tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51649042011-04-21T21:14:57.296-04:00Across a dimension, a sea, a space, to look into your own sweet face . . .Katherinenoreply@blogger.comBlogger361100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1073146632678438742004-01-03T11:17:00.000-05:002004-01-06T17:06:29.466-05:00

I have moved my blog to the luscious, spacious skies of Typepad. I look forward to seeing you in my new homestead on the net frontier. Click here to be transported to DatingGod.typepad.com. . .

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1073069797745776202004-01-02T13:56:00.000-05:002004-01-02T14:05:38.686-05:00

As much as I would love to sit here and spin some sort of silly yummy tale to make you giggle with fabulous, new 2004 mirth, what I am going to do instead is wish you well, and tell you some things I’ve been meaning to but haven’t and that I feel that is important for you to know, to remember . . . It’s okay when you are tired or need a nap or say no or can’t hang out and chat because you need

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1072467212056787572003-12-26T14:33:00.000-05:002003-12-29T18:13:36.733-05:00

I first got drunk when I was fourteen. I was with my best friend and her father who told us that as long as we could keep our glasses vertical, he would keep pouring. Bourbon and coke it was. I still can’t stand the smell of it. I first smoked pot and took speed soon after, and in the next few years I did coke, ecstasy, and acid. I did a fair amount, as much as I could get my hands on, really,

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-107229171548203752003-12-24T13:48:00.000-05:002003-12-24T13:54:35.216-05:00

One of the best parts of doing this mountain retreat thing is that I can connect to the outside world anytime that I want through the internet and my cell phone. It is really isolated here and if I don’t leave the property, if I get snowed in, I just don’t see other humans. Deer, I see. Crows, I see. Fat cats that hang out belly up by the woodstove, I see. Humans, not so much. So, I’ve been

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1071938936274093752003-12-20T11:48:00.000-05:002003-12-20T14:25:48.653-05:00

I noticed the other day that I’m finally beginning to let go. My breathing is a little easier. I’m not giving myself quite as much grief. I don’t feel as angry, pent up, frustrated, hopeless, useless, pointless, lazy, unintelligent as I did a week ago. In fact I feel quite relaxed. I’ve been snowed in for days. I’m fine with that. I have no idea what my life is going to be like in two months or

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1071772362492905642003-12-18T13:32:00.000-05:002003-12-18T15:42:03.153-05:00

A few snowflakes started drifting out of the sky and I thought: hmmmmmmm, what might this portend? A few jumps later through weather.com informed me that yes, another storm was on its way. Low on potatos and potato fixin’s – the only vegetable that stands between me and an all out fast food/sugar/wheat orgy – I leapt into the valiant Saturn and navigated down the driveway with not too much

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1071764471945288682003-12-18T11:21:00.000-05:002003-12-18T11:23:08.450-05:00

Things I’m Not Doing/Having/Eating Up Here In The Woods: - Wheat - Sugar - Corn - Soy - Tomatoes - Peanuts - Chilis or peppers of any kind. (Sob!) - Meat (except for two nights ago when I mistakenly hadn’t had enough protein in the past week and I thought my eyes were going to roll back in my head and I braved the icy driveway for a skid up to the local dinner dive in town. Bad move. On many,

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1071539603187665872003-12-15T20:53:00.000-05:002003-12-15T21:07:17.170-05:00

"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." -- Charles du Bois courtesy of TheMightyJimbo over at DigitalCatharsis, home of extra, extra crunchy granola . . .

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1071515497087177762003-12-15T14:11:00.000-05:002003-12-15T21:05:43.670-05:00

Wanna read the real story behind Rudolph and that red nose of his? Go read: Kaya's post

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1071449991664412512003-12-14T19:59:00.000-05:002003-12-14T20:06:35.610-05:00

What exactly am I rushing for? As I pound down the halls of the cabin, cats scurrying for cover, where is it exactly I need to be so absolutely Now? As I rush about making dinner, who is it that is pushing me for it to be happening At This Second? I know what it's from: years of tending bar and waiting tables, of rushing to and from classes and sessions, of hurrying to get things done on time,

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1071326768624326832003-12-13T08:38:00.000-05:002003-12-15T09:31:22.420-05:00

#1 After my first night here in the cabin, I found that deer had visited the yard and left a note: two piles of pellets strategically placed a few feet from the steps. I stood and contemplated their possible meanings: "Howdy. Welcome to the neighborhood." "Don’t cross this line or we’ll poop on your woodpile." "We are the Three Wise Deer of Pulaski. We come bearing gifts. Got any cherry

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1071160409042924812003-12-11T09:28:00.000-05:002003-12-11T12:20:01.296-05:00

Yes . . . as I look out the window, what I see are the Blue Ridge Mountains . . . what I hear is the wind in the trees, the cawing of crow, the meow of kitties as they loll, belly up, in front of the woodstove . . . what I feel is quiet(er), calm(er). Sorry to qualify but its going to take a while to empty out all the noise in my head. . . My morning: woke up at 7 and got the woodstove going

