Perhaps you may enjoy my Flickr page. Paul Simon — Surprise. (Frankly, the jury is still out on this one.) I think he saw that I had been crying. I think he was trying to make me feel better. "It'll be good as new when they're done," he said reassuringly. "Better than new!" — May 17, 2005 A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential? — Jane Wagner Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. — Pablo Picasso The journey of life is not paved in blacktop; it is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness. — M. Scott Peck "Sweet Darkness" by David Whyte I can be reached at romanlily ~at~gmail.com. Or you can join the notify list here.	May 16, 2006 Mothers room At the very end of the yoga class, the instructor asks us to rub our hands together quickly and create some heat. After about ten seconds, Kathy tells us to lay our warmed palms on the ground. "When we ground our energy in the earth, it will be there for us again when we need it," she says. She says this at the close of every class. I've been attending this same class for a long time. The first time, I found this aphorism annoying and new-agey. The second time, I found it interesting. Now, having heard her say the same thing at the close of dozens of classes over the years, I find it both puzzling and promising. What does that mean, to ground your energy in the earth? It's been difficult lately. I've been stewing over the past, going over and over old conversations and events in my mind. And I've been worrying about the future. Wondering where the hell I'm going to be in five, ten, fifteen years. Maybe this confusion is a normal part of any thinking person's early 30s. The view from the top at the Very Large Multinational Corporation. I'm still here at the Very Large Multinational Corporation, doing a job I could perform in my sleep. The job pays well. The lighting isn't so great. Positively, I have finally sold my tragic old jalopy for a new car that actually has A/C. Negatively, the only place I go in the new car is to work and back... Most insidious in my thinking of late is an unspoken belief that eventually, I will reach my own fullness and completeness, and at that point in the future, everything will be great. Do you find yourself thinking this way, too? How can it be avoided? This line of thought is so stealthy. It suggests that eventually, I will reach the zenith of my own potential, a powerful woman fully content in her own skin, living fully and fearlessly into her own choices. On that grand day, I'll finally "have my act together." Ta-da! I'm trying to get more conscious of these thoughts when I notice them popping up. I notice them, and gently show them to the door. I really can't afford that illusion any longer. Railroad underpass near my apartment. There's a little private room at work called the Mothers Room. The idea is for new mothers to have a private place to pump and store breast milk during the day. I guess there aren't a lot of new mothers here at the office, because the room sits dark and empty most of the time. I've started repurposing this space for myself during the day. Whenever I note black thoughts creeping in, I'll slip out and close the door behind me in this tiny little oasis. I'll do breathing exercises, or some of the gentle yoga stretches Dianne gave me. I want to stay soft. I don't want to go brittle. I plan to live in this skin for the rest of my life. I told Dianne about the Mothers Room, the way I have begun to borrow it for my own purposes. She smiled knowingly. She said that this is the invitation. To refuse to separate the sacred from that which feels soulless. To bring sacred practice into a place that feels soulless. To operate from a place of wholeness instead of contingency ("if x happens, then I will be happy"). She said that the idea is not so much for us to focus our energy on the physical altars out there in the world. The idea is to carry the altar inside, everywhere we go. The sacred moments arrive unexpectedly. The poem a friend sends that perfectly captures my state of mind. The smile that the woman at work gives me when I compliment her on the way she does her job. The birds waking me up from the backyard in the morning before work. Now that I think of it, I don't know if that's exactly energy returning to me from the earth, like the yoga teacher said. But I'm thinking it's pretty close.