worlds within worlds

I remember the first time I saw a picture of water bears. It was like the first time I saw the Hubble telescope pictures of the universe- an opening of a door into the real grandeur of reality. The inside of a drop of dew! The distances in the night sky! The incredible song the body sings in sickness and in health, the twirling molecules…!!!! Then there’s things like paintings and souffles and Spring and gardens and……

SO ANYWAY. Recently I visited a world within a world and while it was challenging, it was also instructive and in the end kind of endorsing.

Among the many things the Previous Tenant left undone was paying the fees to the Homeowner’s Association here. Net net, HOA fees are pretty much cast in bronze, stone, lead…permanent. The figure was, to me, large. I commenced research on the pertinent laws, asked some questions, finally got a very interesting page of handwritten numbers from the Association. All this allowed me to make an offer to the Board of a repayment sum that, while not thrilling me to part with, would clear the matter once and for all. Labors of Hercules? piffle. In any event, the matter was settled and my offer accepted and my business- like proactive approach appreciated.

But, and there is always a but, right? The meeting occurred during last week’s State of the Union address. Which had to be watched with baited breath and approval, while I, praying for equanimity, cast my eyes over displays of confederate flags, heard things like ALL DEMOCRATS ARE AWFUL and WELL NOT ALL. SOME ARE GOOD PEOPLE, and HERE, HAVE SOME (****** ****), an old name for Brazil nuts that is beyond even being offensive it is so awful, and more of the same. Actual applause at the remarks about OD deaths being their lowest ever. I realized I was sitting in a room full of people who, while being perfectly nice, were very akin to the guys who surrounded me the last time I voted in a Presidential Primary and escorted me, roughly, out of the building because they saw I had voted for Sanders. It was, for a moment, quite scary. Also? What is to be done? There was clearly no point in discussing any of the opinions proffered from my point of view, as it would have been a divergence from the “schedule” not to mention potentially life threatening. ( Also my point of view involves things like plant medicine and energy and the actual oneness of all, and at this point I am not trying to prove anything to anyone, except that we ARE all here together and it makes sense to act accordingly.) It made me for a moment feel like a coward. However. As I sat there, breathing and hoping I had a smile on my face, I thought about how actions speak louder than words. I thanked them for their kindness and consideration as it related to my situation. The group appeared to have some awareness that I was not “one of them” and very painstakingly told me all about who Rush Limbaugh is. I said thankyou, I did in fact know about him. Neutrality in action. I found myself handing bowls of popcorn around to everyone. Finally the thing came to an end and we all trooped out into the inky, now late, night.

I got home and my heart rate was enough to make me feel like my head was going to explode. As I proceeded with baking bread, even at that late hour, chattered to the Partner about what had happened, and got licked to smithereens by the Dog, it came to me that actually the whole thing was a kind of success. I could see the bigger expanse of all of this, the water bears so to speak, and realized that yes, it is pretty awful right now. But as long as we can sit and speak to each other and act in a mindful way, some kind of progress may in fact be made. To demonstrate to someone who basically thinks you’re some kind of sub-species that in fact, you’re pretty much just like them minus some of the fear, turns out to be a fairly good sized thing. Then the questions about how one might have come to this understanding of x, y or z can be asked. So while I still feel the weight of the thought form around here, it doesn’t scare me as it used to. The power of love always wins; the thing is to see just how many worlds of love there are and how they may be bridged from what seems impassable and impossible to some kind of constructive action. I was completely and totally, and am still, blown away by the depth and breadth of the unconscious but complete dismissal of and contempt for anyone who wasn’t like these people, which is to say in this case White Republican Men. But I don’t feel powerless in its face, at long last. It is important not to ignore the realities of such things, but it is equally important to know that peace and love can work wonders in all worlds. Turns out that takes some grit and determination but one does have to get out of the pink paradisia calm shell some times! I did discuss this with a person who I like and respect and when she said she was impressed with the way I handled it, I was relieved.

Blessings and thanks, as always. Take care of yourselves!

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strange trips

Or, perhaps, Bummer Du Jour.  There was an unscheduled landing on the island State of Disturbed Mind recently and hacking through the underbrush seems to have taken what attention I had left over post various and sundry head explosions.  More on that later.

