the first time i went to a meditation class ever

for a little while i have wanted to go to a meditation class or do yoga or something. the idea of meditation is appealing to me because my understanding of it is to 'clear your mind'. so i heard about this free meditation class in crystal palace and i decided it would be a good idea to finally try it.

i was pretty hesitant because online it said it would go for 90 minutes, wondered if i could last for that long but i figured that i should just do it because i have wanted to try it for so long and what else would i be doing at home, sitting down and watching shows or whatever, when i could be sitting down thinking about stuff maybe

felt weird about what i should wear, was also really hot, just wore a long skirt and sandals
was strange walking into the room, felt lame sitting in the front row but it seemed harmless
the first thing they taught us was about chakras and this spiritual part of you called 'kundalini' and she said the point of this type of meditation would be to have a self realisation via kundalini
she told us what the 7 chakras were but i forget all of them apart from the ones which were to do with forgiveness and guilt
a guy took over and took us through the meditation thing
we just sat in our chairs which weren't very comfortable and took off our shoes and put our left hand towards this picture of this lady who started the thing (i felt slightly weird about that)
he told us to put our right hand on our heart, then our rib, then our hip and i felt severe depression when he said the thing about the hip and i began realising how much i hate myself lol
these girls were whispering behind me and it was annoying because i was trying to forgive everyone and myself but all i could think of was how annoyed i was by them
started crying a little bit idk why
the guy was saying we should ask if we are master of ourselves or if we have more to learn or something like that and all i kept thinking was how much of a flawed person i am
it was hard to pretend i wasn't crying but everybody had their eyes closed
began feeling pretty uncomfortable sitting in a chair, i was trying to do good posture that i have been learning via yoga videos but it was difficult

it was an odd experience, something i am glad i did

seemed like meditating, generally, was a really powerful thing for me, unexpectedly, somehow. part of me thinks i cried because i felt upset about the fact I didn’t really connect with the spiritual side of it, but i just wanted to try really hard even though it felt wrong. it was a weird realisation to have, that even if i am trying i can’t make myself believe in something i perceive to be unreal

we watched this video though and it was the lady who started this type of meditation talking about how all religions generally have this spirit idea in common and basically how it doesn't matter what religion you are or whether you're not of one, this kundalini thing is something you have inside you and it's your right to try to access it and meditate etc

at the end the people taking the class kind of 'worked on us' which basically meant we sat there trying to have a self realisation and they moved their hands over our heads and around our bodies (which made me feel uncomfortable because there were people walking past the window going to sainsbury's and like what if they thought i was in a cult maybe, also there was a swing class in the hall next door and old people kept walking into the canteen which you could see from behind the projector screen in our room) she didn't get to 'work on me' but she said that i should meditate with my feet in water because it would be good for me. and i felt like crying again like how does she know things about me that i don't know, even something as obscure as this

they gave us grape juice at the end

when i was walking home the girl sitting next to me passed me on the street and she was literally the tiniest thing, like actually half my size

i think probably i am going to go again, just due to i am curious about the long term benefits of this, i had a pretty amazing weekend which i don't think is unrelated : )

slef aware

On 5 Mar 2012, at 22:38, Stacey Teague wrote:

was just thinking about how you said that you realised you didn't know yourself like you thought you did, now that you have moved to a different country. i think this is because we let the things/people around us shape who we are, like having those things/people around affirms who we are and the fact that you are away from those things/people means you lose part of yourself via putting so much of yourself into those things/people. this came as a sort of revelation to me in the shower but i suppose it is fairly obvious. when i am sitting in my room with all of my possessions and comforts, i feel the luxury of being/knowing myself. since i still live in the town i was born in, there is a sense of familiarity everywhere i go. i've left parts of myself and my memories all over this city. that is fine i suppose, but we need to go somewhere else so that we can discover who we are when we are not being defined by external things.

