To sleep, perchance to dream....

Wow! What started on a whim one Sunday night when this workaholic had a fried brain and was disinterested in CNN's special magazine story on "porn" (really, nothing has changed much in thousands of years other than its generalized acceptance and proliferation via the internet. Good for you, porn! Now, if only it would actually serve to honor the value of sex, instead of present a shallow definition..... i.e., sexy, for me, is so much more than the veneer of porno-sheen that seems to be taking the country by Hiltonian storm..... and the pendulum swings.) has turned into a strange commitment, an exercise in writing and creativity that I have actually started setting aside time to do!!!


And, not, today's challenge is not about porn. While I can't say I'm for or against it, (depends on my mood. hahaha. What!? I'm just saying what everybody thinks.) it doesn't mean as much to me as the following!!!.....


Day 26 - A picture of something that means a lot to you


....... I have a bipolar relationship with sleep.


You see, don't hate me for my Aries moon, but I have boundless energy. And when I get excited about a project.... well.... I just can't sleep. Last night I was so excited about something I've discovered, I had to put myself to bed, finally, at 2 am. And then I relied upon my discipline in meditation to get myself to sleep.


And quite honestly, there are only two reasons I really understand WHY I need to sleep as much as possible every day:


1. As a singer, it makes ALL the difference in the world with my voice. I have overcome so pretty nasty vocal nodes and bad habits and am just NOT uncovering some of the habits I developed early on in singing that have really caused mis-health (I cannot quite say dis-ease) in my voice. But that said, it's a sensitive instrument and proper rest makes a BILLION times difference.


But.


Reason Number Two....


2. To sleep, perchance to dream.....


I mean this singularly here, not the way Hamlet meant it... although, that, too.


You see, my dreams are magical, fantastical, vivid, healing. They are not separate from my waking life but like two sides of the mobius strip, they turn out to actually be one continuous highway of life experience.


And I Love Them.


I have long had some amazing dreams. I have serial dreams... I have one -offs that are incredible. I often blog about my dreams because they are amazing adventures. My favorites are the serial dreams about the pirate ship (In one dream life, I am a pirate Queen who, urged by Sting [it's my dream life. Shush.] stopped pirating souls for selling in Tripoli and started healing dolphins.) How that informs my waking [sic] life? a. Sting, in my dreams, gives me lots of advice as a singer and songwriter. b. I have had a number of song ideas and story ideas from these pirate dreams. c. they're AMAZING fun not just for me but to share at dinner parties, etc. I mean, come ON! Pirate Queen!


My favorite dreams are usually about my grandmothers, who have both LONG since passed from this earth. These days they come rarely to my dreams, but sometimes. Always they are guides for me, generally towards wisdom. With my mother's Mother, Grandma Winnick, she guides me also in the direction of FUN.


My friend Rebecca, renowned psychic, told me that whenever I see dimes on the street or randomly anywhere, it's a sign from that Grandmother that she's with me, she's supporting me. Well, I just realized last week, two years after she said that, in conversation with a friend abut the Game Show Wheel of Fortune, that when I was a little girl, Grandma and I used to play Wheel of Fortune and we'd place bets, of course. We'd play for DIMES.


p.s. I never did beat her. She was tough.


One of my all time favorite dreams is about my sister. I had this dream when I was probably about 21, I think....


Laura and I were walking through an endless desert. We were at once in ancient dunes as well as we were in modern times, i.e., we were in timelessness. The sun was high above our heads and before us lay the ebbs and tides of sand in various shades of camel and ecru.


Deep silence, only the resounding ring between our ears, and a strange wind that would pick up from our feet and bend the wave of sand from tidal to valley.


Then, from nowhere, a BOOM and a screech. A shadow just to our right, coming from behind. We turned to look.


A trail of six dragons, connected nose to tail, flew in a line in the sky, at first bending and waving like a squiggle but once they smelled our blood, they became focused as one system. Some were strictly dragons, and some where gryphons. They were not benign creatures. They were headed straight for us, hawk-eyed and fast.


I turned to Laura but suddenly she was far, far away from me. I looked back to the creatures in the sky, hungry for our hearts, and I knew I had to get to her before they did. With all the might I could muster, I ran as fast as I could and just as they were about to devour Laura, I reached her. I threw myself in front of her and threw my arms out wide to my sides. As each dragon hit my heart, he turned into a beautiful man in a suit, and, smiling toward heaven, ascended to the deep blue sky. One, two, three, four, five, six.


Then I awoke.


That is one of my favorite dreams of all time and I remember every moment, every grain of sand, every whisper beneath the earth.


That is why sleep means so much to me, even if it's a discipline for me, even if, at times, it is hard to come by.........