In any event, before the Unscheduled Landing, I’d been pondering something.  Ever since we came here I’ve had the Rash from Hell.  This summer it perched attractively on my face, and being actually able to GO TO A DERMATOLOGIST, I did. ( More another time on how depressed dermatologists appear to be- then again, looking at rashes all day would be enough to lower one’s spirits.)  They diagnosed me with rosacea, which is in fact a catch all term for: We have no idea, it’s a rash, on your face.  I did as told, and as one might expect, nothing really got healed.  So, one day the lightbulb went off, and I said, dude! why not try your OWN rosacea remedy? I made this up several years ago for a client, and it has been successful more often than not.  Duly making a batch up for myself, I applied it as directed (!!) and…guess what? It worked.  Like a charm.  Let’s just say it was a teachable moment.  This year particularly I’ve been trying the things I make for other people.  The usual way this comes about is someone contacts me, says what their current project is, and I tootle around and make something.  Often of course I hear nothing, but just as often I hear that people are thrilled, their problem has healed (like ganglion, rosacea, migraine, shingles, different pains and sores…well, you get the picture) and all is well.  Generally speaking I make these things, keep the recipes for future use, and think no more of it.  This year, though, things have been so rocky I’ve ACTUALLY TRIED MY OWN STUFF.  The cream for residual pain from injuries and chiro adjustments? Works.  My bone spur cream? Works. The across the board pain cream? WORKS.

I don’t think of these things as something *I* make- I am simply a conduit, a vehicle, for a higher level of awareness to be brought to bear, so it followed that I didn’t give “specialness” to, for, or about any of it- in the same way my several matched sets of emotional baggage used to block my mental entrances and exits so that I didn’t think about going someplace far, far away.

Well, haha Gentle Reader.  It turns out that far far away place is ME.  Who’da thunk? It’s been interesting walking around feeling as though I am coming to some totally different state of animation and understanding- no “self”, but SELF which is of course part of everything. It’s liberating, and challenging since of course at the same time several things have occurred pushing all the remaining recessed buttons on my panic panel.  The recently discovered “me” knows that things work out; the panic panel operant is sure that we really ARE going to die now.  In short, the human condition with some additional overhang, stakes and live tigers.

Meanwhile, in my efforts to escape the Island State of Difficult Mind, it became ever more clear that the old tools were not working.  I can’t, for example just go out and get a job like I did when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Society, we’ll use that word, is in a state of collapse and if you don’t think so, just try getting something accomplished out there.  The recent “mass shooting” in Tehama County, California, took place about 40 minutes south of us.  The media has presented “the shooter” as a mad, bad, demented and deranged man, “not law enforcement friendly”.  The dwellers at that particular threshold say they reported this guy numerous times and law enforcement did nothing.  HE said his neighbors were cooking meth, made his dog sick, and wouldn’t stop.  Admittedly he did go way over the edge but one can, if one lives here, see how it could happen to almost anyone. Net net? The whole thing is this place in a nutshell.  Half the people here are just like that shooter.  There is no law enforcement unless the Sheriff decides to do something- as in you can call them, but good luck with that project. Honestly? I don’t know how it happened that the guy (Mr. 98 years in jail) across the road from us actually got arrested but I suspect after a certain number of bodies, something Has to Be Done. So there you are, bravely going forth in a place where the citizenry is unravelling before your eyes, and there is no redress for any misfeasance.  Every law and regulation that gets passed puts us more at the mercy of whatever moneyed interest pushed it through.  We, for example, get to pay twelve extra cents a gallon tax on gas now for some in fact unclear reason, which no doubt involves money passing from one hand to the other for some “project” far in the future.  The “new” and “emergency” regulations on “legal marijuana” are like something you’d make up as a pastiche.  Municipalities get to decide if you can grow plants, and where and if you can sell them, but nonetheless! If you want to do that, in some sort of cloud of unknowing, you have to have insurance coverage of $2 million, a $5000 bond, an annual license that ranges in cost depending on Idon’tknowwhat from $1250 to $78,000, AND a sort of know-me fee to cover processing your “application”.  The rules for “medicinal” and “adult-use” products are now under the same rubric- which I take to mean that medical users get to pay the same (sorry!) usurious tax rates as profligate hell bent adult users.  This was supposedly cobbled together including “robust” public input.  And of course it doesn’t stop there.  Mr. Unmentionable LPV continues going beyond the beyond, and besides displaying a disturbing grasp of geography,  one really important thing that got his recent attention seems to have been, whoa! too many elephants! lift the ban on bringing elephant trophies back from your brave African hunts! Total tip of the iceberg of course but it is precisely this complete wrecking of any kind of social fabric, conscience, and responsibility that makes life incredibly difficult in these times.  Making a plan for the future is only possible, it seems, if you’re rolling in money.  And maybe not even then, but at least you have some choice, which is not available in the more tenuously funded realms.

