fire, ascetics and vulnerability

over the last few days my body burned with a restless fever. finally i visited a doctor and she said it was viral flu. once the meds began to take care of the physical healing i tried to listen to the silence of the scorching fever. i remembered two dreams.

i am about 3 years old. i am in a room in my birth home. its on fire. i rush out and run from room to room. the whole house is burning and i find nobody else there. i begin crying and look out of the window. i see an ascetic standing there and watching. he looks straight at me. i know in that moment that he has set this fire. i reach out with my hands, call out to be saved but he turns around and walks away.

the lost, frightened, helpless child. the raging fire consuming everything. the ascetic, cool, distant, detached, but also the fire-setter. each one an intrinsic part of my inner foundation. so much tension and energy in the dream. fascinating inner relationships between the three elements - constantly creating new experiences.

fire has always been strong within me. its shown up in rebellion, quick hot anger, damaging conflict and self-annihitation. since i was young i have known and lived its destructive side. its creative, life breathing aspects i learnt slowly as i matured. my warrior self.

detachment is one lesson of the ascetic. learned even more slowly. walking away from burning fires, from small helpless children. walking away is a process i needed to integrate. the ascetic led me to meditation and connected me to my owl self. that self that can see into the darkness of others souls because it has deeply lived in those shadows. 

the helpless child lost in the fires - set by the self or others. the pain and vulnerability of that child was the hardest to  really assimilate. but finding the strength to show my weaknesses and cry in public was the biggest gift i gave myself.

every time i visit this dream and try to move it to completion i find a different path. my favourite is this one - the child cries and cries and cries and the moisture vaporised by the fire creates clouds that pour down putting out the fires and carry the child away in the flood of rain, carry the child upwards to the ascetics mountain retreat where they sit around a fire and reflect. same three elements but with a more peaceful relationship reached through the child's vulnerability. the three really are interchangeable, melding and differentiating but the same composite self.  

the second fire and ascetic dream came to me six months after i had been doing karate. 

i am naked, walking a curvy line down towards a flowing river. on my left are women karatekas doing sanchin. on my right a raging fire with male ascetics chanting and performing a death ritual. 

when i drew the image i saw the curvy line i walked created a yin-yang symbol. the duality of the one. wave and particle, ascetic and warrior, masculine and feminine, stillness and movement, spirit and body. the naked, unshielded self walking the thin line between. 

conflict and fire in my life had led me to meditation. meditation had then guided me to karate. the dream pointed to finding one within the other. but in those initial years the passion for new found karate consumed me and i let the meditative self go and then lost it even more when i came here.

in singapore the helpless child energy was strong and i moved further from the fire and the ascetic. towards the end of last year i re-discovered the fire of the warrior. lately i began meditating again as the yearning to re-connect to my ascetic grew. and when i asked for guidance the first message was 'work on yourself. there is much to be done there.' and so i started. the de-cluttering.

today i sense that the fire-setter ascetic is burning the homes of my self again. destroying the ego? creating the emptiness from which life can begin anew? 

estate agents and moving

i am scattered all over the place today. that's a daily occurrence these days. i wake up and find i am not focused at all. i must say though that perhaps i do thrive well when multi tasking? i am always reading at least four or five books at a time - i envy those who finish one right through but i can't remember when i last did that. my mind just moves elsewhere after a bit. maybe the only time i am doing one single task is when i am training.

today i woke thinking of the move we are considering, writing a blog post, answering emails, going for a jog or practising my katas, delving more deeply on the current animal energies in my life - drawing them perhaps, googling for information i am interested in, getting back to writing my book and writing memoir. yes, something in my head has been screaming memoir for a couple of weeks.

its actually a relief to just name all these. perhaps in the course of the day, perhaps even as i write this post i will do several of the above.

we might move. we have lived in this apartment since we came to singy. we love this spacious two bed with views from all the windows. but it feels like time for a change.

i really wish that we could view apartments without estate agents. i am sure estate agents were meant to ease the process of renting, selling, buying but i react to something about them and find that my inner guard goes up. i find it hard to trust them, they are the least transparent people i have met in a long time. their livelihood depends on market value of property so they are committed to keeping prices high and whether they are a buyers agent or sellers they still both work to keep values as high as possible - or so i feel. 

