A view of Lent from the outside

    Not being of any particular religion and having only a smattering of experiences as a child and a young adult with Christianity I can't say I know alot about Lent. My first experience with Lent was trying to rub the ashes off of the forehead of a devout Catholic....in Catholic school. Seriously. "Hey, you have something on your forehead."  I reached out only to have my hand batted away with such force I thought he loathed my touch. His sister jumped in and explained immediately that it was Ash Wednesday and he had been to mass.  I felt pretty ridiculous, but it was one more lesson learned about Catholicism. For some reason having ashes rubbed on your forehead in the shape of a cross was a good thing. 

    That year in Catholic school was like being in the center of an experiment. How will the godless girl get along in a sea of god-fearing Catholics? I remember sitting in one of my professors offices trying to explain how odd it felt to be there. How strange it felt to watch people go to mass every Sunday. She too, was on the outside looking in. She had been raised Protestant, a Scot from Aberdeen. 

    I remember being in awe when the school made its pilgrimage to the cathedral for the start of the school year.  I sat in the pew, next to my catholic roommate and stared wide eyed at the stained glass, the pillars that were cracked and knocked off kilter by the last earthquake. The heady thick fragrance that hung in the air. The cadence of Latin and the procession of believers as they knelt to take the host. I remember I had a million questions for my graduate advisor, a priest, who appeared to loathe me being in his presence for longer than 15 minute increments.  

    The Cathedral was not the only beautiful religious structure in Helena, Montana. The chapel in the basement of my dorm was magnificent. Small, but intimate. It was more the devotion people gave to the religion, some of the priests at the school, and the architecture that impressed me. The beauty of the paintings and the literature. I still think back to those days and have respect for that place, those people, and this religion, but there is one burning question I have. 

    I look upon Lent as a time for change. A time when you toss a bad habit, but what I do not get is why people do the 40 days then go back to their old ways.I get no meat on fridays- I get cutting stuff out of your diet for Lent. I can even get no sex during that  time. People are going to go back to eating meat, chocolate, or having sex. There isn't a human being that is a civilian out there that is going to willingly cut sex out of their lives forever.  But some people's grandiosity seems to influence them to make these wild sacrifices. The alcoholic who cuts it out cold turkey on Ash Wednesday only to make his way through 40 days and nights to binge on the feast day.  It makes no sense. If you are giving something up, sacrificing it for whatever, why do you take it back after the 40 days. Its like un-gifting. "Oh here you go, I bought you this lovely present." then 2 weeks later taking it back because you liked it so much. It just does not make any sense.  Anyone have any words of wisdom for me? 

Costuming

I am not really an armchair historian.I love history and nothing beats a good historical non-fiction book or fiction novel. I love them. (please leave the bodice rippers out of it as they bore me to tears.) I love historical movies and I love the costuming. I wish netflix had more on instant play as I can only watch Bright Star,Wuthering Heights, Sense and Sensibility, Dangerous Liaisons so many times. Sadly, Sophia Copolla's Marie Antoinette is not an instant play item. Booo! And recently Downton Abbey was added to the list of great series to watch.
If you have not seen Downton Abbey look it up, the costuming and story is fantastic!

Journal

This past Friday I had to adjust my weekend routine so my husband could have the car to go to work on Saturday and Sunday. So I made my list of groceries and after dropping him off at home I made my way first to Hobby Lobby to stock up on some Caron Simply Soft Brites! Yarn (to keep myself occupied) and then onto the grocery store. 2 hours later I was back home and getting ready to throw together some calzones.

That adjustment to the weekend schedule freed up my whole Saturday to focus on me, what I wanted to do, opposed to what I had to do. It was very freeing. I love my husband, but sometimes I just need our house to myself and it could not have come at a better time. 

This past week I ordered and received some great books from Amazon. I will add the books in the sidebar in a little while. I also bought myself a journal. I haven't journaled consistently in years. I last committed to one in 2001-2002. After 2002 it turned into an after thought. I started again in 2007ish. I bought a big sketch book, crayons, colored pencils, colored pens, and markers and was pretty consistent for about 6 months. But I got tired of the morning schedule. I get up earlier than God and it was draining me to get up a half hour earlier to write in my journal before all the other words, judgments, assumptions, emotions could rush in. It was not working. 

This time I am writing in it as I did in 2001-2002. It worked then to wait for quiet time or when it struck me to write, and I did it everyday. I usually did it late at night, before bed, emptying my day onto the page, working out the dilemmas of the day. This time I am going to use some of those fantastic books I bought and a book called Creative Journaling to help me along my way. 

So what did I do this weekend? Cleaned up my computer for a start. It had been freezing up and needed a tune up- so it got one. I continued to work on my personal statement for the MSW program I am applying to. I did some laundry, played soccer with the dog, and worked out how to crochet a hexagon using Lucy at Attic 24's instructions. I finally worked that out today and am adoring the colors I chose. I hope that when I send these to the little girls I intend it to go to it will be loved and toted around for years to come. Last but not least I journaled every single day. I have been examining some of my behaviors and irrational ideas. It was a great place to start putting it down.  