All of which is to say this is quite the endeavor.  I ask that I be given the grace and means to do my work, but it is entirely unclear how that may happen.  It’s only clear that it can, and does almost independently of anything else.  And now, I must bid you adieu since the Dog needs something for itchy winter skin.  Watch this space! It will probably work on humans, too.  Blessings and thanks, as always.

where the wild things are

And, that would be HERE, Gentle Reader.

Lately it’s been so wild, in fact, that my sense of humor pretended it had been buried somewhere in the back yard.  GAH, it said.  This is no fun at all.  I shall hide under the bed of mint until things improve.  No amount of cajolery swayed it even one bit.  So I had to consider things without benefit of jokes or drollery of any sort.

Once I decided to stop thinking It Was Gone Forever, and moved on to not panicking about small things like where the hell are the car keys, and could all the metal pieces in everything just stop breaking, clarity returned, if not a steady stream of witticisms.  Turns out it was just another opportunity for growth!  It’s kind of like the time many years ago when I realized that my ability to know what people were thinking was something I used to protect myself, and thus had to drop until I was able to function on my own without that crutch.  The sense of humor, while a good thing overall, became another such tool.  Once a blackbelt co-dependent, I guess.

So here I am, unable to think things are funny for the past few weeks- largely because of course they really aren’t, and it was a weird experience to finally just get close to all those things without any armor (you know, fires, floods, murders, idiocy, that sort of thing?).  The ultimate revelation from this was of course that one doesn’t NEED armor after all.  The whole idea of separation from other things is an illusion and I guess we find that out however we can.  I realized that in fact with a moment’s attention you can really FEEL what someone else is feeling, and instead of shielding from that awareness or using it as some sort of protection,  say to yourself, Self? You know we’re all One.  Let’s open up and send some good vibes out just for ducks.  It’s harder to do this of course when one is righteously indignant (like having new neighbors across the road in the house where the ACTUAL MURDERER used to live, who pull up blaring their car stereos in exactly the same way he did at all kinds of absurd times like, say, 2 am…).  It’s also harder to do when you’re circling the anxiety drain over how is this going to get fixed or whatever.  But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.  The other part of it shows Confucius wasn’t wrong about everything, since he said comparisons are odious.  No more comparing on the rigged scale we’ve all become accustomed to, either.  Things are as they are.  And they reveal their information over time.  Which ultimately provides guidance and a crumb trail to follow.

While I’m waiting for the sense of humor to crawl out from the mint patch, then, the crumb trail has led to some interesting culinary moments.  I made butternut squash enchiladas at long last, even straining the sauce like you’re supposed to and making the tortillas big enough to roll, and they were great.  It also turns out that you can indeed use  yellow lemon squash in place of zucchini in zucchini bread, and it’s almost better.  It’s also led to some amazingly spot on prognostications for people.  When I breathlessly tell the Partner that, guess what? remember when I told so and so such and such? He just shakes his head, like, silly bear.  Only YOU don’t know you’re generally right.   The trick now is believing in our own happy ending in this amazing new paradigm, where things seem to be irreparably blowing apart and mending themselves into something stronger, all at once.  The Dog, as usual, stays focused on the important things and is his usual invaluable counselling self, even when his usual question is: what’s to eat?  His quiet padding up to me in the kitchen area always reminds me that slow and steady, stick to basics, look everyone right in the eye, laugh…is a good way to go about things.  He may even find my sense of humor for me.

Blessings and thanks!

things and how they seem

When the Partner is in his Zone of Pontification, he says things are not as they seem.  However, we are both starting to realize that in fact many things are exactly as they seem, just not as they are described in today’s ever meaning-shifting language.

Two examples are the Electoral College which we mentioned previously- a relic of Civil War politics which pretty much assures gerrymandering will prevail barring some extraordinary turn of events. Turns out the Second Amendment which every Tom, Dick and Harry has posted on his driveway fence here, is also a relic of those politics, an earlier (1780?) institutionalization of slavery in the form of saying “well regulated militias” can bear arms.  I always wondered about the well regulated militia part- I mean, how does that connect with needing to shoot poisonous snakes out in the country at times? AND! IT DOESN’T! It connects, completely, with slaveowners in the South being able to pick up a gun and go after any enslaved individual uppity enough to make a run for it.  So that discord in your head? Is because this particular thing IS what it seems to be- a rule ensuring that somebody will always be able to shoot you if you go against their wishes.  And this, Gentle Reader, is in the Constitution.   While this may be an oversimplification, it is not an untruth.