but before i launch into a rant about the worst ones i met, i must acknowledge those i liked. an agent who told us right away that an apartment listed at 4500 actually meant that the owner would settle for 4100. another told us that a vacant one meant that the owner might consider a lower offer. ok, maybe these are things everyone (but me) knows anyway? but i liked the feel of some agents, their smiles and charms and seeming openness even as they were selling the wondrous beauty of the apartment they were showing.  

one had a delightful, dramatic personality. he greeted me with a gorgeous smile. the apartment was being painted and furniture was piled in the centre. i said, 'we don't want a furnished place.' he said, 'boo hoo, ok i will sell this furniture. but don't you like it.' he stroked a lovely dark side table. 'its teak,' he said with a smile that was sad and sweet. i couldn't help laughing. he followed me through the rooms and tried to get me to like the furniture, the closets, the non-existent views. i thanked him and moved to leave. he said, 'what! no offer? i will cry now.' and he fake cried. entertaining pause in the stream of scummy agents.

ok, to the rest now. all but two talked of how many others were interested in the apartment, urged us to push up our budget and reminded us of escalating rentals. one actually showed us two apartments that were listed at thousand more than we told her our budget was. when i pointed that out she shrugged, 'throw in a couple more dollars and make an offer.'

last thursday the pressure got to me. i felt scared - that i would never find what i needed or not be able to afford what i liked. i was heavy and disheartened. i wanted to stop looking. it had been raining all day. i walked by the sea to my dojo after viewing two more overpriced apartments i didn't like. i was late and exhausted. i threw myself into the training and the fear and oppression lifted. when i reached home i was calm. i told my husband 'what will be, will be. lets just look.'

on the weekend we met the most unpleasant of agents. on the phone she insisted on telling us how the apartment we would view was going to be completely renovated. after having seen several shabby ones we felt relieved. we walked to the condo to find that she had arranged a simultaneous viewing with another twosome. i thought that was most disrespectful, nobody, even the most aggressive of agents had done that. the apartment was a mess. we walked into a dark, heavy space - cracked tiles all over the two bathrooms, the kitchen had accumulated scum from the dark ages, the curtains were from some horror film and the whole needed painting. i didn't want to touch anything. i think she didn't put the lights on so we would not see the less obvious flaws. the promised river view of course was only visible from a couple of spots in the apartment and only if i pressed against a window and craned my neck. when asked what the owner was going to do she said, 'only professional cleaning.' when i told her i was not interested she pulled up her chin, 'the apartment will go off the market today anyway. we will be signing with someone.' 'so why did you then organise a double showing,' i said and shuddered as i walked out thinking maybe we should just stay in our apartment.

moving is a process on so many levels. after living in one place for so long i even forgot that i was paying rent and when i had to think about the amount of money that was simply 'lost' every month i was aghast. every part of moving means reflecting on and reconciling the self to choices. as i see other apartments i appreciate the one i am living in more. i don't know what will happen but i am just observing myself more deeply this time unlike the first time when we came to singy and went apartment hunting. self observation through the most mundane of tasks is a lesson here.

de-cluttering, with the snake and the badger

its a beautiful sunny day. my snake self would love to slither up a warm rock and bask - let the sun soak into its gorgeous, colourful skin. i mildly wonder what the life of a snake is like in its underground burrow. snakes are so feared and deadly. their poisons stun and kill.

the year of the snake didn't glide in slow and gentle but moved in like a flying ninja snake - attacking and forcing me to know it capacity to stun. yes, i had expected the year of the snake to be filled with a sloughing away of inner deadness that lead to healing and the renewal of my life spirit. but now i think its energy will also be an uncontrollable force that churns things up.

in the days preceding cny our air conditioning unit sputtered and quit. we were told that the compressor was burn't out and would take twelve days to fix. i panicked as friends from england were arriving in a few days. the stress of this plunged me into a good long fight with my spouse. many things that had been cluttering the relationship got thrown up. we were still processing the poisons that had emerged when our friends arrived. i was very muddled and cramped over the next few days in an apartment that suddenly felt too small. i found it hard to breathe at times. luckily our friends are few of those rare ones that i can be myself around and i didn't need to hide my intense feelings, which made it easier to get through those difficult days. 