On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 12:23 AM, Susie Anderson wrote:

it seems weird to me to live in the same town where you were born, but we were born in v different places. i guess i would feel different about melbourne if i had been born there. it'd be nice to think i'd still love it as much as i do having only lived there ~4 years. the thing is, it's a really nice feeling to be able to create a new sense of familiarity, discovering things, but also to still be able to be surprised by somewhere.

the thing i am doing now is pretending that i'm this orb of a person who can adapt into anything (read: most situations). it's sort of working, but i feel pretty detached about it. i think much of what makes up your personality is shared jokes and memories. meeting new people you don't have that.. so those things get pushed away when there's no one to share them with. and i've found myself  nodding along with things that i find truly dull, or using anecdotes i have no interest in. this is helping me become less judgemental i think.

but also there are things i know i can't control like how self conscious i am : (

On 8 Mar 2012, at 07:19, Stacey Teague wrote:

wondering about the difference between 'self-awareness' and self-consciousness'. i suppose i've always thought they could be used interchangeably, and they are similar, except i think that SA is generally more of a positive term whereas SC is like SA gone bad os

i think i feel both self conscious and self aware

i feel okay about being self aware, but i don't think i have any choice in it. since i am so introverted, hanging out in this inner world thing i've cultivated, it's natural for me to have a strong sense of self. also maybe i have come to an age where i am more sure of things. it's like your body is a shell and there's a lil you deep in the middle and every day that lil you grows more comfortably into that shell. that's a really bad metaphor idk, what do you think

i think about self-consciousness as one of my worst afflictions, i really do

i think that being self conscious is like being the person at the party who is constantly taking photos, you sort of miss out on a lot of things and are often unable to experience things organically, like being completely "in" a situation b/c you are too busy thinking about yourself in conjunction with the situation and everyone else in the situation

i remember talking to spencer about "knowing yourself" and he said something about not understanding the concept of it via "how can you know yourself if you are yourself" and i assume he also meant 'how can you not know yourself if you are yourself'.

because now that i really think about it, the idea of knowing yourself is bullshit

i mean most of the time we just do things and don't think much about it right, that's probably the way it should be

i just think we are who we are no matter how much thought we put into it

and 'knowing yourself' is not a conscious thing, it's more like something you feel or know as opposed to any kind of complicated thought process

On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 1:22 AM, Susie Anderson wrote:

I think that for me being self conscious is more about me being aware of how much I dislike myself. It's weird. I don't know.

It's weird having moments when you realise other people aren't as 'self aware' and they are like 'oh my god you think about things so much'. weird right.

as for the shell thing. i see what you're getting at. just reminds me of the container thing from wind up bird. it would be weird if our outside selves looked exactly what our inside selves were like. i wonder what it would be like. or maybe it's exactly right.

yeah seems like other people always know your quirks and things. jordan always says 'you'll indulge my quirks'. he just seems to have a really good grip on the things that make him 'him'. and he knows we all know them too. i think some people don't know those things at all, other people don't care, and still others are trying to work them out.

just reading what you said about the 'photographer at a party'. i can't say i like that analogy, it makes being self conscious seem really selfish. i guess in a way it is.

knowing yourself is a bit weird. i don't know. sometimes i feel real detached from who i am. and i feel happy about that. is that a bad thing. i think being aware of yourself is better than knowing yourself, somehow. 

nyc notes

times square

feel like there are so many strange (+ terrifying sometimes) people in the world. the feeling of being in somebody else's holiday pictures makes me feel weird. mostly fine but still not fine. not sure. do people even look at their holiday stuff again? ny seems pretty much as i expected.. or something, as i imagined it to be maybe. or seems to be as it should

g train

semi terrified of getting lost on the subway as per what happened when i was younger (note, i got lost on the tube in london). wondering occasionally whether me + [romantic interest] will do marriage. think i could. but i am v young. the announcements on trains here are still humans... i feel comforted by this + at least on this train i can hear them. feel a scary thing about this country is that anybody could be carrying a gun. hm. going to listen to the whitest music i can: coldplay

staten island ferry

feels like it would be an ok thing to do to be a parent, interesting to show them how to be a normal human + manners etc. i will need to have a partner with really good maners i think b/c mine are poor. love seeing how men get fatherly. for some reason this is immensely endearing and pretty attractive.

