Pine Cocoon

I’m back in the city after my retreat to the rural confines of Dean. It was a pleasant weekend at my parents’ home, filled with reading, relazation and good, home cooked foods. I feel refreshed now, and ready for the job interview I have tomorrow.
I can’t say I’m free of anxiety about tomorrow. I feel confident I’m qualified for the job, though, and I know I have plenty of related experience. I do have varying degrees of anxiety when I’m in situations such as that were I feel I’m being judged. I know it’s an irrational reaction, and I know it’s a problem. I have been working on it for some time, and I think I’ve made real progress. Meditation has helped that and just about every aspect of my life, and I’m thankful I finally have been able to employ it in my life. I intend to continue to improve until I am fully comfortable in any situation I’ll face, but I know it will take a good deal of time.

I’ve decided to tackle Robert Holdstock‘s Lavondyss as my next book to read. I remember reading and very much enjoying the novella version of his Mythago Wood. In “The Mythago Process“, Holdstock told of the three Mythago novels he has written (Lavondyss is the second of three published so far), their inspiration and the process he endured in writing them. Having read his view of his own works, I am even more enthusiastic about delving into Lavondyss. It seems to be quite a remarkable and challenging work, and I am intrigued, as always, by the roots and archetypes of stories.

The webs of friendships I’ve been blessed with facinates me. New friendships, lapsed friendships and constant friendships all have a lot of value to me. I am blessed to know remarkable people from many places, and I learn a great deal from everyone I interact with in friendship. What I long for, however, is a sense of true community between the people I know. We all have so much we could share with each other and benefit our world with, but somehow we remain strikingly solitary spiritually and emotionally, no matter how gregarious we may appear to the outer world. If there is one thing I believe this world needs to discover, it is that sincere sense of community that would be our cultural salvation.