the word clutter kept pounding through my brain. i became intensely aware of the inner and outer clutter in my life which was causing heaviness and anxiety. the first message of this year was the need to de-clutter my time and space and move towards a clear, simple life. even as i write this i feel a stirring that makes my body both tense up and relax in anticipation.

i struggled for several days to unfold the true meaning of this message. de-cluttering my surroundings and possessions will be the easiest. i let my mind move through the rooms of our apartment. i knew that the kitchen should be the starting point. we own the bare minimum of pots, pans and cutlery. maybe some re-organisation is all it needs. the living room also looked relatively easy to de-clutter since all of us in this family are sort of minimalists and only tend to acquire things that are functional. though i sighed as i scanned shelves overflowing with books i love. those would take time to process.  the bedroom along with the closets and dresser promised a challenge. there are clothes in there that i don't wear but still am unable to part with. i began noticing my attachment to certain things and realised that i did need to detach myself from several possessions.

simultaneously i was thinking of the inter-personal level of work. de-cluttering the relationship with my spouse had been the beginning of this process and it illuminated what needed to be voiced in other close relationships. this might be challenging but having had a long practice of conflict resolution i feel excited to take it on.

having our friends from england around also clarified what i value in friendships. i want people i can trust around me. i want people in my life who i can be my authentic self around and who accept me with my unpleasant truths and difficult feelings. i see that there are some such friends that have moved out of my life that i want to bring back and there are some who bring negative energy into my life that i need to move away from. i have never believed that everybody i know has to like me or that i have to be friends with everyone i meet. but moving away from people does bring up some questions. how do i do it? just moving away with an inner goodbye is easy. but would that cause hurt? would i need to talk to them about what i feel? to what purpose, if those friends are not close anyway? 

questions without answers. for now i follow rilke's advice 'Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.'

de-cluttering the insides might be tedious. myriad thoughts and fears keep my mind distracted and busy with unimportant things. they keep me from the peace that already exists within me. i find it hard to write, to reach parts of my deepest self and touch my authentic essence. that part of me that catches the collective airwaves and connects to the boundless dark and light matter of the universe is hard to access in this state and i feel crippled. 

today i began moving through my mind like a home with different rooms that needed de-cluttering. these rooms are filled with habits, beliefs, addictions, fears, dreams, desires, built up prejudices, angers and more.  I visited the rooms and started sweeping away the dust, the unneeded. i took my time in each. i opened windows and let fresh air in. many rooms were dormant, unvisited for a while and i noticed unknown passages and spaces. it will take me the year to journey through the castle that is my inner home and i will still have unvisited places in there. 

again many questions arise. but again i choose to 'live the questions' and perhaps gently i will 'live along some distant day into the answer.'

the need to de-clutter is a driving force right now and i know that as i move things away, and spend time with my thoughts and my silences, i will access my inner wisdoms and intuitions and it will reveal what more needs de-cluttering. 

the snake has always been an ally of mine. appearing in dreams and visions urging me to transform and regenerate. but days before the year of the snake a new ally appeared. i woke from a dream with the words, 'a badger is not just a badger, it is a creature of god'. on googling i read that badger energy urges us to walk our own path at our own pace. later a friend sent me a video where a badger was wrestling with snakes and eating them. the badger was bitten and poisoned once. it fell unconscious but woke up and continued on with its projects. the badger is a busy determined energy. i feel supported to grapple with this task.

Shades of Black - memories of Fuzhou, Nov 2011

The strangest thing about being in Fuzhou for my first black belt retreat was the feeling of being completely at home there. This was really weird since even though I had been doing karate then for eight years I often felt like an outsider at gatherings of martial artists. I started my karate journey late in life and many of these ‘insiders’ began theirs when they were eight or ten years old. They seemed to have a natural ability for it developed from years of familiarity whereas I struggled hard to get it right. So, I went to this gasshuku with a lot of apprehensions and a feeling that a black belt gasshuku would be different; more intense and much harder to negotiate than an ‘all belts’ one. I was glad that I was not alone but going with two others from our Singapore dojo.

