Most Americans spend the prime of their life working 40+ hours a week working jobs in order to pay for expenses and buy stuff. This is so common, that it is very accepted as the norm, and often heavy judgement falls on those who chose to find a different way. Even though I am currently very busy raising a small child, I even get judgement from people when they find out I don’t have a job. As if taking care of a baby 24/7 is somehow lazy, immoral or unpatriotic

I was probably about 15 when I realized one of the big dilemmas about the workaday world. The more you work, the more money you have and the less time to spend it in quality ways. That’s so obvious, it almost doesn’t bear stating, but it’s worth thinking about. Why do we, as Americans, value working and buying stuff over having quality time for ourselves? What’s so great about “stuff” that we are willing to give away our entire lives to get it?

I would hardly call myself a lazy person. I worked 30 hours a week through much of college, and during the time I didn’t work, I was working on school-related projects during nearly every minute of my day (as an art major, it’s pretty easy to fill every waking moment, and even skip sleep, to follow your passions). After graduation, I worked continuously full-time, and for nearly a year I worked 60-70 hour weeks. I worked nearly my whole pregnancy, even though sitting in a chair all day was very painful, and I was having severe pregnancy-related concentration issues.

I have always been a hard worker and yet, I’ve really come lately to wonder about this whole way of life so many Americans have accepted as the norm. Why is it worth working so much? I understand that our ancestors had to work hard to survive, but do we? With all of the modern conveniences, why aren’t our lives more convenient? Many people have difficulty making time for the quality things in life, like family and community, so what is all that work for?

The more I contemplate it, the more the American Dream and Way of Life seem pretty shady to me. So, when I found this article on the blog No Impact Man, I felt like my suspicions were confirmed. We’ve been had!

I invite you to check out The Gospel of Consumption

I’m very sorry for getting behind in posting! Time has gotten away from me (and I was away from internet for nearly 5 days!)

I will be better!

Dappled is one of my favorite words. Sunshine become dapples when it filters down through the leaves of trees. Trees are probably my favorite things in the entire world. I love trees. That’s why I’m going to move to Asheville, NC in April. Asheville is a special place. It has lots of trees, liberals, pagans, and artists. I’ve been looking for a place like Asheville for many years. There, I hope to spend many days living in beautiful dappled light.

I invite you to check out this website: Notes from the Universe and sign up to receive e-mails. I signed up for 5 a week, and nearly every one I get cheers me up.

Here’s an example of a note I’ve gotten:

“Haven’t I always shown up with the right idea, at the right time, to spin your head and rock your world, when you least expected it, Virginia?
Give yourself this rest you’ve earned.

You’re my butterfly,
The Universe”

(as far as signing up for what days to get your notes, the M-F option the website lists gives you one e-mail a week, on a random day to surprise you. If you want every day like me, click all of the days of the week)

I invite you to check out this cool blog:
No Impact Man

There’s a lot of great ideas on here about sustainable living. I heard about this blog from my friend Trish. I haven’t read everything on here (at least not yet), but I have read enough to be able to comfortably endorse it. Check it out! It’s great. This guy (Colin Beavan) has recently advocated such things as the menstrual cup for women and the straight-razor for men to reduce household waste. This blog started as a project with him, his wife and his daughter, to create a household in New York City that created zero net waste. Of course, it’s nearly impossible to create no waste at all in a consumer society. Any products you buy created some waste in their creation. But, to try to make up for any waste they couldn’t avoid, they try to volunteer with some organization that helps clean up the air or land, etc.

I have always felt guilty, my entire life, about how wasteful I am. The amount of garbage I toss makes me feel horrible, because I know it’s just going to sit in a landfill. I’m still learning how to recycle. Basically, I’m in the really early stages of learning how to live sustainably, and decrease my impact. I’m in the early stages, and so I’m extra glad that there are online resources like this for learning how to live in a way that I can live with!

I don’t know about y’all, but I had a pretty weird week! The week before was a little bizarre, too! I’m not the only one! I know of a few people who have also been having strange times lately. (If you are also having an unusually weird life right now, I’d love to hear about it!) Today is Friday the 13th, too, which just adds to the strangeness!

One shining example of this energy in my life is that twice in this same week, my bus card disappeared in the same YMCA locker room (the same locker, in fact). Nothing else disappeared, including other cards in the same pocket. Both times, it stressed me out, but both times things worked out just fine, and I got home safely.

Also, my encounters with people have been weird this week. People on the bus have been a lot ruder than normal (and less likely to do nice things like give up their seat). People seem more spaced out and grouchier. Of course, great things have happened too. I caught that Wayne Dyer show the other day. I had a conversation with cute security guard! Joy has been doing lots of amazing new things (including cruising!). Today, I ran into a friend on the bus, unexpectedly, which was very cool. He said the Belmont bus was “Synchronicity Express.”

Overall, I’d say the net effect of all this weirdness hasn’t been positive or negative, at least in a short-term sense. For every little thing that’s gone wrong, some other little thing has gone surprisingly well. I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything in the transaction, although I’m a little weary of all the weirdness! I guess it’s great practice for this “receptivity” living I’m trying to do!

According to a website I’ve really grown to like, keepingtime.net, all of this is partly because we are in a mirror wave right now. Basically, the Keeping Time calendar is a modern interpretation and synthesis of the Mayan calendar along with Astronomy and Astrology. I was introduced to it by my friend Kari, and I find it is often freakishly accurate. I love it, and I invite you to check it out!

The mirror wave (waves are 13 days, this was day 12 of the mirror wave) is a lot about self-reflection and self-realization. I think what happens is that outside events act as a mirror by triggering inner feelings and perceptions. If a person takes all these events personally, I think they could go a little crazy in a bad way. If used constructively, all this craziness can lead to a lot of self-awakening. I’ve been trying to use this wave in a good way. I decided to take this approach because of that Wayne Dyer inspired insight I had earlier this week, about really living life exactly as it is and trying to be open to all the events and people in my day. Although I don’t know that my positive attitude changed any of my exterior circumstances, I have felt an inner shift.

Beginning this week, I feel like I’m developing a new sense of solidity. That hard outer shell that I’m dissolving is being replaced by a realization of a core inner strength. Exoskeleton to inner skeleton! Lobster to Lion! HA!

Also, I’m feeling a greater sense of resilience, as if suddenly I am really beginning to believe that I can do anything that my life calls on me to do. I’m beginning, just beginning, to feel less afraid all the time. I guess that’s a result of opening up to life. As I realize that I really can cope with life (and have really been doing amazing things my whole life), I want to really have fun with this whole adventure! I want to play, dance, laugh, sing!

I’d love to hear from any of you out there reading this…. What have the last couple of weeks been like for you? How have you learned to cope with weird periods in your life? Do you have some other cosmic explanation for what’s been going on lately? How do you make sense of when life just seems weird for everyone?