I'll leave you with a few lines from a new song.


Nighttime dreaming, softly we... I awakened from a dream-

to a shade of moonlight drawn on your face.

Gently, your eyes opening.

"Oh, I was just dreaming...


...I was stranded on the beach, yet here on bed within your reach-

somehow I was in both places at once:

The World of Dreams,

an this sweet moment here

you and me.


...And at the sea:

the sea tide was low and the water was warm

like that day last year in Carlsbad- do you recall?

A thousand miles away you were,

and I couldn't get to you,

yet I felt your heart.


...In a flash, you were here:


Your eyes! The light-

Your lips On mine...

...breathing you in me....


...."


Morning dreaming, softly me.

All alone but for the dream,

and a ray of sunlight upon my face.

Gently, my eyes opening-

awakening

from the dream.

On Love, and LIVING while you're alive....

Day 24 - A picture of something you wish you could change



Okay...... getting a little personal.... I wrote this morning's journal before I knew what today's challenge was!!!! But it's perfect. Here it is (with a few edits made to protect the.... can't say innocent.... but those who did not sign a disclosure on being my friend! hahahaha.)



I have spent a lot of time considering this man woman relationship thing. A lot of people ask me why I'm STILL SINGLE. Oh my god, I'm an old maid. And for a while this question bugged me, because, really, why am I? Mostly, I cite the need for extreme freedom to run around and do my thing. Guys can be... so... needy. None of the ones I've dated (insert sarcastic laugh here) and since like attracts like, I know I resemble that comment. I mean, let's check out my dating history and we know, my best relationships seem to be the ones that were clandestine, forbidden, secret, boundary crossing.... god. My life is like a Russian novel. And so, since I no longer want "crazy" as a way of life, and since I am a recovered Drama Queen, answer part two about why I'm not married is because I don't know, or haven't known yet, how to get into relationships with men who are creative AND independent AND smart AND fun AND also not possessive and not obsessive and not nuts. So, the following logical answer is: I don't want to be in a relationship. I'd say this is pretty spot on. They take a lot of work and it takes a very strong man to be able to stand next to a very strong woman. And a lot of the time I'm too busy having fun to notice the great guys all around me. So, a combination of rotten luck historically (bad picker), being fiercely independent, and, oh!



The really important one:



not really buying into our cultural concept of "dating," "hanging out," "relationships," "marriage," etc.



It seems like so much of the time, whether you are male or female, straight or gay, it seems to not matter gender or orientation on this one: dating is a series of needs and fears covered over by "getting the other person to like me" whether or not "I actually like them" and then suddenly one or both has been talked into a relationship by the other and no one really is sure it's a good idea, but damnit, I guess it's better than being alone.



Then, there is the Erin style, wait until you meet some crazy amazing prince who sweeps you off your feet and then notice they are a drug cartel leader, not a revolutionary poet. Dang CIA is STILL calling me about that one.



Okay, then there are the inspirational ones. My parents have been together 40 years. My brother and sister in law have been together for, um, ever, I guess, and I see them in love, and then working with each other, and dedicated to each other and their lives together. That's amazing.



But mostly.... mostly..... I see..... a bunch of expectations so high they can never be met based on an idea that has nothing to do with who the person actually is in his or her heart, because..... he or she doesn't actually even know who he or she is.....



Lots of hope and fear.



I am done with fear. I am done with people who hold me back. I am done with ideas that suck me dry. I am done with hope and I am on to faith.



And so, until then......



What I wish I could change, and what I am changing about me, is my relationship to SELF and, specifically, to SELF AS WOMAN. I am changing my attitude about glorious womanhood, so that I may change my relationship to YUMMY MANHOOD.



Interestingly, I spent a little time with an old guy friend yesterday. He's lonely, and I know he'd like girls either for getting laid and maybe more (no judgment, I feel the same way) and.... he has no problem "getting" girls, but does he actually want them the WAY he can get them? I share his dilemma..... but on the opposite side of the gender coin.... apparently, we are Artemis and Apollo here.... he doesn't actually want to get into a relationship for whatever reason, just as I'm not sure I want to either......



And, I think so much of it has to do with how much we, as a society, as a culture, have been perverting and deviating our faith in our masculine and feminine energies...... Just as women are taught to be thinner, to be more perfect, to be the sexiest according to an IDEA outside of self, instead of WITHIN..... These guys just don't believe in their manhood. And why should they? They have not been celebrated for it. They have had to buy into a series of cultural rules and laws that are conflicting and yet stoic patterns and methods of behavior that are mean, unjust, unmanly, fucked up, and so they saw the bullshit but were born into this society just like I was, and, having no tools and no way in and no way out, decided to start drinking or drugging or TV-ing or eating or smoking or work-aholicking or lying or cheating or prolong the intimacy game or cutting off or masking or lying to self or distracting self from the no choice wallowing of modern society--- at the urging of their fellows who were receiving, at least, some relief from the ordeal of being alive--- and suddenly they were sucked into a game of treachery, lies and deceit- against the self- with little chance of freedom.



