Going crazy is OK

It's OK to go crazy. It's OK to feel intensely for things and to pursue them as though the consequences were unimportant altogether.

Pressing the RESET button

(by: By Bruno Furnari CC license for non-commercial use)

Going home is like pressing a reset button in my head. It's a reminder that I don't have to win or lose, pass or fail to be alright and everything is in order. My family supports me and knows I'm brave and tough, they know I'm scared shitless a lot of the time but still go out and do my best.

This is today's theme it seems, and while it's super late I'm wondering what is the reset for others. Is it a vacation or going to someplace you learned great things? Is it a day of rest and sleeping it off or maybe just making enough time in a day to do something you love, like I love to paint or just go out and shoot random photos.

It doesn't take a lot to get me out of a creative and energetic funk. It does sometimes take me a lot more to get out of a creative funk. In the news business it's sometimes easy to get into a call/visit, notes, write reports, repeat -- cycle. And I hate that because I want to write poetry in the newspaper and apply it to common things so that people will include a bit more poetry in their lives. Maybe it's just a romantic notion to believe others are interested in reading a finely tuned piece of news better than taking the bitter as it is, but you'll have to come up with a pretty good argument to prove I shouldn't keep on believing it.

I wear myself out. I literally go and go, hope and hope, drive myself and drive myself crazy with details, names, facts, dates, late history, early history, who's what doing, did, said had a dream. And I love it. I love the pace because it's an addiction and I crave it like one, too. But at least it's productive, even when it's not healthy. The adrenaline rush was why I loved hard, breaking news and chasing the cops around like a mad woman for a year. Instead, now I just chase anything in sight and refuse to narrow things down.

Then there's my friend's business and how I hope to help it grow and make it more because I want to see him succeed after being an underdog. And if I didn't see the potential for success, I'd probably still help him because I love him. And love is always a good enough reason to do anything.

I've set myself up to move to the next phase of a woman's typical life, skipping children perhaps, and going out for a graduate degree and my own business. I'm thinking my life will always be empty if I do neither, so I'm going to do one. It's not the success I care about but that people stop whatever they're doing and notice I was here, take something profound away from my expression (in whatever form it takes) and live a more fulfilled life for it. And I don't care about how big my audience is. If you're reading this and moved by it -- well then, maybe I've done it all.

In the meantime, I want to travel, which has a fee attached to it. I want to create art, which has a fee attached to it. I want to help others in drastic ways, which (usually) has a fee attached to it. I want to be free from the system, which has so damn many fees attached to it that the idea of trying probably cost something.

And then there is spirit.

I've stood at the crossroads enough times to know that down one path lies the status quo, the home and family, a career with success, fame or money. And down the other path lies the revelations for today's world that I can reach through spiritual transformation and a smattering of enlightenment. The trick to being enlightened is to practice it all the time, so it's obvious that you can't stay enlightened all the time unless you are wholly supported by others. Walking with one foot on either side of the spirit-line is knowing you're mad while experiencing the madness and embracing this. Our world was not built for such folk, but I've seen that it is wild and hungry for what such mad folk bring back.

Shamanism would be the closest thing I have to a religion, but I cannot truly serve the people as a shaman while participating in the social drama. Thus, the crossroads. And while that is the role I feel I should take, I wonder at myself for not seeking a shaman to heal and help me grow into that role. How like the vision-quests is my seeking for knowledge of the human animal in these days? How unlike animals we are.

I'm far from the crossroads this time. I've developed a fairly healthy network of contacts and have a wonderful relationship with an understanding, supportive, tenderhearted man. I'm learning all the obstacles to communicating alternative ideas to the people and about their trepidation for the evolution needed to bring about a common and peaceful future. Spirit healing is not just a thing that happens to an individual.

And so, writing this blog is also like a reset button, a channel to put out all my feelings so they can begin building again. Building new atop the same old, same doesn't necessarily mean the foundation was good when you started. When things start out askew, then there might not be enough room for roots.

