Reconnecting with Meta Level Love
At the start of December 2021, a month and a half ago, I sat in my closet surrounded by pillows and pants on hangers with makeshift curtains serving as sound dampeners strewn about, and I recorded a very short little (4 min) episode.
It's been over a year and half since I last published something for Meta Level Love. Hard to believe, but that year and a half contained so. so. much.
I did actually record several times during the interim, but nothing felt quite right, so I have hours of me talking and reading and trying to string thoughts together, but they remain unpublished. And unpublished they will most likely stay.
I believe that reluctance to share reflects the development of my own process:
Whenever I would sit to edit something, I didn't like that I apparently felt inclined to recapitulate the dramas of current events, celebrity deaths, and unsettling shifts in the political or natural climate. Everything just felt so intense, and every day there was something new to mention, so every attempt felt already outdated and incomplete. Clearly, I was feeling very caught up in all of it, which I assumed was likely true for anyone who might listen to whatever I would end up publishing, too. As a result, I experienced my own voice and the whole process as disjointed, a little chaotic, and uncomfortably messy.
I suppose that all makes sense.
Since the start of 2020, we've been enduring relentless collective trauma on scales that seem consistently unprecedented (which may be an oxymoron worth exploring...) Nevertheless, I wondered, "Why would someone want to hear what I have to say about this right now? We're all experiencing it together in our own way already."
More importantly for my process, as six months turned into a year and that marched on into a full 18 months, I questioned if any of what I had recorded (and even previously published) for Meta Level Love genuinely reflected things I actually wanted to share. After all, time, energy, and creative capacity to produce, absorb, and transform are precious for both you and me.
I don't necessarily think what I have recorded and shared (or not) was not worthwhile, but as I've continued to grow and reflect over the past two years, I'm increasingly more intentional about grounding myself in my own visions and values, and with a fervent conviction to experiment with my own practices, I'm even more committed to doing so out of focused, disciplined clarity.
I really mean that, and it's only partly to better protect my ego:
You see, as is typically the case with my most ambitious and raw creative endeavors, I experienced quite the vulnerability hangover (thanks for the language, Brene Brown!) after the first three episodes of MLL from the summer of 2020. I've had several major vulnerability hangovers in recent years, which, in my experience, typically arise when I've managed to share my raw, honest truth in unpolished and/or unconventional ways. Also when I stretch myself to explore new mediums and reveal something real about myself in front of others in spaces where I'm not operating out of my strongest strengths (oh, how I miss the classroom sometimes! So structured! So predictable! So much shared learning with immediate feedback in a safe and supportive container!). Vulnerability hangovers also seem to consistently happen for me when I share whatever gets produced through my cannabis-guided practices of emotional and creative outpourings when the real, real comes out.
I'm basically incapable of keeping secrets (they feel like lies to me) and I've waited a year and half to admit this somewhere, so here we go:
In the first episode of MLL, I promised I would try to avoid devolving into a bunch of high ramblings. Well, even back then, when I spent literally a hundred hours recording and editing, I struggled to find my flow. UNTIL, I had an edible and sat down for a single, solid, 3.5 hour recording session where I just spoke it all out into existence. Weed can assist one in accomplishing some amazing things!
It took FOREVER to edit that rant into episodes, but that's how we got EP2 and EP3, and also why EP3 is so-eff-ing-long. It's okay to admit it. That was a lot. It was a lot to produce. It's A LOT to listen to. And maybe we all legitimately needed a year and half to process that!
Back to the point and where this all started: finally, a new, short episode.
I have an idea for what I'd like to do for the next installation of MLL. I'm excited to approach this as simply another platform for trying things out, so it will likely change and morph over time. But for my next effort, I'm thinking about sharing episodes about a chronology on a particular theme that's been hugely salient for me over the past year and more. All I have to do is sit among all my clothes for another hundred hours and put it all together, but since I'm also now in the mode of never forcing myself to do or produce anything with urgency basically ever, I don't know when that series of episodes will be released and I don't feel bad about it one bit. Honestly, though, if/when I get to it, maybe even that will feel outdated and incomplete.
And that's also why I'm sharing this tiny, itty-bitty, very short, but super special episode now.
I intended this to be the intro to precede all the forthcoming (sometime, whenever) episodes about that one particular theme. However, the intro doesn't even fit the theme. Instead, it captures how special and important it is whenever we get to connect. And that sentiment stands on its own. And that's how an introduction grew up to become its very own episode!
One final thought:
Back in early December, I wrote, recorded, and titled this intro/episode with language about reconnecting with an old friend. I didn't necessarily mean an "elderly" friend, and the more I thought about it, I didn't even mean a "friend of a long time." It would have been far more appropriate had I referred to these feelings as those of reconnecting with a dear friend. After I received a truly lovely letter from someone (hi, Yen!) at the end of December who used that language, I'm 100% totally and completely convinced that is a much more accurate way to describe the special things that happen with moments like this.
I've got a whole lot of things that have been piling up over the weeks, months, and yes, even years that I'd love and hope to share. One bit at a time. Thanks for your patience and support and graciousness, always.
Cori