Journeying and Returning

Today's questions: What do you do between calls? Is it hard to hang up with one guy with one fantasy and have another one call with a different fantasy? How do you recharge if a call wipes you out?

I love symbolism, mythology, archetypes, and stories. The more you know, the greater the probability that something you feel or do can be better explained or understood. Today's answers are brought to you by my pitifully small knowledge of faery lore and shamanic journeying.

If you're taking a shamanic journey, or traveling to the faery world, don't eat while you're there. The act of eating while in another world anchors your body to that place. The girl in Spirited Away changed when she ate, and Coraline never should have had what her Other Mother was cooking.

But when you get back, when the ritual is done, then is the perfect time to return to your body with all your senses and re-enter into your daily life by partaking of the most daily of tasks: drinking and eating.

So when I'm on calls, I almost never drink or eat. My mind often feels like I'm elsewhere, floating a little, yet not completely separated from my body because I can still feel the physical pleasures of that other place.

When a call ends, I usually stay on the line after the caller hangs up to change my status to Away - the computer voice gives me the option to change status after telling me how many minutes the call lasted.

Then, almost always, the first thing I do is drink: the refreshing feeling of something cold (and caffeinated!) feels like a shower for my brain, like it washes away the remnants of the other world.

Almost always the next thing I do is eat: a bite or two of veggies or crackers or whatever I have on hand. The act of physically nourishing myself brings me from someone else's lust landscape back to my own needs.

Then I ask myself, "How would you feel if the phone rang right now?" Usually, if the answer is not "happy", it's because I need to go the bathroom, rest, stretch, eat something more substantial, or just change my scenery for a bit. Regardless of the reason, I stay logged out and care for my needs and enjoy my life (often with the assistance of two adorable rescue mutts and an endlessly fetch-able tennis ball) until the answer changes to "Happy."

Then I log back on, good to go!