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-107065924901407232003-12-05T15:51:00.000-05:002003-12-05T16:23:32.233-05:00

I just did something that was a lot of fun: I exercised in a way that actually produced something of worth beyond my own body. For about forty-five minutes, in the middle of our current snowstorm (six inches and counting), I pushed the wheelbarrow out to the woodshed, piled it high with firewood, and then wheeled it back to the house and then carried it three logs at a time down to the basement

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1070217507207659632003-11-30T13:22:00.000-05:002003-11-30T13:45:53.890-05:00

I cannot believe how much I have eaten the past two weeks. Things I never or hardly ever touch have been flying down my gullet in a non-stop frenzy of ecstatic feasting. Murphy's stout, homemade rosemary bread, baked cheese squash casserol, stuffing, rice crispies treats, potato chips, pumpkin pie, coconut cream cake, popcorn with real butter (it says so on the package!) chocochip cookies, a

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1069686563001493042003-11-24T09:58:00.000-05:002003-11-24T10:10:05.090-05:00

The first two days of Life After Chester were mostly about sleeping, feeling freed, feeling the love at all of the fabulousness and at the focus of staying in motion with the actions required to pull off a big move. Then the anxieties started to sneak back in as even the simplest of tasks become insurmountable. Pretty much everything that I knew has changed, and you'd be shocked to realize how

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1069124252803805562003-11-17T21:35:00.000-05:002003-11-17T21:58:54.076-05:00

Wow. That is probably the most fitting thing that I can say about the winds whipping around me right now: Wowowowowowowow. I leave on Thursday morning and I'm ready to go . . . I finally know where I'm going: about an hour outside of Floyd, Virginia. In a cabin. In the middle of the woods. Where the phrase Be Naked is supposedly emblazoned somewhere on a wall. So three weeks from now that's

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1067872547083605162003-11-03T09:18:00.000-05:002003-11-03T10:16:43.950-05:00

I still have no idea where I’m going to end up, but I continue to pack. I know that on the morning of the 20th I head out for Ohio to stay for a week or two with Kelly and her brood and then I’ll see from there. I’ve booked some work there for the beginning of December and if I can find a place to stay I may park there for a couple of months and see what happens. Or I may just get into my car and

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1067187555576355932003-10-26T10:34:00.001-05:002003-10-26T12:09:59.186-05:00

Sometimes Life gets tired of waiting around for a person to wake up and smell the chai tea and so it helpfully gives them a good hard shove. They find themselves thrashing around in the drink, in their pjs, trying to figure out what the heck happened. At this point, they can either fight like mad to crawl back up the embankment to the place they were before, or they can go with the current,

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1065790084890472562003-10-10T08:40:00.000-04:002003-10-10T08:48:04.583-04:00

This morning I woke up to find this wondrously thick fog surrounding the house. I woke feeling calm and strong and quietly cheerful listening to the birds, feeling the warmth of kitties and blankets. After some quick morning practices and some oatmeal with sunflower seeds and stevia and yummy chai tea I jumped on the net and found something to extend this morning's groove when I went Here. And

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1065118609830518462003-10-02T14:10:00.000-04:002003-10-05T17:56:39.910-04:00

Wanna find out what's so dang funny about leaving your glamorous job at Time magazine, your fabulous friends, your loving family, and moving to the wilds of Ohio with a new baby, an eleven-year old who has just discovered that girls are "hot", and a white-hot hunk of a boyfriend who just gave you a tractor as an engagement ring? Then go visit Kelly . And if you would like to comment on anything

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1065063120332264892003-10-01T21:39:00.000-04:002003-10-02T11:22:58.720-04:00

I was driving home from teaching a class down in Mahwah a little bit ago and right outside of Suffern the traffic suddenly slowed and then stopped. Usually, a traffic jam has a sense of impatience to it - people honking or cutting in front of one another, a general sense of "this sucks" in the air. Tonight was different. There was something wondrous going on and I turned off the radio, rolled

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1064938048447981772003-09-30T10:43:00.000-04:002003-09-30T13:16:21.686-04:00

I started teaching a new class series a couple of weeks ago called Power Tools for Holistic Living. It’s a sort of holistic buffet, a way to learn a dozen basic skills for bringing holistic living into daily life. The first class covered some of the things that we’re going to be doing each week: exercises from chi gong, yoga, using the talking stick, smudging/saging, and meditation. This past

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1063427004280295742003-09-12T21:50:00.000-04:002003-09-15T15:23:45.026-04:00

Two weeks ago I found out that I have a heart murmur. It was during a routine visit for a gyn exam, and I was surprised when the nurse practitioner asked: so how long have you had a heart murmur? Heart murmur? I asked. I don't have a heart murmur. I did have one when I was an infant. I was born two months premature and had to stay in an incubator for a couple of weeks, but it healed, my heart

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1063385188809750142003-09-12T12:44:00.000-04:002003-09-12T12:46:28.670-04:00

(From an e mail sent to me by my sister . . .) An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me... it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1062173105657479392003-08-29T12:05:00.000-04:002003-08-29T12:06:00.953-04:00

