Talking Cure
I went to see Linda, my teacher and mentor last week. What we talked about has been following me like a thread that has connected everything, the bigs things and little things together that have “gone wrong” in my life. Listening to me, and then being my “advocate,” she said: My inner child needs me to take a stand for her. I must be more assertive in my life. Passivity has caused problems in my health and in my relationships. It was perfect because now I see that even for my health, I must bring down the Vajra sword and rule my realm. Trying to talk myself out of how I really feel, all the shoulds and shouldn’ts, it’s toxic.
I’ve been practicing, situations have cropped up left and right where I can practice being assertive. I love it. I’ve been doing it, and I feel so much better as a whole.
The summer has launched with a feeling like it has felt like a really cosmic time for people with ideas coming together to talk about certain pertinent aspects to our times, our lives, and our society. At least it has been this way for me. Culture, sustainability… I’ve even seen a couple of amazing interviews on Charlie Rose, KRMA channel 6 public television: Zbigniew Brzezenski, former national security adviser to Carter had some interesting things to say about his new book, Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower who had some really interesting points to make about America’s interaction with the world, it’s state of affairs. One pertinent thing he said is that the symbol of America is no longer the statue of Liberty but Guantanamo Bay. He spoke to issues of the actions of American corporations in the world, war with Iraq, diplomatic conditions with Iran and South Korea. What he said that struck me as cutting edge in a way in which we can redeem ourselves. The impression I got about what he was saying is that “we,” as in the collective “America,” whose face we show the world, we need to change our actions and the way in which we treat people around the world. This must start with a certain serious political and economic self-reflection on the paradigm of things as they are in our society. God I hope we can vote an enlightened soul to help guide policy on the national level, the platform which facilitates the way “we” launch ourselves into the world. 
The goddess made an appearance today. Sedna is very pertinent to a logos-gone wild culture deprived of spirituality, divorced from mythos. She is the goddess showing up to say, hey, look at me. We’ve fucked the Great Mother! We need mythos, spirituality, and the feminine. 
How she has been able to go through great upheavals and change: 
I struggle with reading. I mull over the ideas from the text. Often I’ll get a thought about lost love. Sometimes I get wistful, reading, but my mind wandering off. Sometimes I get excited when I think about new love. Sometimes, I find myself gone from my text midst paragraph, and I have to go back and reread it and forcibly put my mind to these studies that are so incredibly pertinent in the world today. Sometimes I have to read the words over and over before my brain registers the concepts that spring up to me from the page. Trying to focus on the words in front of me has been frustrating. What I’ve been learning about is frustrating, with so much conflict infused in it.
Nina Lois is a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Denver obtaining a Master's Degree in Humanities with a B.A. in political science. Her passions are broad when it comes to the human condition. She is deeply interested in philosophy, psychology, environmental and social justice, peace studies, music, nutrition, tradition, and progress. 
Upon her imminent graduation, she wishes to contribute to the health, wealth, and happiness of the community through involvement, writing, and research. For goodness's sake, love the body, cultivate the mind and a garden, and feed the soul!
Thanks again