Juggling that bunch of indigestible information with recent events has been challenging.

Then, as usual, events conspired to show a bigger picture.  The medical care to which we have access is not wonderful.  Don’t misunderstand me, I am grateful to have any access especially given the vigor with which certain “legislators” are going after getting rid of it entirely.  But it means the care we get is spotty and not very personal.  SO ANYWAY.  I have had certain health issues which were largely precipitated by the Hospital Hell of 2015.  I went to get this evaluated recently, and this evaluation, in which I told the person seeing me exactly what I wanted because that’s how they do it…there is no look at my situation and ensuing diagnosis…culminated in an email telling me I had something quite serious wrong with me.  This happens to be the something that killed my father (even though I only learned about it by having his obituary sent to me in a Christmas card).  There I was all of a sudden in a hall of mirrors with a flashing neon light saying IS IT TIME TO FREAK OUT YET.   Which, upon reflection, I realized is pretty much the norm now.  You get told that something is the way it seems…to someone else….and that’s the end of it.  It is then your option as to whether or not to stew about it or enjoin the battle for further information.

I admit I was rather surprised at the unease this whole thing generated.  However, nils desperendum.  Insisting on seeing the actual test results, I was able to see that in fact, this issue is “stable”, doesn’t require MORE medication, and is something that I can do something about with the  tool box I have.  My own diagnosis, in other words, was correct.  I gulped down that food for thought.

This really made me think about everything from economics to the fate of fresh air.  And what I continue to see is that we are all being encouraged to disenfranchise ourselves from everything.  To accept top down word which seems designed to foment separation and fear more than anything.  To not, crucially, think for ourselves.  We’re encouraged to accept “solutions” from a prior paradigm which didn’t really work then and is entirely unsuitable today.  As long as we are fretting about the fact that things aren’t working for us we aren’t taking a breath, asking questions and trying something different.  Not that this is easy but no matter where you find yourself, it can be done.  It’s important to just stop beating your head against that wall for a minute. ( Finances especially seem non-responsive to head banging, for example.)

One thing that absolutely (to my mind anyway) has to happen now? We all must stop accepting and consuming crazyoverthetopcrazypants as sane instruction or information, wherever it may pop up.  The Emperor really IS naked for the entire parade snaking over our planet, and actually this is a great opportunity to design a new suit and parade route.  Of course this means giving up one’s own attachment to a Certain Sort of Button and folding chair (from which to watch the proceedings)  but inspiration does give a person wings.  Those wings usually are much, much better than any Button or seat you were ever given by other routes.  And after all buttons, and chairs, are utilitarian items that can also be beautiful, so there’s another stellar opportunity to CREATE.  Out of what may seem in the moment to be thin air, but…..what the heck.  Why not???  Blessings and thanks as always!

 

spinning

Now that we’re living in incontrovertibly interesting times? There are pluses and minuses.  On the plus side, coming to understand that when my laptop bounces and erases and sends things will nilly and freezes it’s because there isn’t enough bandwidth for everybody to use.  The minus: laptop going bonkers.  However it also means that getting a new one isn’t going to solve this issue, so that’s a plus in its way.

Random political thoughts on that plus/minus continuum, which while disturbing were eventually somewhat equilibrating:

LPV, dotard etc., didn’t send aid to Puerto Rico in a timely way because? a) he doesn’t know where it is and b) doesn’t know it’s effectively part of the U.S. and thus his job to attend to and c) so much more fun to harp on ridiculous and backward thinking about accepting symbol as absolute reality (we speak here of a piece of fabric and a piece of music), in an effort to get it accepted as obligatory routine, or else.  (I’ll just say that when I was in high school? I sat for the pledge of allegiance, a cousin having been blown to smithereens in Viet Nam being the final straw, and as a result spent my senior year alone in the library.   Progress, or what?)

The real reason the Affordable Care Act is in the gunsights of certain “legislators”, even though they know their constituents do not support their positions? They’ve probably been left out of the money loop now that the bill is in effect- given that it was actually written by the insurance companies.  We all know THAT can’t happen.

Otherwise this most recent time period seems to have a lot to do with dealing with fear.  That hot, claustrophobic thing where you’re just sure it’s all over, all is lost, OMG.  Of course we learn as we go along that it’s the fear itself we’re afraid of- the disasters and upheavals on the material plan get dealt with sooner or later but the fear remains, twisting and turning.   So unpleasant, one does not want to experience it ever but of course that line of thought just brings it on, even more.