When we arrived at our hotel in Changle we found it covered with scaffolding and looking like it was not quite ready for inhabitants. But our rooms were available and since our flight had been 3 hours late warm water in the shower and a bed with clean sheets were very welcome. Assailed by smells of paint I had barely sunk into a deeper layer of sleep when I was awakened by the alarm. Pulling on jeans and a jacket I bolted downstairs to pay up my fees to Sensei Nakamura and just made it into the almost empty breakfast room. I popped a boiled egg and some sweet bread into my mouth and then walked over to a little store to buy large bottles of water. The streets and the little store reminded me of India and I felt comfortable being in this strange country despite the stares from locals. Changle was a little suburb of Fuzhou and it probably did not see any foreigners.

Armed with my bottles of water I felt very ready to take on the gasshuku and went to my room to put on my keikogi. At 9:45 I was back in the lobby waiting for Sensei Pete who was going to show Quek and me the way to the training hall. We exited the hotel from a back door and climbed up a winding slope to reach the hall we would be training in. I could hear the kiai’s of the senior black belts, go dan and above, who had been training since 9 am. It would be a minimum of 15 more years of training before I could even hope to be amongst the go dans. I did not have think that I would get there in this lifetime having got my shodan only at the age of 50. I was envious but us junior belts had three and a half hours of training to look forward to now. Other black belts were waiting outside in little groups. I was quiet taking in the surrounding and the feeling atmosphere of the space and the people gathered.

The hall was at the summit of a small hill and I could see the streets of Changle towards the left. Our little hotel seemed to be on the edge of the city and to the right was just land covered with trees. At 10 am we were invited into the training hall. I was immediately reminded of DC school in Lonavla where I had gone for my first gasshuku when I was still a very fresh white belt. The floor was an uneven, worn out concrete one and there were open windows on three sides. On the far side was a small wooden platform on which the seniors were busy hammering down nails that threatened to cut into our soles as we trained. The concrete was cold and the air temperature felt good for a long training. As I looked around this room filled only with yudansha’s I felt I was that beginner in DC school, I felt like a new 10^th kyu looking around with wonder at my seniors who could do things I could not imagine ever being able to do.

Higaonna Sensei called for shugyo and we lined up. I hung behind knowing I would be amongst the most junior students there. After the rei Sensei called the junior belts to the front and I saw just how few of us there were ranks below yon dan. I moved forward eager to be in front where I could see and hear Sensei well. This was very different from other times when fear of not being good enough would grip me and I would hang back at the edges hoping not to be noticed. Now I felt comfortable being seen and having my mistakes corrected knowing how this would just help me learn faster.

The training started with a vigorous junbi undo with sensei explaining the main aspects of the different techniques. The little wooden platform was crowded and soon I was sweating profusely. After the warm up Sensei took us through the basic closed fist punches and blocks. He moved around making corrections and explaining the finer points. Then we started on geki si dai ichi and Sensei stopped often to explain something he saw many of us doing incorrectly. He explained the importance of zanshin before and after the kata. I was trying to keep notes in my head but knew I would forget many of the details. Between katas we also did more stretching and kigu undo exercises. Once sensei was satisfied with our geki si dai ichi he moved to sishochin. All of us were completely absorbed in striving to do our best. My head began spinning at one point and I struggled to keep control. Sensei gave us a break and Pete Sensei offered me an energy bar, which I wolfed down, making a note to eat a larger breakfast the next day.