There doesn't have to be a malfunction or error to press reset. Sometimes that just means finding north when charting a course or east. Sometimes you have to push the reset button over and over, over and over, over and over - - before the beginning point will have its right time or place, or that things will finally be out of danger from prevention by external forces.

I have a wellspring of hope that rises with the rains that come from the muse. It leads me to feel immortal in ideas and formidable against the status quo's chief naysayers. And I will live the life of a visionary, whether I have to just give it a little go at a time or push reset again, and again.

Terri

Hoodoo in East Texas



Eh, fuckit. Self censoring is stupid, especially when the best things can be said plain out.
I don't have a future in politics, and maybe by then nobody will care I wrote this today. Can't kill my art, can't kill my spirit. I got all I need. And I got magick.

Whether it's just another part of the muse working in my subconscious or it's the observation that nature is no mistake, I believe in spirit and magick. I believe in personal power, personal spirit helpers and guides, I believe that a real hoodoo work is set by intention.

I've done a few spells. That's probably a huge surprise (or maybe not), but I have. They worked, what's more, and that's probably less surprising than me working them. A more recent example was when I wrote this, offered it to the spirits and did some other things and then the girl who I wanted revenge on disappeared from my life. (But not before she ranted a whole bunch of nasty stuff online that could condemn her for being the nutjob she is. -Yep, I said that too.)

Hoodoo Blues
(in mimic of hoodoo blues lyrics of old)

Oh girl - you done gone an done it now

Mama done found out the truth of you

Quit pretendin, sweet-chile you ain't

Wishin sure can't help you out of a hoodoo

Judgement's a comin, you ain't no saint

Ya done let your sheep skin slide

And I done seen your other side

Woman done opened up her mouth

Let them black lies come tumblin out

She gonna get what she deserves

Girl gone get what she deserves

She's gonna get what she deserves

This Old Hoodoo Mama

Done pay for that graveyard dirt

Girl brought that grin, but she ain't no friend

She done lied to hear the truth

Then put it in her pocket with her sins

She gonna get what she deserves

This Old Hoodoo Mama

Done pay for the graveyard dirt

Gonna get them snakes to come rollin out

She gonna flail and shake and shout

Gonna get them lies tacked in her head

Or she gonna break instead

Girl gonna get what she deserves

She gone get what she deserves

Girl's gonna get what she deserves

This Old Hoodoo Mama

Done pay for that graveyard dirt

A strong hoodoo doesn't need to be bantered around, but cursing someone in public has been done and seen to work. This was some mess that was all public, and it worked in the public. I don't mean to sound proud, because we are what we are. Our power comes from what we are, but the willingness to use our natural powers lies only with us (not everything in our arsenal of protection and prayer is formal or God-given, for I disagree that God is involved in our daily lives on a micro-level but is more a universal presence that is given form through our individual beliefs).

I personally believe that the more the rootworker/hoodoo means it, the more powerful the spell will be, the fewer "ingredients" you should use and the sooner the results.

I might have just put the poem and all this on here today as an affirmation to my belief in magic and in using it, but I also might have something to sprinkle on the forehead of the damned and very soon.

Let those you love know you'd protect them with your body, mind and spirit. Let them be protected by your caring and let their transgressors feel your wrath. Sometimes doing drastic things is called for and the consequences of evil forced upon those who must be stopped before the worst can come.

Woman Eco-Information Warrior Strikes

OK, so the title of this one is a bit overstated. I'm definitely not alone in the promotion of positive changes for the Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge, the Caddo Lake Wildlife Management Area nor any other part of the lake and it's unique habitat.

I'm in love with Caddo Lake. I'm in love with the culture of the Caddo tribe from history and today, and I'm in love with the idea that the land left over from a place that made warheads can become a center for peace, nature, animals and people to enjoy them.

And I feel like I have to write about it or burst from my desire to have people understand how precious, how delicate and wonderful this lake and its eco-system are.