Going back to reading Pema Chodron has been helpful.  Any time you can do the taking in and sending out breathwork she writes about (tonglen), it really does make a difference.  Whatever you’re feeling or experiencing, someone somewhere else is too.  Breathing into that gives remarkable clarity, which then most often allows a person to get up and go ahead and do what is before them, and also clears the energetic air in a broad way.  In thinking about this I’ve decided that part of what happens is that you do establish a vibrational connection with the object or subject of your thought, and if your intentions are from love, that connection will be positive.  If your intentions are rooted in hot suffocating powerlessness, that’s the connection that occurs.  This is an incredibly powerful piece of information and the only question is why it took so g@@#!!!mn long to understand it.  Especially since that is the basis of  work I do with clients. *sigh*

On a functional level another thing this type of directed awareness does is let you look at things you’re doing in your own situation that are about a paradigm you’ve stayed in that isn’t appropriate.  Scary stuff.  But! I  stopped something  today that I’d done for several years, thinking that it was productive.  Reflecting on it I saw two things: One, this was part of a paradigm that I actually don’t subscribe to when you get right down to it.  Thing the second was that it allowed me to not be entirely truthful about the situation itself, what I was doing and why even after everything,  I and the Desired Result are still very far apart.  Going further I saw that it was rooted in a childhood belief system that was, let’s just say, not in my best interest.

Well then.  While it is perhaps difficult and strange to really observe things and then act based on what you SEE and not what you THINK, it feels pretty good once you do it.   Interesting times and all.  Now to establish a connection that somehow gets Truth in front of Power in a way that sticks.  Blessings and thanks!!!!

those donald duck moments

Not exactly what I expected from the Eclipse, Gentle Reader.  But I guess there’s a good reason for the expression Live and Learn, right?

It’s been the usual fun around here, what with broiling heat, the oven dying mid pizza preparation (life saving surgery performed by the Partner so the bullet was dodged another day), the well pump appearing to die but having a resurrection (corroded connection on pressure gauge), and finally, in honor of the eclipse? The rear view mirror falling off the window in the car.  I did not take it too well in the moment, the mirror thing.

We’d already been through it, with the oven for example.  Turns out there’s a piece (a glow bar) that dies every five to seven years.  How groovy is THAT? If you didn’t have a handy individual present you could easily pay more in repair expenses than a whole new range would cost.  We went down to our local appliance store, where we purchased the part and also watched as the Dog ebulliently jumped on the store owner, raking his arm with a claw. This caused an Iguazu Falls kind of blood eruption from the guy’s arm.  I had a dreadful moment wondering whether this was where the lawsuit was going to be buried, but the man calmly said, Oh, I’m on Plavix, it always looks worse than it is.  I am still trying to figure out what to take him as an offering in thanks.

Then, there was the pump in the well.  This, of course, spells Major Disaster in enormous neon letters.  There I was, innocently minding my own business, reading recipes and petting the Dog, when the Partner bellowed in from the back that there was no water.  He and the landlady Do Not Speak so I trundled over to relay the exciting news.  As usual I was between Scylla and Charibdis, each with their own horror story that had, in the event, nothing to do with reality.  Fortunately. But there WAS a fair amount of hair pulling and yelling on both ends, let’s just say.  Fighting down a wave of  indigestible feeling, I thought, what’s going on here and got the distinct impression it was nothing serious.  It turned out I was right, even if nobody said thank you.  So, okay, two potential disasters averted.

Moving on to the eclipse.  This put the Partner in high dudgeon, partly correctly in fact about the commercialism of it all.  But he couldn’t see enough of it to feel it had any reality and was very cross indeed.  This led to some terse exchanges which led, in spite of my best intentions, to a major Donald Duck, well, donnybrook or ten.  So, yes, *I* actually raised my voice when after going out to the car, preparatory to running some needed errands, and finding the rear view mirror on the floor, I walked back to the yurt and enquired as to whether or not we had a proper adhesive to remedy the matter.  The response I received was that everything doesn’t have to be fixed the same day it breaks and oh, well.  I lost it.  This was at about 1 pm, and IT didn’t come back til about 10 pm.