After the break Sensei broke us into pairs of one senior and one junior person.  We practiced sishochin and the bunkai. Sishochin is a kata I was still grappling with and I was surprised when my senior said my form and power were good. Having done my grading so recently I remembered the bunkai well. Sensei moved around giving tips and making corrections. My senior was particularly good in helping me with the applications and his unique way of teaching quickly brought out the weak points in my bunkai. When I messed up I would often find myself being struck on a vital spot or swept off my feet and I realized how much I needed to tighten my applications. It was a fruitful time for me. Later Sensei explained that since he could not be everywhere at once he asked other seniors to work with the juniors. He added that he himself learned from seeing the senior teachers teach us. In the last hour we were back in the large group and sensei finished off the session with sanseru. Towards the end sensei came over and made a correction on my stance. Magically I found my entire body shifting to accommodate that correction and an arm technique that I was struggling with improved. He had made one small change but it had a larger overall effect. I remembered Wakabayashi Sensei, my first sensei in Singapore, telling me how a small movement in the shoulder resulted in larger one in the arm and to control my arms I had to merely move my shoulder in the right way. After this first training the sense that I was exactly where I needed to be had grown within me along with the certainty that this was where my life was meant to move.

Post lunch four of us headed off to Fuzhou eager to seek out the historical spots that we all had read about in the history of karate. The Manju bridge over the river Min with the lions that martial artists were said to have sat on waiting for others to challenge them so they could test their skills was first on our list. I had romanticized Fuzhou but it turned out to be just another large, busy and crowded city. We headed to south park but there was nothing left of the past there. We abandoned it to search for the Okinawan cultural museum and by a stroke of luck and a lot of direction seeking by Quek we found it almost as it was about to close for the evening. In that large messy city it was a well-preserved oasis with a lovely bonsai garden in the centre courtyard. The caretakers kept it open beyond its time so we could walk around. We satiated our thirst for our ‘karate’ past in the tablets, maps and pictures of the people who traversed between these two lands in those ancient times we had read about. Finally the older caretaker chased us out and we found a taxi back to Changle village.

Dinner was a quick meal. The dining room was kept exceptionally warm and was not large enough to seat us all. I was delighted to be remembered by some of the Sensei’s I had met in Goa when I was still a green belt. There were people from Spain, Portugal, England, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Okinawa and Singapore there. It felt great to be amongst people to whom karate was a huge and intrinsic part of life. Many had been practicing for more than 25 years. More than half the participants were go dan and above. What was surprising to me again was how natural I felt that I was there amongst these people. I felt amazingly comfortable in my own skin with none of the social awkwardness that I often feel in large and unfamiliar groups. Each part of my experience was reinforcing that I was at home where I was. I tumbled into bed exhausted and was asleep almost immediately.

Higaonna Sensei asked Sensei Ernie to begin the warm up on the second day. It was fast paced but focused on stretching every muscle in the body. My body was sore after the first training and it ached as I performed the moves. We moved to practicing the geki si dai ichi renzuko bunkai with our partners. Sensei stopped us often and showed us the proper way of training. He said juniors could also learn a lot watching the seniors and had the go dans and above demonstrate the bunkai too. Again when Sensei was satisfied that we had understood the rhythm and dynamics of this bunkai he split us into groups according to our dan grades to practice katas. There were only four in the shodan group and eight in the nidan group. The largest group was the yon dan, go dan group. Nakamura Sensei worked on seiyunchin with the shodans and this was another of the highpoints of the gasshuku for me. His corrections pointed out details that nobody ever had mentioned before and the way he moved his spine floored me. I breathed in every word he said and later tried to recall everything for my notes. We finished the session in the large group with almost an hour of sanchin training. Sensei explained everything in detail. He talked of how the katas taught the vital points to strike and encouraged us to do our own research on this. Each time I have been taught the intrinsics of sanchin breathing it becomes a bit more clear to me. My leaky nose also cleared a bit with so much sanchin. This was an exhausting session as Sensei gave us no break at all in the three and half hours and I was glad to be able to walk out of it to my hot shower. I knew that even six months earlier I might not have lasted the full duration.

That afternoon post lunch I stayed in my room and wrote up my training notes from the first two days, I read a bit and just wrote in my journal. It was good to take some time away from everything and be alone. Previously in gasshuku’s I had never really taken such time to really soak things in. I was often hyper, wanting to spend time with others or walk around outside. This was another unusual experience and in some ways held the template of what this gasshuku and karate was for me. It was a perfect balance of inner and outer focused awareness. Again I knew I was where I was supposed to be.

