Dancing Geek

Violet Dreams by furryscaly

Nocturnal / Diurnal

So I went nocturnal for a while, then I swung back to seeing daylight for a couple of days, then I went nocturnal again.

Being nocturnal is amazingly freeing in terms of not feeling watched or judged, but it’s isolating and a little stagnant (stuff happens, but it’s not obvious on the surface).

Being dirunal is the ‘norm’, it’s conformist, you’re on display, but it’s when I get things moving and feel I (lookout) should be achieving things.

Hug-blanket

Before xmas I was feeling a real need to up the Yin in my life (for want of a better word).  Thus followed many nights of reading, thinking, studying, absorbing.  Lots of meditation and writing.  Lots of honey and lemon drinks (yummy!), lots of homemade bread (yummy, but still needs work), lots of going inwards.

That gets a bit much after a while, so I venture into the light to remind myself what it looks like (after a few days of not seeing the sun, you start to wonder).  I get to the library whilst it’s open and get a load of books out, I do stuff with the (poor, suffering, lonely) bf, I get some fresh air.  (Days of no sun = days not going out anywhere).

Then I slip straight back into being nocturnal.  I just don’t go to sleep.  I sometimes worry that I should be more in control of my body (was that a ‘worry’ and a ‘should’ – ouch!) rather than just following the lead of what could be weird hormone inbalances, bad diet/exercise, etc.  Still, it doesn’t feel like I’m ‘running from’, so much as ‘crawling into’.  I feel like I’m just letting myself get taken into the warm, hug-blanket of nighttime.

2 weeks of this however and the bf is getting worried (and a little peeved at sleeping alone) and I don’t really blame him.  I’m kind of wondering what the route out of this is.

Where do I go from here?

I’m not feeling like this is going to be a permanent arrangement.  I don’t want it to be a permanent arrangement.  And the only person who’s going to change anything is me, so I start to have a think.

It takes a couple of days for ideas to start floating to the top.  I worked out a while ago that part of the nocturnal thing was a security issue – hiding from others and therefore judgement.  Feeling able to try out a bit of wacky that I would normally be far to self-conscious to try (see below for an example).

More recently though I worked out that I had somehow got into my head this ‘should’ around day is for doing and night is for my stuff.  There’s my recent ’100% commitment guaranteed’ decision to focus on my stuff for the year, and putting together a plan on what I was going to work on, but I didn’t specify times (because that would spell AARGH to my brain) so my subconscious helpfully re-programmed my body so that I would be awake all night to spend my ‘free time’ working on this stuff, rather than my ‘doing time’.  Subconscious re-organising of your circadian rhythms FTW!

This is not, however, what I want.  So a little clarity is needed in order for the subconscious to do it’s thing and re-re-organise my sleep cycle.

A bit of wacky

During my recent sojourn to the library I picked up a book on the I Ching.  Being a curious fellow, I just wanted to know what this was and what it involved (and I like pretty things that look like codes, which the trigrams manage nicely – oh, and I love systems and categorisations, so it appealled aesthetically is what I’m saying).  Anyway, I consider myself an open-minded skeptic, but in keeping with my philosophy that reading is all well and good but you only really learn by doing I decided to give it a go and see what happens.

The first time I tried it I asked the question that fuelled my actions through 2008: “What is my purpose in life?” even though I suspected that this was a meaningless question it is one that has been bugging me.  It gave me a very strong answer to “What do I need to be doing right now?” which seems a much more sensible question.  So not bad for starters.  (Plus the answer was very much in line with what I’m upto right now, which was nice).

This time I decided to give it a whirl with “What am I not understanding with regards my staying up all night?”.  The answer came through loud and clear (which was cool, if a little weird):  I’ve been hiding away so as to build up my Yin side, but that’s finished now.  I’m balanced and I’m ready to move forward into the unknown.  How’s that for a cosmic kick up the butt?!

So yeah, the plan today?  I’m staying up, taking naps to keep me going until a more reasonable bedtime, and getting things done whilst keeping my balance.  I’m not about to start trying to do, do, do for the sake of it (my old ‘yang-only’ style).  This time I’m going for keeping them both in play, and getting a better balance.  I guess we’ll see how I do.

