. It all hit home when that video cropped up, the one that still hurts her to think about. She only watched a few seconds of it, but they're burned into her mind. She didn't think the title was true. There couldn't be a video of a real murder online. So it hit home when she saw the knife pierce that boy's throat. That brutal gurgle he emitted suddenly echoed in her mind as she sat with her mommy once again watching the bodies from this big storm float down the gutters, line the sopping streets.
And she learns that these people had an opportunity that the other people never did. They could've moved away. They could've left before the big storm came to where they lived instead of where she lives. But that's where she gets confused again. This thing called money that she's hearing about more and more. This thing called the government that she thought she understood when they taught her about it in school. This thing called racism. This thing called disaster relief. This thing called war.
So she knows this is death and this is pain, but it is all so overwhelming and confusing that, as she sits wishing she could help those people get off their roofs and not drown in the swirling waters, she feels as helpless as a child.