*minisode* a trip to the magical library (ft THE LIBRARIAN)

buckle up, buttercup! join dana on another trip to the magical library, where we engage in the ancient wisdom of bibliomancy -- using texts as tools for divination. the library (and THE LIBRARIAN OMGGGG)  serves up a well-worn copy of Rebecca Solnit's, "a field guide to getting lost," a reflection on curiosity, mystery, desire, and exploring all our relationship to the unknown. so, get ready for a field trip like no other!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

cer perché? Oh hi, it's me again, dana, your favorite field trip organizer, ms Frizzle in Training, and we are going on another field trip today to the library, the magical library. Or, yes, some bibliomancy Again. Bibliomancy, in case you weren't on our last field trip, is the ancient practice of using sacred texts as tools for divination. I believe in the sacredness of all things and so really anything can be used for bibliomancy. I mean, maybe it's a magazine article or the label on the lotion bottle in your bathroom that you're reading while you're pooping. I don't know. I believe signs and guidance are available everywhere and at all times. But we're not going to take a field trip, my sweet crybabies, to your bathroom. We are going to take one to the magical library. Let's go, okay. So we're just going to walk up here and I do side note, I was thinking about what I just said and we can absolutely take a field trip magical journey to the bathroom together. Maybe that'll happen sometimes, I don't know. I just don't want to rule it out. It might not be your bathroom, okay, great Clarifying. So here we are, the magical library, one of my favorite places in all the realms. I'm so glad you're here today with me. It's always a pleasure to do this together.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Alright, we're going in and I am just feeling like we might actually meet the librarian to the Hello there, lover of books. Oh, my god, it's the librarian. Okay, keep it together, dana. Oh, fan girlings so hard, Hello hi. Hello there, librarian, it is a pleasure to run into you today. It has been a while. I brought some of my friends. We will definitely keep our voices down. We're just here to practice a little Biblio menci. Yes, I know, the books know they've been waiting for you, they've been waiting for us. I love that I missed them.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Okay, well, we're just going to poke around in these aisles over here and I'm just going to find my way towards whatever book is calling us today, but, of course, hello, would you do it? You have to wait for the book called to you. Dude, let me know if you need any help. We will absolutely Thank you so much for having us here and letting us poke around with all of these magical beings filled with so much wisdom. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, guys, that was really hard for me to keep it together.

Speaker 1: 4:54

The librarian is so cool. Your outfit, oh god, and that little tassel-y sparkly things on it. I don't even know what color that was, I'm not even sure it exists, I can't even describe it. And their hair was like a hornet's nest and without the hornets it was just sculptural, but amazing. Anyway, I'm so glad we got to meet the librarian. I'm sure we'll have more interactions.

Speaker 1: 5:33

So let's just walk and feel oh, that book over there is a little jiggly. Is that jiggly? I mean, what do you call that? Jiggling, wiggling something? I think that's the one. Oh, this looks like a very well-worn copy of Rebecca Solnitz, a field guide to getting lost, one of my favorite oracular texts. I love this library. So what we have here? I'm just going to read it and you can just let it wash over. You Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That's where the most important things come from, where you yourself come from and where you will go.

Speaker 1: 6:29

Three years ago I was giving a workshop in the Rockies. A student came in bearing a quote from what she said was the pre-socratic philosopher Mino. It read how will you go about finding that thing, the nature of which is totally unknown to you? I copied it down and it has stayed with me since. The student made big transparent photographs of swimmers underwater and hung them from the ceiling with the light shining through them, so that to walk among them was to have the shadows of swimmers travel across your body in a space that itself came to seem aquatic and mysterious.

Speaker 1: 7:09

The question she carried struck me as the basic tactical question in life. The things we want are transformative and we don't know, or only think we know, what is on the other side of that transformation Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration. How do you go about finding these things that are, in some ways, about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else? I think, even just being aware of this question, being aware of the potential, the experience that you are always becoming, you are always in the process of becoming. Is it someone else or is it just more yourself? I don't always think it matters how we go about doing it. We can get a little lost in the how, the structure.

Speaker 1: 8:20

I think that's some of our cultural programming and instead, often I like to think about what I'm bringing with me right on that journey, and the two things that always are at the top of my list are curiosity and compassion, and if we have those, or if I have those, if I can really hold this sort of multi faceted practice of curiosity and the just ever unfurling palm frond, fern frond of compassion the compassion for myself, for my process, for who I've been, for who I'm becoming, for the feelings that I'm having all along the way and continuing to be curious about those and curious about the nature of reality and how I understand it. Those allow me to be with the unknown and not just run away in, run away screaming. They extend my boundaries, the boundaries of myself, sometimes, when I'm not even paying attention. I don't even have to try to extend the boundaries. The curiosity and compassion Just do it.

Speaker 1: 9:46

I feel like more people than ever are talking about softness. At the beginning of the year there was a little trend going around that was like the in and out list, and I don't know about you, but so many of the in lists that I saw had softness on them. People are really feeling it, getting it that. The harshness, the grind. I equate that with the hustle, and I think a lot of the lists did too. Folks were making less room for that and for me, curiosity and compassion have been what emerged as I softened, as I continue to soften, but certainly, as I softened years ago and it's a bit cyclical the curiosity and compassion keep me soft, keep me supple, keep a steady flow of tenderness from me out into the world around me. And these are the ways that I can dance with the world, interact with the world, not just react but interact, be connected at a level of entanglement.

Speaker 1: 11:16

And this question of how will you go about finding that thing, the nature of which is totally unknown to you, it's less about finding the thing and maybe more about finding yourself, and not just yourself as an individual fixed point, but yourself as a process, as an unfolding collection of experiences and sensations. We think we know what is on the other side of what we desire. Maybe we need to feel that, think that I think that's the way we should be. Maybe we need to feel that, think that I mean also, maybe just part of our modernist programming. But we can't know what's on the other side of what we desire, because we will become someone else inevitably along the way, and you will be changed by the act of desiring. You will be changed by moving towards that which you desire and want to know and experience. You'll be changed again when you get some part of that. Call it an achievement, accomplishment, experience. You will just continue to become. And so maybe we're just always finding the thing. And it's more about realizing that we're always just finding the thing.

Speaker 1: 13:23

And that's, I guess, why geek so hard on curiosity and why I offer it to you to be curious about who you're becoming, about your desires, about the world around you. Flood it with tenderness, flood yourself with it that compassion. It stokes curiosity, I promise. And then the unknown becomes known, and then there's more unknowns and perhaps over time they become known as well. Our little realm of normalcy expands into the mystery over and over and over again. Isn't that wild, isn't that wonderful.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Thank you, rebecca. Thank you, beautiful library, for all the wisdom. In this great dusty mill, do we book smell? Ah, you know what I mean. That parchment, yum. Thank you, librarian. Wherever you are, I don't really. I don't see them, but I'm really glad we got to meet them right. Oh, my god, so cool. Alright, let's head out. Thanks for making time today to roll with me here to the magical library. Thank yourself, little high five to yourself for getting lost and found, crying in my decreasing, crying in my decreasing, crying in my decreasing. If you enjoyed what we did here today. Go over to wherever it is that you are listening to this podcast and give us a rating. There's many stars Five, as your heart desires. Five stars, though the music and other musical bits by the very talented Kat Autison, sound designed and editing by the effervescent Rose Blake Locke. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I look forward to playing with you more in my jacuzzi. That sounded dirtier than I meant it, but you know what I mean.