hunter college subway

'the network effect'. people seem to be combinations of more things here. like obviously there are just more people, ergo more cultures. in australia those things are very new so it's unlikely one would be a mix of more than one nationality.

museum of natural history

just really miss the boys, specific boys. sometimes feel pain because i am missing out on so much love. but museums + the planetarium will have their special effect on me, make me remember how small i am, how nothing. i guess i am someone to some people.. but the world is too huge.. overwhelmed by how much there is to know.

at 'births deaths and marriages' victoria

walking through the shiny ass foyer in a fuck off building on collins street. feel outta place with a hole in my tights

overheard someone saying 'my husband and i married in las vegas in 1998'

<12 month old baby w/earrings, why do women want to pierce their baby's ears?

have been thinking in depth about the nature of my relationships with boys. in the past have considered myself to be terrified of intimacy and am attempting to work out how accurate this is. friend of mine said that the person who will change my mind about this is 'the person' and if i am looking for it i will be too conscious of it and thus not find 'the person'. also another friend had a similar anecdote about 'one night stands', said one day you find the person that you don't want to leave in the morning lol. so currently i am a morning leaver, not that i have those things a lot but that's my instinct and i have just been considering it lately. and i don't mind it. i am pretty happy continuing on in this vein. think i will be intrigued to meet the person who can change this behaviour mostly b/c it just seems so unlikely.

kids playing hide and seek underneath some benches, saying 'found ya' in exactly the same tone that i used to say it. strongly remember the terror of being found.

at the counter the man is really quiet. trying to find places to stare at that aren't him, for some reason. the 'births deaths and marriages' slogan is 'recognising significant life events'. he printed my certificate and said 'thanks susie'

why are you being weird

'being weird' seems like code for being quiet or disagreeable, not matching another person's ideals, calling them out or making them see something different to what they normally perceive as normal, a realisation of another person's perception that throws a different light on their own.

being weird could also be a physical state of being, be thinking about something weird, it manifests on your face. being weird can consume you. being weird can mean being too quiet, being too loud, being a notable quantity of anything5

on the other side of being, when someone says you're being weird, I feel something pull on the sides of my neck, as if I'm being pulled backwards, then also my stomach feels like I've fallen, but only briefly. and then a desire to prove that no... I am not that weird. maybe attempt to show the rationality behind my weirdness

or perhaps you do not understand your weirdness and cannot perceive why other people see your behaviour as something remarkable or unusual because this seems usual to you, normal.

being weird makes you palpably aware of other people's being, one of those crude awakenings to others' otherness and simultaneously an awareness of not being the centre of 'it all'.

[just a thought:] nobody benefits from when you call someone out on being weird cause it's like neither of you have accepted your unimportance

why do we post poetry on our blog?

When Stacey and I started writing this blog together we would pick topics and write (anything, in any form) about them. From writing about different topics, we have progressed to the stage where we probably each post anywhere from 1-3 poems per week. Before, when only our friends read our blog, I think the idea behind this was so we could give each other feedback and feel like we had a reason to write. Stacey has always been a seeker of poetry online, and through this somehow we cottoned on to this scene of poetry - I don't know whether you would call it the 'Pop Serial' scene or if you could generalise enough to say that the poets basically just publish their own writing on their blogs and a lot of them live in America (though there are a few bros in the UK - sup Liam & Crispin).

Probably around this time we started getting a lot of people reading our blog in NZ. This was probably due, in part, to Joseph Ernest Harper and David Klein putting a link to our blog on their blogs. These relationships were fostered by a series of commenting and, arguably, interest in what the other parties were posting. We started to really like this attention on our blog, and began to expand our commenting spectrum.