All these happy feelings come from a World Wetlands Day meeting held in Karnack, Texas, last night for stakeholders to the lake. Only the most dedicated were in attendance as the weather was bitterly cold. But the meeting was a good way for one committee to remind the other groups of their intents, accomplishments and hopes. I always leave meetings like that jazzed about what is coming up next and do my level best to make all of them want to call me as it's happening. Reporting with up to date information and catching them in the act for live-shot photos is hard sometimes, but I always get to see the coolest shit.

I've lived in this region, what used to be held by the Caddo, for my whole life. I would swear I have seen their ghosts traveling lost along new highways and heard their prayers whisper across the age of white people in America. I've never doubted that this land was blessed and, somehow, tightly woven prayers for ages past still protect it. I wonder if others have had that same thought. It was a passing thing, something that really just made me pause to acknowledge it. These little truths that don't have to be proven are things that I include in the muse. Sometimes they are a premonition, just popping through, and sometimes they are a link to history floating in the air around us.

I've not been promoting my blog out lately, but if you happen to stumble upon it in the interest of the lake, then please feel free to write to me and to share your news about the lake, your love for it and any project or event for gathering people there.

This is your time. This is my time. We are now, and living in the moment at Caddo Lake is one of the most divine experiences I've had. That's why I can't wait to share it.

Weblog and the continuing saga of life

If I haven't said this lately, the name of this blog "Muse Meets Main" is the connection between the average person living in the "main" of things to the "muse" and inspiration. Sometimes inspiration is divine, sometimes it's at least mystical. Other times it can be a simple spur to take on a project or effort that comes from a need.
Feed your muse today by choosing to be inspired, to be affected by the world around you and then do something with the creative ideas bestowed on you. They're yours and no one else will make them happen.

(Snow shot photo from Jan. 10, 2011, Marshall, TX)

I've been moved by my muse this week to start posting again. I feel like I should be writing more for myself and get over the whole writing burnout. If you don't know me, then you might not know I'm a newspaper reporter for a small town's 6-of-7 daily paper with the Monday edition dropped for financial reasons. But I like having Sunday's off, so no complaints.

That also means that my primary mode of communication is through writing, and some days that means up to six stories, photos added and maybe interviews for more material. I'm not struggling with my creative flow in the least, just sometimes lack the additional drive it takes to make things happen after I've already been on target for making things happen all day.

Am I selfish enough to ask the universe to give me a space and time, the energy and inspiration to be creative full time on and off the clock?

I'd love to make my whole life about my creative pursuits. I've started a book, again. This time it's about East Texas Hoodoo energy left over from long-past generations. In it, I'd like to include themes of anthropocentrism between humans seeing themselves superior to ghosts and spirits, also that the underlying dark energies from a long-gone society are still affecting the way whites and blacks in East Texas communicate today. It may be that I turn this into a play where the "ghosts" still whisper hate words and hover around the central characters. (Wow... look at me brainstorm!)

It's also time for me to set some of my bigger deadlines for myself. I've decided to take the How to Start and Operate a Small Business in East Texas class, which among other things keeps me in town. Last year I convinced the chamber of commerce to let me into its Leadership class for networking and that held me to a goal for graduation from that. Marshall, Texas, is a sweet place, it's a divided place. It's as apathetic as any place I've lived and more touchy than some others. The people here are wonderful and oldfashioned in a way that makes me like it, but progressive toward tourism and excited about the future.

Some of my major deadlines need to be made for my creative energies to enter the mix here. I'm hoping to do a series of photos from the Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge from the ruins, and hopefully I'll be able to grab some wildlife to add in. Also, I'm hoping to start production on some back-lit photo frames to make these otherworldy settings seem all the more strange. The setting is very "life after people."

Another goal I'd like to declare is for a painting or series of art collage projects that include technology mimicking nature. I'm excited about this one for different reasons. I hope to display the artwork in my boyfriend's computer shop and will use computer parts, paint, and wires or other things to illustrate this. Some of it will revolve around code. Do I mind putting my ideas on the Web for anyone to steal? Not at all. I believe that if someone sees this list of items and feels inspired, then they should take up their tools and brushes and CREATE SOMETHING.

If you do, I'd like to see it. + Love and light to all who may see this. - Terri