"Being nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human can fight." e.e. cummings

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1060824291281957912003-08-13T21:24:00.000-04:002003-08-13T21:36:26.733-04:00

And so in a glorious funk I went over to have dinner at my friend Kelly's house. As evidenced from the last post, I was feeling a little depressed, a little hopeless/helpless, a little sad, and after I arrived I realized that I have also been in deep, deep denial over the fact that on Sunday morning Kelly moves to Ohio. Kelly had a hard pregnancy, ending in a three week stay in the hospital

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1060807900063386412003-08-13T16:51:00.000-04:002003-08-13T21:40:01.716-04:00

I have to laugh when I look back twenty years ago at the reasons I started in on the whole holistic/spiritual/metaphysical trip. I thought that it would make me a better person, and that that would bring me more money, a better life, and a wonderful life partner. Little did I know that I would never reach the goal because even the mere concept of a journey was way off the mark . . . A few months

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1058964886888677812003-07-23T08:54:00.000-04:002003-07-23T08:54:46.843-04:00

I've just commited myself to losing these dang fifteen pounds that are hanging out around my middle, my thighs, my upper arms, under my chin. I've lost close to fifty pounds of fat the past three years and that's great and all, but I still have more to go and it's going to take work. My teaching schedule is going to be quiet over the next six weeks and so my job is going to be getting my body

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1057953305550736442003-07-11T15:55:00.000-04:002003-07-11T15:55:05.350-04:00

Last Saturday I got lost in the woods. Not la-la-la-lost, but 10-hours in the wilderness, ran out of water, absolutely alone, no one knows where I am, don't even know where the freak I am lost. It started out innocently enough. I decided I'd head up to Sam's Point and check out the ice caves and waterfall and perhaps do a few mile hike. I usually call Kelly to let her know where I'm going to be

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1057505466434225192003-07-06T11:31:00.000-04:002003-07-06T11:33:13.116-04:00

On July 3 at 10:30 p.m., Lilah Grace came into this world at 7lb., 7 ounces with a full head of black hair and Kelly's nose and eyes and Chris's mouth and she was held and smooched and loved and for a few moments all was right in the world. Lilah saved both she and Kelly's life that night by suddenly shifting from the "birth ready" position of head down that she'd been in for weeks and moving

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-1056893055198375282003-06-29T09:24:00.000-04:002003-06-29T09:24:15.170-04:00

My best friend Kelly is pregnant. Very pregnant. At the moment she is in the hospital, her blood pressure is high, and the arrival of Fetus, as I have come to call him/her is imminent. Last night I brought two big boxes of popsicles and a copy of The Blue Collar Comedy Tour and she, her man Chris, and I sat in her room with the door closed and howled. Laughter really is dang good medicine. I

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-955907982003-06-12T10:31:00.000-04:002003-06-12T10:31:32.423-04:00

How A Bangladesh Granola Girl Parties: Cover self in sparkly things. Down a kava kava/ valerian tincture cocktail to deal with anxiety of going to party alone. Go to Freestyle Frolic in New Paltz which is alcohol-smoke-drug free and where people take off their shoes and dance to music you just don't ever hear on the radio. Wear snow boots even though its not snowing because you have a

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-954180802003-06-07T19:42:00.000-04:002003-06-07T19:42:49.806-04:00

I'm going out dancing tonight. I put on glitter dust, sparkly clothes, made my hair all curly. Girl stuff. I need to feel like a girl tonight. A sparkly girl. And I need to get my groove on. I need to hear some Afro Celt Soundsystem or some Buddha Lounge and feel that luscious juicalicious oh-yeah as the groove of the tunes and the groove of the tribe and the groove inside of me all fall into

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-947433352003-05-22T12:26:00.000-04:002003-05-22T12:26:50.580-04:00

Miracles: Part 1 Miracles have been on my mind a lot lately. Mostly because I've been noticing how many of them have been appearing in my life lately, but also because I'm becoming more and more aware of just how crucial a role I play in the manifesting of them. Even as some sort of realization around the absurdity of the notion of "control" is making itself known . . . First off, "miracle" is

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-939920702003-05-08T10:36:00.000-04:002003-05-08T10:36:32.263-04:00

Every morning, after I tend to the kitties, brew my morning tea, and finish my practices, I make my seriously nasty herbal concoction and toss it back like a shot of tequila. I have this ritual I do to get it down: I take a deep breath, I clench my toes, and as the herbs go down, I try not to breathe through my nose. It works pretty well, but it's not like I ever look forward to it or anything.

Katherinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164904.post-932715442003-04-25T20:57:00.000-04:002003-09-24T12:22:31.070-04:00

I experienced something extraordinary last week. On Easter, I was reborn. I didn't mean to, and I certainly didn't plan it, but when the sun went down on Sunday, I went to sleep knowing that I'd been given another chance at life . . . It started quietly enough. I had gone to have another healing session with a Native American elder that I had met the month before. My experience of Grandfather

Katherinenoreply@blogger.com