One of the most important characteristics of the American poetry scene I referred to before is that it is a really strong and supportive community. Through both Steve Roggenbuck's chapbook 'I am like October When I am Dead', available online and in print, and Poncho Peligroso's 'the Romantic', we were introduced to this really enthusiastic, exciting bunch of poets who, most comfortingly, are real people who reply to comments. Another noteable characteristic is their zeal for tweeting. I have noticed that (even Australian) writers seem to be the biggest users of twitter. @ing people, I feel, is similar to commenting on blogs - enables engagement with writers, breaks down typical hierarchies between author/reader etc. Twitter is great for cross promotion and conversing with people relevant to your practice. By following poets/writers whose work we read, we are able to implant ourselves into the community by consistently retweeting and @ing. Probably pertinent to mention at this stage that consistency or reliability (with both tweeting and blogging) is key.

I realise if you don't know anything about this scene I refer to it might seem a little bit vague. A bunch of them are mentioned in a post Stacey wrote earlier this year called 'Enormous Boon' and more can be found by perusing Pop Serial's website and also the online literary journal New Wave Vomit. The moment I was really excited by this bunch of writers was when I listened to  Ear Eater Audio where people read out their own poetry and other people's poetry in an apartment, with attendees reading via skype or in person. Other similarly exciting things I have witnessed have been live poetry readings by Stephen Tully Dierks, Steve R and Brett Gallagher on ustream where you can totally chat with them as they read cool poetry and be really awesome. There is another one of when Poncho went to Chicago to visit them. At the particular reading I watched, the boys read poetry written by their contemporaries and other poets who have inspired them. Both the Ear Eater Audio series and the ustream readings show the strength of this community and their eagerness to support one another - probably they wouldn't put it that way themselves, but I guess that's what it is really. I don't think any of this could have begun without blogging.

Anyway seeing this as an opportunity to make people aware of us down in the southern hemisphere, me and Stacey last week recorded a poetry podcast via skype with a similar idea in mind. We wanted to show how much we dig the poetry we read online and in doing so, increase our blog's readership. And, hypothetically, after all this, more people are reading our poetry.

Stacey has been submitting to online literary journals/publications far and wide, both of us (I believe) starting with New Wave Vomit. For me, this was a most validating experience. Felt like I could submit my poetry elsewhere. Recently, I was solicited, through the blog, to write a piece for a Mexican zine called me gusta, no me gusta. From where we began, posting our thoughts about different topics, to Mexico? It's so crazy. I have been searching for something like this scene I badly outlined above in Melbourne and I cannot find it. I know that it is not just native to America, because of the large number of kiwi writers who read our blog. We get a lot of hits from Melbourne, which confuses me, because I don't feel I have convinced many of my friends to read my blog regularly, and there's only so many times I can hit refresh.

I have attempted to research a similar scene (as outlined above) in Australia, but have come up with nothing. For now, I can only conclude that the literary scene here is about traditional pathways to publishing, and more concerned with poetry as a commodity than sharing it with the world or people who might actually feel something after reading it. Incidentally, poetry that I read online is for me more emotionally valid than poetry I read published in some local publications - which isn't usually the case when I read stuff on a screen**. This is one of the reasons that we (or at least something I want to get out of it) are making our poetry anthology/zine/whatever - to try and give poetry bloggers in Australia/NZ some 'credibility', or kinda as a fuck you to the literary heirarchies going round.

We haven't actually discussed whether we want to 'make a living' from this or what we really want to do with our writing. We get excited about projects or things we can do via our blog, things that we could only do with the help of people who we know through the poetry/lit scene that we have become a part of. I reckon part of the reason we started posting poetry here was because we wanted to share our 'feelings' and basically get some sort of catharsis and potentially connect with people who read and who feel the same. Ultimately I am trying to say that I think sharing poetry online isn't thankless, it opens you up to a new bunch of readers and real sweet ass community of bros.

*I realise, though, that there probably aren't enough literary journals to accommodate all the writing going on - an email from Going Down Swinging said they got close to 3000 submissions from around 1000 individuals.