Intention-setting.

Ah yes, it's been awhile. Integration has been the most difficult part of training and sort of feels like it will never be complete -- some parts of me don't integrate, which is cool and good and new and full of possibility actually. I like the new ways I fit and don't fit places. I defended my thesis and finished university. I have been on an art tirade.

That's why I'm writing again. I have been thinking a great deal about intention-setting, only because I have been watching intentions unfold almost falling straight out of my mouth. I decided, realized (the same thing -- I'll talk about that some other time), at training that this would be a summer of art, of establishing my identity as an artist (to myself; by proxy, to the world). I am an artist, after all. (See!) My artist self has been in impatient hibernation for most of five years of university. My summer project is to call myself an artist. Since I finished writing my thesis I have painted three paintings, one giant ceiling mural (it's a magic spell), and begun work on two nests. I've been waking up, doing art for two hours, eating breakfast, doing art until dinner, doing art all night until bed. Sometimes it isn't even what I want to be doing but it demands to be done. On top of insane compulsions art supplies have been falling out of the sky to me. A few days ago a friend dropped off three ten-foot tall canvas (free) and my roommate just gave me a beautiful history of a toolbox filled with rejected mediums (pencils pastels pastels charcoal charcoal comte oils goache, plus paper). It's a treasure.

I'm working on a painting for a ceremony I'm helping with, thereby working on my organizing skills and keeping me connected to another of my always-expanding artistic and spiritual communities.

I am experiencing (and so I am sharing) that setting a true intention, a wise spirit-true intention, creates near instant change.

Integration

The day I got back I went to a stunning full moon meditation lead by a friend, and found myself singing and playing my little wooden flute, and glowing, and having deep visualizations, and feeling like all was right. I could feel the ways I'd changed and deepened. The meditation and following celebration felt like a place I could bloom.

But in the days since I've felt like all of my training has slipped away, like it didn't even happen, like I'm alone, and depressed. I leapt into yoga classes but some that used to be my favourites weren't challenging and engaging like they used to be, and the sequencing felt unsafe, and I know that going to them won't keep up my training. My community is scattered around the city and world, and there's no community gathering I can rely on. Practicing alone in my room feels... lonely; I'm so used to 40-90 people sharing energy. Planning my own sequences deflates the experience. I feel panicky about all of the physical work I've done over the last month slipping away.

I haven't yet started to look for work. I'm settling in, but I'm also really intimidated.

The last thing Ana said to me was, "remember that you can brighten up any time you want, especially when you run energy" but this city is full of energy healers -- I feel silly offering in the company of other who have trained in just that. Friends seem skeptical.

I don't feel ready to tackle teaching yoga full time (and it would take months to build up a full time schedule), I have no money at all, and no job, and I'm scrambling to find any kind of work that will pay me decently and not suck me dry spiritually and emotionally: it turns out there's nothing I want to do. Actually, half the time I do not even want to be a yoga teacher, it seems taxing. I came back bursting to throw myself into art and community, but I don't want to write or paint.

I yearn to do one of my favourite, favourite things -- sit in a cafe and write and read -- but upon my return, coffee makes me feel gross, I have no patience for reading, and nothing I read inspires me to write anything.

I've been sleeping all day. I'm concerned that I'm allergic to the house or the cat. I don't know if I should move with my house in June to a place with cheap rent, or try to find a place of my own -- if that's good for me, or if I'll just squander much-needed traveling-and-adventure money on rent if I do that.

I didn't think returning would feel like this at all. Friends who've come back have come back charged up and raring to teach. Where have I gone?