The Dog is taking the triple digit heat in a Sensible Doggy Way. He’s snoring on his bed, coming out periodically for ice cubes and the odd chicken dog sausage.
I’m sitting in a heat induced stupor with spinning wheels, for the most part. The one year I am totally on top of starting my seeds, it’s too damned hot to plant the seedlings. My Looming Project, re-doing the website, is acting like a wayward foxtail in a sock and making me the teensiest bit anxious and procrastinatey. Partly it’s because I read an old blog about when I did it the first time, so long ago. I forgot how much screaming was involved and the over the top frustration level (oh, you mean this browser DOESN’T SUPPORT THIS ACTIVITY? AND YOU SAY NOTHING IN THE INSTRUCTIONS?), and the daily tide of you can’t keep a thought in your head for two seconds is not abating around here. I realized I was fretting over a shopping cart button, in short, while I was looking for remnants of a thyme plant.
Deciding to abandon that for the present in order to wipe the sweat out of my eyes, I’ve been trying to also not focus on the fact that Donald Trump is making an appearance in this podunk place today, at the Redding Airport. Waving to the Folks from his Personal Plane. Suddenly we exist here, it seems. Bernie came to Chico, which makes some sense as he actually has a brain and some ideas. But Trump is the LAST thing anybody up here needs since they’re mostly 98% fully crazed and well armed to begin with. A conservative hotbed where until quite recently I could count the number of black people I’d seen on one hand, and men in the post office make jokes about how the only “Allah” they like is “ala carte”. Haw haw and all that. They’re probably lapping his antics up like seals getting fish in a circus, right this minute.
That may not, in fact, sound very “nice”. And there’s always the thing of not letting the other person’s Stuff poison you. But there’s also such a thing as kowtowing to the fuckery and I for one am struggling with balancing the overt perfidy of people with the truth of our oneness and the absolute necessity of honoring that through love. I’m tired of acting like this whole thing is working. I read recently a good analysis of anger and resentment, which we see manifesting on every news program and interview. Anger happens when you learn something you didn’t know (in this case it might be something like: There will never be a decent job for you, so sorry), and resentment is doing something you don’t want to do. Which in this case seems to mean behaving cooperatively and as though one is not the entirety of the universe. The hangdog, uninformed victimization one so often sees is very disturbing indeed, since it leads to so many problems down the road. People believe things they must on some level know are not true- but hey, they saw it on the internet. Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees are coming into the country. If so, where are they? Not here, since they’re not coming. The Egyptair flight that went down- Trump brayed out that it was a terrorist bombing. At present that doesn’t seem the most likely cause. Will he ever acknowledge he shot his mouth off without knowing what he was talking about? Given that the answer to that is a no doubt resounding NO, is this the sort of person you really want wielding power? I’m not saying I’m happy with the other part of the spectrum which seems to be in favor of supporting the noxious status quo. Still, it seems a sounder choice than someone who behaves as though being a crude embarrassment to the human race is a good thing.
The bigger problem with this is, of course, that people gravitate to such negativity, such bullying, and such straight-up disrespect for intellect and cooperation and each other. Not to mention plants and animals. Sometimes I think we’ve been so saturated with TV, computer, media images- where everything is split second, truncated, and meanings are fluid- that it has changed the very ability to pay attention. There doesn’t seem to be much of that going around. It’s like everyone is following the breadcrumb trail left by the evil empire, not caring if they’re going over a cliff or not.
Knowing as we do that this sort of thing has gone on for all time, just like people forgetting to put everything back in their picnic basket after lunch and then criticizing each other when the spoons seem to have disappeared, it still seems a challenging thing to resolve. I do believe that things will shift and change, and that more and more human beings are rising to just that occasion- being real human beings. This is a matter of joy to me whenever I encounter someone who is actually Living their Life. Maybe that’s the thing. So many of us are trying to run away from ourselves, our feelings. So many people don’t even cook their own food. So many don’t understand that they have abdicated their ability to think for themselves, and as a result will say things like “all the prices went up right after the minimum wage was raised and it just made things worse”. No ability to look and see, or see what you’re looking at, or that hoary chestnut, consider the source.
When I did my herb farm apprenticeship, one of our teachers said we should remember that one day soon, planting your own food and medicine would probably be a crime. At the time I thought it was a bit hyperbolic. Now I’m not so sure. But I’m certainly going to keep doing it. (As we all should.) And remember that loving kindness is worth more than almost anything- except perhaps water. And air. And Earth. And ice cubes, if you’re a dog.
Boozilla: learning to fly one room at a time 
Posted by 1weaver on June 22, 2016 at 12:34 am
a superb appraisal of ‘the (universal) scene’. wishing us both some encouragement to remember that just our very effort of trying to hold the space for what can be is a holy occupation. it takes a great deal of belief-energy, the kind that drains and tires the psyche silently and continually. may we never forget to re-fill, rehydrate, to consciously be channels rather than pools (or puddles!).
sounds like you have just the wisdom medicine for the cause. stay as cool as you can 🙂
Posted by boozilla on June 22, 2016 at 11:19 am
Thank you so much for your lovely comment! This means a lot to me, especially since I usually have the Dog and the Hummingbird as my audience and they’re pretty blase about it all. It is good to know you are there with us!