living our questions

Wait. Live your questions. Then ask.

I've been in Washington since June 4th and the last few weeks, I've been kind of beating myself up for not "trying more options" as things have come to a financial head here. But opening to this page has really helped me to remember that, it obviously took six months for me to detox from that bad situation and to come to the answers by living with my own questions for that long. The questions are important.

And so while I feel the pinch of where to get my next paycheck right now, I can't let my inner critic beat me up for taking the time to live the questions. Work was sought all during the past six months. In fact, my husband was working for an internship the past two months and it failed to take him on for a paid position, which was a blow, but even during that time, work was being sought. There was just no work to gain. And that was all actually living our questions: we discovered that graphic design work isn't feasible. And we had to try. Student loans outstanding and three years of college courses mandated that we had to try. The sad fact is that you can't know the job market until you play in it for a considerable length of time. You may see plenty of job listings, but you can't tell until you apply for them all, whether or not you're even being considered. That is the invisible half of the equation.

As for my side of asking questions, it was clear that by this month it was time to get back into something constructive, like school. I signed up for a local University last night and hopefully they'll take me for the spring semester. I'm also looking for work at the library as a kind of hold-me-over until I'm accepted at school, but then I will turn my attention toward getting an MA in illustration. I'm a perennial student and always have been. Other girls dream of Hollywood, but I dream of Harry Potter's boarding school.

My goal is to come away from 4-8 years of schooling with a teaching degree for college education in art and illustrative writing. Illustrative writing is the delightful work you see in children's books which are a mix of illustration and narrative combined together. You know all those old stories we used to read in the watercolor imagery and short sentences? Or even stuff like Sherlock Holmes written with Paget's drawings. That's the kind of thing I'm going back to learn. I also plan to study astrology in depth and learn how to read charts for my family. That requires a very different kind of schooling since astrology isn't considered accreditable.

But it took six months for me to be sure that I wanted this above everything else. It takes a long time to live your questions. It can take months -- even years!

I'm living big picture these days, with Mars in my Ninth House of higher education, greater moral vision, long distances and the great outdoors. Please bear with me while I wax philosophic. It'll help me to get the whole of it off my chest and explain it, I think.

Living with my questions, I've made the decision that I don't want to go back to Corporate America. I don't agree with like 99.999% of what goes on there and six months of research into green living and downshifting has taught me that Corporate America is largely responsible for much of what is polluting our world and keeping us chained to work hours that last longer than medieval peasantry.

I've read Neil Postman, John Michael Greer, and even picked up really old work like Eleanor Roosevelt's essays and articles in order to get a feel for all this. I have read much more in the past, but this was recent additions to what I already researched on this topic before. I just can't feel justified in supporting that Corporate Culture any longer. This isn't a conspiracy theory or anything, but a reality of human weakness and greed that carried certain individuals on to hogging resources and treating human labor poorly. Every system eventually sees its peak and downfall and that's all I'm really referring to.

Unfortunately, my old degree won't help me get out of Corporate America and my previous Hollywood experience was just another fringe facet of Corporate America, so it was time to return to University. Not just because University is where you learn, but because I feel that it is one of our last bastions of community. Real Community with Real Social Capital.

University certainly has its flaws and drawbacks, but I'd take it over Corporate Culture any day. I can sign up for University and find a community, health care, housing, structure, and eventually reach a point to turn around and enter from the other side, and give it all back as a professor. That's why I think of all institutions in the land, the University still retains all its original characteristics. There is a medieval constancy in the structure of the Ivory Tower and its denizens have fought tooth and nail to keep it that way.

And as a Virgo, I'm all good with the pedantry that is most people's major complaint about University life. To me, pedantry is like breathing! If I get a cranky review committee, I'm the sort of person to agree with their idea of killing one footnote to pass my dissertation review. No sweat! (But as a Scorpio Rising, I may turn around after attainment and make some waves.)

I realize I'm going to be walking in the opposite direction of most of modern America by doing this, but I think it's the right choice and I just keep telling myself that I will find like-minded folks inside my University of Choice. I can't help but value an institution that values teaching and learning. I have always been drawn to teaching and the pursuit of knowledge.

But Knowledge is also a fire in the mind; it is pointless without context and reference. That is why I've never been a Hermione Granger type, memorizing the text book and regurgitating the facts. Fire in the Mind comes from experience and hard won "street wisdom." Only in applying what you know can you make a difference to the world. For the past fifteen years, I gathered this kind of knowledge, and I want to help others with it now.