When 6:45 rolled around I was ready to give up my solitary reflections and meet everyone for our special dinner organized by the local IOGKF representative. The dinner turned out to be quite a feast. Course after course was brought out and placed on the rotating platform on our tables. Beer flowed freely and it was a loud fun evening being with others who share this crazy passion for go ju ryu. There are not many times in a year that I can spend an evening with people like this. We noticed that almost everyone had bruises on their arms in the same places from the hard training another reminder of our strange bond.

Before leaving the feast Higanoanna Sensei invited all the roku dans to the early training the next morning since there were not that many nana dans around. A cheer went up among the 6^th dans and I realized that the profile of the dan grades at this gasshuku was belly heavy with go dans and roku dans outnumbering the others. Most gasshukus on the contrary had a pyramid like profile of participants being bottom heavy where the kyu grades were and then sharply tapering off post nidan.

I woke to my last day of training. I was shifting between wanting to be with my dreams and talking with others but was glad to find the breakfast room empty. Before training I sat and reflected on my nighttime dreams under a tree close to the training hall. I could hear the kiai’s and stomping sounds of the seniors. Last evening I had calculated the number of years I would take to reach the level to be invited into the senior training and found that  it  would atleast twenty more years of training. That was almost three times the number of years I had taken to get from 10^th kyu to shodan. But as I sat there I quietly knew that the mental leap in terms of inner attitude I had made to get here from the beginning was huger than the ones I would have to make now. Things were finally starting to become more natural.

Linda Sensei began the warm up on the last day. Then Sensei went through the basic blocks once more and moved into advanced blocks, open handed techniques and the quick sliding movements, suri ashi and tai sabaki. He put it all together in some intense and fast paced partner training followed by working on locking techniques. He moved us to body conditioning and more renzuko bunkai finishing off with kakie and kakie techniques. We did the last kakie with eyes closed feeling our oppoenent with our other senses. The training ended with katas done in unison and the gasshuku was over for me. No goodbyes were necessary, as I knew I would be seeing most of these people again at other gasshukus.

When I began karate black was the ultimate color in the dojo and it felt very unattainable. As time passed I began to know that there were degrees within the black and skills grew proportionately to the time you had been training. I had gone through a long hard journey and crossed a tough barrier and was now a black belt, but I was just a beginner. At this gasshuku I deeply experienced the shades of black. Looking at my seniors I could see things I wanted to do and be. Throughout this gasshuku I had not gone through any of that crazy comparison I often indulge in and find myself inferior or superior to others. I just observed others and knew what I wanted to incorporate and improve in me, both in my karate and in myself. 

The gasshuku was in Fuzhou, the birthplace of my style. Stories and legends of the old masters abounded and I had expected a deeply mystical experience but what I got was a very simple and ordinary one. One, which was extraordinarily easy to hold onto, and which in some way I imagined what enlightenment might feel like.

fuzzy

some moments hold an intensity hard to explain. some events hold mirrors of so many others within them.

our little adopted hamster fuzzy travelled on today to a world where no cages exist to hold him. fuzzy came to us first  in december  2011 for three weeks along with his charming little brother rosie. they were our houseguests but later in 2012 when their family had to migrate elsewhere they became ours. 

fuzzy and rosie - no two personalities could be as different as they were.

rosie was a little social animal. he loved attention, he loved people and he loved wandering outside his cage. rosie seemed to have no survival instinct or maybe he just thought he had a very attentive guardian angel. he would take a leap of the edge of the couch and expect he would be caught in safe hands. everyone who saw him fell in love with him and wanted to cuddle him. 

fuzzy on the other hand was an introvert. he shunned company and even barely tolerated his brother. he ignored all attempts to woo him out of the cage initially. though later he looked forward to the times he was allowed to run free. fuzzy would peer carefully and back off when he was on the edge of a height - except that one time when he was on the lowest shelf of our bookcase, he peeped over and saw rosie below and jumped right on top of him. we all had a good laugh to see little 'killer' rosie so stunned. fuzzy loved books and would be always trying to get up on the shelves. when one of us placed him there he would sniff out the book spines as if he was choosing a book to read, or maybe just to chew on.