Have I become a hippy now?

Am I about to start doing I Ching readings for everyone and espousing the wisdom of a Chinese emperor from millenia ago?

Well, quite frankly, no.  If it was important, I could start to formulate rational theories around ‘barnum phrases’ (think newspaper horoscopes – vague to the point of ubiquity) or that the different ‘signs’, being very open to interpretation, simply allow me to form my own answer but allow me to ‘give it permission’ by letting it seem as if it comes from an external source of authority (ancient wisdom).  Either way, it doesn’t really matter.  I’m not about to start running my life by it, or depending on some book out of the library for all my answers.  But when I hear something that goes ‘click’ (not least because it’s a thought that’s been rumbling under the surface for a while now) I’m going to listen, and maybe over time I’ll learn to trust those thoughts without needing to go through some process to find them.

Heck, the book even describes the I Ching as a way to train your intuition, so maybe that’s all it is.  Right now, I don’t need to know.

So what’s the yang going to be?

I’m moving forward now, right?  I’m going to be doing as well as thinking, going outwards and well as inwards.

First, I’m going to see if I can’t lay this laminate flooring that’s been sat next to me for about a week now.  I want it down in time for starting the scheduling trial (my Alternative MA moon trial or my daily schedule – starts January 10 with the full moon).  I’ve got it planned out, but I need to actually lay it now (which includes moving all the furniture round – yuck).

After that?  I don’t know.  I have a long list of things that I want to happen, so I’ll probably start at the top of that (it’s a prioritised list, I’m great at making prioritised lists).  With you guys helping me out, and keeping me accountable, I’m sure we’ll work it all out as we go.

Stop when you first feel tired

I read in a book about meditation, or rather mindfulness, by Thich Nhat Hanh, that when meditating you should stop at the first sign of fatigue.

Last night, as I was tidying my desk, and this evening as I was reading, I had this thought pop back into my head.  Given that I recently wrote about wanting to find a way out when I was taking something too far, it would seem that resting when fatigued would be an excellent idea to try.

It isn’t inherently difficult or hard work, quite the opposite, so the only resistance is my internal one.  So I can hopefully bring awareness to my habits and patterns and choose a different path without strain or force, something that I’m not sure is always possible, but is always desirable!

Idea:

• Continue as normal
• Start to notice that I got tired a while ago, and maybe just rest for 20 mins before carrying on as normal
• Let the natural process of that noticing start to get sooner and sooner
• Let the natural process of deciding what I really need after resting to happen whichever way it does

I’m quite curious as to what will happen if I try this.

For now I’m putting it on my list of ‘moon trials’ which are part of my Alternative MA.  And since I promised chas I’d write about that today, I’ll go and get another post going…

Meditation to music

Being in the moment can actually be a really good way to listen to music.  Rather than hearing an overarching tune (which can often take ‘too long’ to play out) you can listen to just exactly what is being played at any one moment in time.  The harmonies, the timbres, the layers of perception at each instant in time can be engrossing.

As an alternative to either trying to see the big picture all the time or being completely lost in the moment, to be so very instant focussed in a conscious way strikes me as a very positive state.

Practising letting go…again

I found myself searching my meditation today, asking it questions, looking for answers.  Since this act itself breaks the meditation I have to remind myself to trust the process or rather actually do the process as it has been taught and to test the outcomes of it out for myself.  Lots of frowning as I try to hold on to ideas and find answers and then relaxing and half-smiling as I remember that this is my time for consciously practising letting go and nothing else (though maybe one day I will be able to remember to do that more often that during meditation practice).

I’ve been writing every day (though not always publishing) about my 30 day meditation trial, and am so happy that I’ve made it to day 19, even if I feel that some days my meditation practice was not as ‘correct’ as others, the act of committing and following through has been a powerful one.  I am hoping that by building my self-discipline this way I will be able to achieve more and more of my goals, even ones where the act itself is one that requires a letting go of effort!