....Now, they have been given a glimpse of a diamond, and they know they can crawl out of the dirt to grasp that diamond, but the path is full of old regrets and lost chances and pain and sorrow and misery, until they see the opportunity of possibility, the chance at "me" and then.... then........ when they can be okay with the worms and the fungus and the dirt and the muck, be in joy because they be, then they can be men. But how do you say that to a man? You don't.... I don't..... Because guess what?



I'm going through the same thing as a woman.



So, I write this instead..... I celebrate them in moments and instances for being men. I let them take care of me. I let them hold me. I champion them not just as a friend but as a mother, as a lover, as whatever woman figure is needed in this moment. Kwan Yin, Mother Mary.... Lakshmi, Aphrodite, Freya..... Athena, Hera, Maeve.... Durga, Kali...... Venus, Isis... Tara..... I become that with which you need, as you need, to be of service to you, and no with disregard for me, but with the highest integrity of my being, the highest integrity of my soul, for I am a woman, and I know that ONLY against the backdrop of your manhood. i.e., I'm not turning my back on feminism. I know what those women did for me, for us. I would not be writing this today if it weren't for my ladies of history who FOUGHT for this right.



Only, I wish to invite a sort of balancing of the energies into our world. As we begin to see that we need to tend and turn more and more to our mother, earth.... I aspire to practice my own behaviors as such. I wish to BE NATURAL, not mimic nature. Why? Because I'm part of the natural world, too. I'm a monkey, I'm a rose, I'm a river.



And when, in this parceled out, sanitized modern society, when do we truly get to be women, truly receiving our men? And I am not talking about gender roles, I hope we all know I am meaning also the true center of self and energy feminine or masculine, be you man, woman, or something else. I mean, when does feminine TRULY get heard, allowed, received, given to in this society in which we mostly just make jokes about women drivers while emasculating our men? My god. How many more women need to have eating disorders through their dying day? How many more instances of rape and pillage must we pretend are happening to some person OVER THERE? How long will we allow this game to continue until we crumble, a species that could have been? The Holy Grail is right here! Take it. Drink from it. Be here.



Well, for me, the time is now. Done. I was born. I made it onto earth. I'm alive. So I'm here and let's play!



I'm into life. Not my idea of life. Not my philosophy of life. Not any rules or laws "I'd" like to see about life.



But being alive while I'm living.







What would I like to change?



I want for every person, man, woman, child, otherwise (why not!?) To have the freedom to be ALIVE while they are living.





xxoxxoxxoxxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxox



with love of the deepest sort,





Erin

» No one is going to play Elizabeth Taylor, but Elizabeth Taylor herself.

Liz Taylor died .... and at first, reading her bio, I was so jealous. I always wanted to move here when I was a little girl. I wanted to be a child movie star who moved into becoming a screen icon. Look, I might as well admit it. I'm a grown up woman now, but it took me years to find the courage to truly begin following my dreams and heart. And when I was little, my parents and family lovingly thought that I was just being a kid with a kid's fantasies. Of course these dreams of being an artist would pass. Of course they would. Right?

Nope.

Flash forward to high school, and I wanted to be a performer. I was offered scholarships to NYU and USC. I was ready to go. And what happened? I chickened out.

Oh, I went to a very, very fine school. And then another and another and another, always choosing majors that were one or two steps away from what I actually wanted. I dropped out, joined a rock band, went to massage school. EVERYTHING BUT my dreams: I wanted to be a singing Liz Taylor. I wanted to be Bette Midler an Lily Tomlin an Barbra. mostly I wanted to be Barbra because she also wrote and directed her own movies. But I kept choosing something one step away....

And then I started getting bold. I started writing my own plays, directing my own films, touring with my own music. I had finally started stepping into my own life. And, like any good artist human person, famous or not, I began finding fulfillment, followed by fear, followed by desire, followed by action or non action in response to fear, followed by fulfillment and let down and.... the cycle of creation: creation, maintenance, destruction. The circle of life.

And travel, and love, and it all entered my life as an artist.... just like, if I had been a teacher, or a minister, or a chiropractor.... whether or not it would have been totally expressed to the public, it would have informed that life.