fuzzy was moody and he wasn't shy to take a good nip off our fingers if he felt his personal space intruded upon. he was initially larger than rosie but he was a soft soul who was most times bullied by his smaller brother. fuzzy became my favourite - i think just because rosie was a charmer and everybody loved him - fuzzy was the underdog and so i took him under my wing.

as fuzz grew he mellowed out and loved sitting and getting his body massaged. he would look up when we stopped with adorable pleading eyes. he loved my daughters massages the best and when she went off to university he looked for her and refused massages from any of us for about a week.

in the last month he lost a lot of weight and i was obsessively worried about him. we called the vet who tried to gently prepare us for his death. over the last week he grew even more scrawny, his skin hung on his bones and i cried when i touched him. he began chewing on the door of his cage begging to be let out from wednesday this week. when out he would run around the house madly, i felt he was searching for something and i ached for him. this afternoon he passed on. earlier in the day he had climbed up and wanted to come out. he fell down and my husband picked him up and massaged him gently. fuzzy closed his eyes and went into his castle. a few hours later he was gone. of course i wonder what more i could have done to make his last days more comfortable? was he lonely and needing something, saying something i could not hear? i miss him.

he was just a little hamster, ours for just seven months, but we are left with a heavy sadness that is hard to carry. i think of neruda's lines 

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered

and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

its like his loss brings back the grief of all those loved ones i have lost in my life. those i lost when i was too young to know grief properly. those i lost when i was already broken and could break no more. i mourn and break today for all those i loved and lost. my sweet little fuzzy leaves me the gift of his being and the experience of knowing grief in a way i didn't know before.

i love you fuzz. 

a dream and fantasy worlds

recently i had a dream. in the dream i was walking up to the 24th floor of a building where my daughter would be living. we walked into the apartment and it was nice, cosy and fully furnished. then i left her to go find mine on the 17th floor. as i walked downwards i found the structure was not complete. the steel rods lay bare. and my apartment was unfinished. it had only the mere sense of walls. perturbed i ran to the bottom where i saw an old man whom i later identified as george rr martin passing out cupcakes.

i spent a many engrossed hours thinking about this dream, learning from it and marvelling again in the way dreams provide me with so much knowledge about myself.

george rr martin at the bottom was a surprise. i think his song of ice and fire books are incredible. i love the way he writes characters and breaks all the rules about point of view and plot. i love even more how complete his world is in detail. but i  hate that his world is so sexist and how he paints women into very limited gender roles. sure there are strong women in the story but the story is set in a patriarchal world where women are treated as sex objects and crimes like rape are normalised. in that, and other things, the imaginary world he's created is very much like ours. when a long winter is coming which fools would spend their lives warring instead of co-operating to wisely use limited resources i wonder. yes, thats just what we do in our world too.

so i hate the books and his world as much as i love them. while full and entertaining they also are helping maintain the very structures of our world that i hate. he explains it away in an interview by saying that is the world he knows. but fantasy to me is about imagining and creating any kind of world.

another writer i love - and hate -  is patrick rothfuss. his prose is lyrical and flows out like soul stirring musical notes. his language so rich and evocative. his story line is simpler, more linear and sometimes a bit predictable but still i delightfully devoured all 600 pages of his first book. alternately loving, feeling sorry for, hating and pitying the protagonist. yet i am reluctant to read his next book. simply because his world is also sexist. why would i, a woman, enjoy reading a book about a university where the female-male ratio of the students is about ten in every hundred? it seems to suggest to me that patrick rothfusss thinks women are not smart enough to be in university, just like our forefathers. and his lead female wanders in and out of the book on the arms of different men and this existence of hers is explained by 'what else can a pretty girl do.' a bit distasteful!

so why are there so few fantasy books with egalitarian social structures? why don't people share and co-operate to maximise the use of limited resources?  if i were creating a world thats the one i would create. and if i was writing about rape i would make it seem abnormal instead of the norm. that is the world i want to read about. stories subtly act on our unconscious and reading stories which don't have the same discriminatory structures and prejudices against women will go a long in changing our inner world.