The mind and its story lines

Well, I've been spinning. I'm at about 2 1/2 bobbins. Should start plying soon.

Anyhow, as I sit and spin, my mind settles. I've forgotten the "zone" I get into when I spin. At the same time, I think. When I've done meditation practice and you let your mind settle, the mind's first response then is to fill itself up by thinking about other things. In the Shambhala Training I've received, this is quite normal, until at some point the storylines your mind creates settle too. I find that my challenge right now is that the story lines are quite large and robust. HA!

My meditation practice was a thriving practice before I went back to graduate school. I craved the mental stimulation that reading and writing created. However, that mental stimulation easily takes over the quite mind that I had honed with nearly 8 years of practice on the meditation cushion. Now, my head is busy. Perhaps it is the deadlines and the hoops that are created in school. Regardless of the reason, I'm craving the return to some sort of balance. I'm at a place to consciously take that on and the spinning is beginning to help me sort the strands once again.

I started spinning because it was a powerful image of how I wanted to create one seemless thread in my life. I continue to spin for that very purpose. I'm at a key crossroads with my school and work. I've got to write my dissertation proposal. The question is what do I write it about. The current trajectory is not at all in line with what I do for work now. Some new options are emerging that are more in line, but I have to start my research from the beginning. It is very exciting in many ways. But it is time to continue manifesting the single strand in my life. Hmm. What about plying the strands together. Perhaps that is the place I'm really at. I'm not sure.

Since I haven't written much on this blog in the last couple of months. Here are some highlights from both work and school.

• I did some great interviews of 10 chronic homeless men. The interviews need to be transcribed and the data analyzed and I could have a great publishable paper.
• I wrote a proposal for my nursing class that builds off the work of the interviews with the 10 men, it would be great to submit to somewhere like NIMH, if only I had a PhD now.
• I wrote a big grant for the Department of Labor that built on the chronic homeless interviews. It targets employing homeless veterans. I wrote it for the SWSC. I get very little of the grant support, but that is not the point. We found out last week, we received the $300,000.
• I've done a couple of other grants for work. One of them was for a financial literacy project, the other was for some of the stimulus money. The later would bring a million dollars to the Triangle.
• I completed my specialty comprehensive exam at the end of the month, last month.
• I love what I'm doing with work and school, but need to blend them together more.
• HUD just released its dissertation grant request for proposal which is due on August 7, I'm going for the money. HA!

So you see, I have a lot going on in my head and so many possibilities and so many strands. It is time to spin them into one thread again.