summer lovin'

Today I wake up feeling inspired about my path for this summer cycle. My semester ends May 14 and I’m ready to stop putting all of my energy into my brain and begin to give to my body and my spirit. I found out that I can fulfill my GAIN requirement (32 hours per week of “gain approved activity” and staying home with your child over summer break is not one of the options) by volunteering! That means that I can get paid child-care to do volunteer work. Now when in my life am I going to be in a position to do that if not now? Even if I did get a mind numbing job slinging lattes for assholes, I would be making not much more than I get in public aid and my “welfare clock” would still be ticking. Besides, working in the non-profit sector would allow me to network and learn from the people who know how to run non-profits! Imagine if I could write a grant proposal to get the funds to buy some property and build a straw-bale, sustainable and healing in a holistic way type of assisted living facility for people who have low-socioeconomic status! I might even be able to use the experience to credit one of my independent studies that I have to do next semester. I’m thinking of volunteering at the LGTBQ center in WeHo and the Hollywood chapter of NOW. Hmmm. I wonder if service learning weekends at the perma-culture ranch in Santa Barbara would count. I’ve already made my “volunteer resume.”
The other thing that I want to do is be in my body. In the middle of the school semester, I really lose that and I let myself live in my brain while my body eats donughts. Well, now that I have terrible allergic reactions to bread, I won’t be eating donughts, or pizza, or cheeseburgers. I want to eat delicious foods that look beautiful and nurture my body while giving me pleasure. I see myself sipping the milk out of a coconut while eating raviolis made out of thinly sliced radish and filled with macadamia butter. I want to switch my coping mechanism of smoking Parliments to breathing. Yes, just breathing. Yoga, walking on the beach, hiking, kravmaga, swimming, and biking are going to take up hours of my day. I’m going to talk to my body, be in my body, celebrate my body, give love to my body, and get the exercise I need to feel healthy and balanced. Not to mention have the opportunity to connect to nature on a daily basis. One of the wonderful things about California is that one gets the opportunity to turn their back on the city and experience the nurturing land and ocean just by doing a 180.

Which brings me to nurturing my spirit. My spiritual practice has been pretty much null lately, except I do still bless myself in the shower and pray to the parking Goddess every day. This summer, I want to care for a little herb garden on my front porch, I want to play my guitar in the sun and learn all of the songs that make me feel really light when I sing them. I want to buy a “writing hat”(maybe one like old country blues musicians wear?) and go to unusual places where I can drink coffee and type all of my memories and stories and character makeups into my little, black computer, or read all of my favorite authors. In fact, I want to spend just as much time writing and reading for pleasure as I do being in my body. But I never want to write at home, I always want to go somewhere and write. Anyplace would do, a coffee shop, a dive bar, under a tree, in front of a museum. It will be an adventure.
Even further I want to ritualize everything. Especially the mundane. How do I make doing laundry magickal? Could I fold extra love and protection into my kid’s clothes? On the full moons I want to hike in the mountains; on the new moons I want to create astral temples and vision boards. I want to pretend that I’m on vacation all of the time, and go see all of the things in L.A. that tourists see and I take for granted. I have never taken my picture in front of Grommes Chinese with those cement hand and foot prints of old time Hollywood stars. I think it’s time.