Well, flash forward years later, I am pursuing my dreams whole-heartedly. I don't care if I'm famous or not famous. I love my life and I use my abilities to be of service to the world around me. But I still sometimes pine... I pine.... and then I remind myself that I have an amazing life I love, and that all artists become dissatisfied because it is part of being an artist. You can always make the line more poetic, the note more pure, and then there are those times the world goes white and you're soaring. And THAT is what my life is all about....

THAT

And

SERVICE.

So back to Liz Taylor.

I love her Piscean ways. I have long been a fan of hers, not just for her work as an actress who had many men (so very Pisces) but also for her courage in standing up to a world full of opinions that may or may not have been appropriate, true, loving or correct. She stood up and did activist work for AIDS... she worked for many humanitarian efforts... she defended her friends in a time of mass hysteria and confusion an spoke "her" truth about it. (Michael Jackson.)

And this morning I began reading an article about her final tweets:

Here are a flurry from July 22:

» Every breath you take today should be with someone else in mind. I love you.

» Because then it becomes about yourself...which is wrong. Giving is to give to God. Helping is to help others.

» That is the thing that will give back to you all the rewards that there are. Don't do it for yourself, because then it becomes selfish.

» Give. Remember always to give. That is the thing that will make you grow.

» You are who you are. All you can do in this world is help others to be who they are and better themselves and those around them.

» Never let yourself think beyond your means...mental, emotional or any otherwise.

» I would like to add something to my earlier tweet. Always keep love and humility in your heart.

» Hold your horses world. I've been hearing all kinds of rumours about someone being cast to play me in a film about Richard and myself.

» No one is going to play Elizabeth Taylor, but Elizabeth Taylor herself.

» Not at least until I'm dead, and at the moment I'm having too much fun being alive...and I plan on staying that way. Happiness to all.

ALL IN ONE DAY!?!?!?

I like it also because she reminds me of who IIIII am, then. Or, rather, who I aspire to be. A woman who, no matter what, lives her life to the fullest with a goal of helping others toward happiness and joy.... bliss...

Of course, she has just died, so we are talking about the glory and the beauty...... as we should. We should more often focus on the positive, I believe.....To the end, she was a woman of service. I find it so amazing. And inspiring to me to want to continue my life committing acts of kindness every time possible...

by way of the phoenix

Recently.... possibly always.....


Let's face it. I'm doing a one woman show here in Los Angeles that I will tour around the country and for which I am writing a companion book about this-

this thing that has made a huge impact on my life....

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?created&¬e_id=10150464534310122#!/notes/erin-elizabeth-muir/thirty-day-challenge-day-17/10150464534310122

What has truly made the hugest impact on my life?


For what have I traveled the mountains and skies and seas, in search of, in escape of, in ignorance of, in hopes of? Running away from, forgetting that our globe, at this time, is, well, a globe, so I just come back to the beginning time and time again?


And in what have I finally begun discovering my own secret true self?


But I grow old.... I grow old....


You see, I am beginning to see so much deeper (than all roses, yes, and than my own ideas, and than my own experiences that drop me even deeper through the tectonic shifting of human magnetic reverberation expanding heart energy throughout each others' worlds and the intracellular response and the outer waves of recognition of something so much more than all that I just implied suggested incepted in a run on poetic sentence that to some makes no sense but to Joyce and the crow and the seed are obvious no words words....)


We have just gotten it wrong for so long


but not because the opposite of what we


(me) (I) (you?)


have been doing is right.


But because we have been using the mask to indicate the emotion instead of

allowing

something

more powerful than

that to take us


and not in a way like what we mean in the 20th century addicted way


but by way of the phoenix.


You see, I can only speak in poetry and images to tell you all what I want to say!


Confounding, this language,


exciting, this puzzle.


My teacher Candace says that the greatest love stories, the true true true truest love stories, in THIS world, THIS world NOW, almost never happen because the stakes are too high.


I see that. I see where I have blown things with my own stakes.


But I forgive myself, because, you see, I'm still standing, and I am still here, Erin with her heart, with her love, with her offerings.


And, well, the funny parts are all in my show, and a soon to come accompanying book. And this 30 day challenge is not for me to reveal your own love story, or mine, or where it has been amazing and worked, and where it has not.... I have no wisdom to offer other than my own experiences and observations. But I have my own revelation...... that....


....the idea of "THE ONE"


is so much more different than what we thought it would be.....


And for me, it is not about this idea of THE ONE. It is the act of loving in and of itself that is the gift. And true love applies to everybody, it does, it does.


I offer you a few suggestions......


And an invitation to your own heart.


And a love deeper than your ideas of romance.


And a life greater than you ever dreamed possible.


And I wish you much, much more than luck.


I wish you Life.


I love you.