C R E A T I V I T Y

Last summer I became frustrated with writing. So frustrated I tossed the lot of it and gave up.  Giving up is not something I do easily and so when I actually said to myself  "I give up" I thought I was serious. Recently, I have re-evaluated.  I miss writing. I miss creating something that is purely my own. Thus, I will dig out my last notebook and begin again.  There is a fair amount of decent stuff in there.

So I guess I need to fake it til' I make it. This is the winter slump, it has been a long, cold winter and soon enough it will begin to heat up and by the middle of July I'll be dying for it to cool down. But this issue is also more than just the winter blues. I get frustrated with myself because I can't stay focused. I am easily distracted and then I forget what I was doing. So I have decided to start simplifying. And as much as I hate schedules and routines I am going to have to start one, just to get myself used to doing the things I enjoy on a regular basis and not get distracted by something with sparkles or worse....says its urgent when it is anything but!

I guess more people in my life are going to start hearing " After I have finished with this."

Flu Season

It is Flu Season and since I work where I work and with what I work with I usually get a flu shot.
I bypassed it this year due to timing and now I have the flu. Blargh! But on the upside I get some sleep, other people do my grocery shopping and cooking, and I get to concentrate on feeling better. I just hope it does not last longer then 3-4 days. I can only feel miserable for so long before my head explodes because I want to get out of bed.

Awakening Practice

It is a lovely 4 day weekend, but I have not allowed the extended time off to stop me from Yoga. Keeping with one of my refocusing activities for 2011 I rely heavily on Yogajournal.com  to keep my focus. Jason Crandell has to be one of my favorite's at Yoga Journal. His no-nonsense approach, straight forward explanations of the poses and (of course) his soothing tone of voice is a wonderful thing to wake up to in the morning. I do wish at 3am I had the fortitude to practice, but I am lucky if I remember how I got into the shower and what I need to do while there.  So today being a holiday I was able to wake up gracefully, on my own time clock, and start my day with Jason's Awakening Practice.

Wow! I have only just started the 21 day challenge and have been relying on my old copy of Living Arts All day yoga for beginners, particularly the PM practice with Patricia Walden 3 times a week. The past weeks videos from Yoga Journal have been great, but some were a bit beyond my reach and so I decided  to save them for when my body was a little more used to moving into poses. Not to mention ready to deepen my practice and stop a rut from forming.

When I start exercising there are three agreements I have with myself: I should not do too much at once, only do what is comfortable for my body, and slowly work my way into a 90 minute practice. I start with 3days a week then increase slowly (depending on need or want) to 6 days a week. If I jumped whole hog into 90 minutes I don't think moving afterwards would be an option. Not to mention it would make the practice, which for me is a joyful experience, very unpleasant. And that in itself had been what always influenced my excuses not to do it. Thus stopping me from achieving this goal of a 6 day practice.

The awakening practice was a nice challenge for me. It allowed me to experience some new poses as well as old standbys. I used to hate Downward Dog. Hate it. It made my legs burn, my arms ache, and I was always frustrated with why I could not get my heels to the ground. Then one day as I was in down dog and wishing for the next pose I realized that I had too many expectations for myself, was competing with people who had practiced for years and sometimes decades that eventually got their heels to the ground. I let go and allowed my heels to hang where they fell. I began to enjoy the stretch of down dog and found my heels began to sink lower towards the floor.

Jason Crandell's Awakening Practice will be one I use much more often and become as acquainted with as I am with Patricia Walden's P.M  yoga practice for beginners.

21 Day Challenge

I adore Yoga so when I picked up the February 2011 issue of Yoga Journal I was so pleased that they put together a wonderful 21 day challenge to help beginners as well as seasoned teachers deepen their practices, get out of their ruts, or just get moving! I signed up and simply planned to spend each afternoon for the next 21 days (starting January 10th, but you can join at anytime thereafter! ) doing something that I love for me and me only. Part of this is that I want my practice back. I want to feel good in my own skin no matter what my size is. I want to feel that I am doing something for my own personal development and Yoga has always been the way for me.

And for some reason when I start talking or thinking about the connection I feel with yoga the topic of Spirutality comes up. Or at least for me it does. So briefly...I am agnostic. I haven't any idea what is out there or if anything is,but I just can't possibly believe nothing is out there. It could be little green men for all I know! I was raised by folks who had been burnt by religion so my spiritual education boiled down to my fathers half cocked personality and Roman Catholic upbringing mixed with a couple of years of sunday school at a Southern Baptist church and a relic/prayers that apparently brought me from a 20% survival rating to 80% in one night when I was a kid. It was an interesting combination.

We shall see how it goes!