There is a point to this, really.  The juxtapositions of things are revealing at this juncture.  First, I went to the post office and spent a half hour in line waiting for an unexpected package, standing behind a guy who was mailing a form in to get two free magazines and a carry case for his Superior Giant Rifle of Some Sort.  He described how much money he was saving by doing this and I tried to conceal my level of horror at just how many people there are with so many guns.  My package turned out to contain prayer flags.  Just saying.

Then I went to the car parts store.  Taking the errant mirror in with me, I asked the man there if he had anything I could use to fix the problem.  Yes, he said.  And it’s called Rear View Mirror Adhesive.  Suddenly everything shifted and the larger picture revealed itself. I mean, really- the actual LITERAL answer to one’s question? No big deal? Ask, receive, just like that? Then I thought about the significance of it being the Rear View that was cut off.  As in: Stop dwelling on the past and fears therein and of.  There is an answer to this whole cauldron of weird, so say thankyou and try and remember that for more than two minutes.  The poor man probably wondered why I was laughing so hard after he uttered the adhesive words, but gave me a look that said, WOMEN. CAN’T LIVE WITH ‘EM, CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT ‘EM.

What I learned from this is that it is really, really easy to fall down into duality. YES and NO.  RIGHT and WRONG.  And depending on how sticky the surface is you fall down onto on your back? It can take a while to wriggle back up into the place where there is a View.  At the same time, we are still human, with emotions and funky brain connections so words to remember are: I am sorry about that extended duck thing. How about some delicious coconut coffee ice cream to make amends?  Things like this are going to happen and yes, it really IS about how you respond.  I reckon on the whole I got a B-/C+ yesterday but it was, most definitely, a learning experience.  Anyway, here is a picture of the eclipse, with as always, blessings and thanks:

what persists

This morning’s brain storm involved Greek philosophers.  Who said, among others, two things.  (And, spoiler alert, we may have successfully inserted a picture at the end here….)

One: Resistance to what is causes suffering. (They weren’t the only ones to say this of course.)

Two: What we resist persists. (I think we all have this tattooed on our wrists, actually, and mistakenly think it is an instruction instead of a caution.)

So.  Suffering thus continues ad nauseam if we let it, by behaving as if we have no control over ourselves and thus none anywhere else.  Control is of course a relative term, since the only thing we can ever even hope to control is how we respond to things.  But our responses do have demonstrable effects and those can be positive instead of negative if we choose wisely.  It becomes more a thing of seeing the flow of things instead of the immobility of how we think we want it or how unfair it is that it isn’t the way we think we want it.

So, what I thought, Gentle Reader, was: If, and it is a largish sized IF, we accept what is as simply that- what it IS, we alleviate our suffering.  And we also can posit that while pain is, as they say, inevitable since it is what IS quite often, in not resisting that in the sense of non-acceptance and non-acknowledgement, we again alleviate our suffering.   And alleviation of suffering leaves room for process, change, and movement.   Flow.  Which is still flow even when you have a slight limp.

Things really are bloody awful in this country right now and look poised to take a dive into even further depths of the dumper.  It would be easy to become totally discombobulated, which a part of me often feels is Part of The Plan.  The speed of the digital world leaves no time for digestion, basically.  Also substance is often lacking therein, no matter what topic or level you choose- it’s thorough going from A to Z.  So everyone is malnourished while feeling stuffed and empty at the same time, and when you’re in that space you’re cranky.  You may even reach for something totally inappropriate to assuage that feeling, only to find it’s made things worse since it gave you acid indigestion.

Resisting this whole paradigm was causing suffering, let’s just say.  So I began to task myself with focusing on letting nothing that came from me, word, deed, dessert or salad, come from anything but love.  This is very easy in the abstract of course while one is pulling weeds or staring into space, but in the nuts and bolts day to day it takes a certain discipline to even think about how while, no, you don’t have to kiss this jerk you really want to hit with a two by four, at the same time the helpful thing is to recognize the divergences and not pay undue attention beyond that.  For me this quite often means keeping my mouth shut and my face clear and just skipping the exegesis about whatever it is. ( I’m expecting to see some significant weight loss from all this effort, too…) Another component is not letting one’s mind go amok with all the things that could go Terribly Wrong At Any Second, complete with all the embellishments that can happen when it turns unexpectedly into a novel writing episode.  I mean, really.  The things you can imagine going sideways can make you completely nuts, and are also completely unnecessary.

In that vein, I can report things are going better- only a third of my head explodes at any given time of late. It’s a fascinating experiment to conduct if nothing else, just seeing what happens when you give any situation, or thing for that matter, your positive and appreciative attention.  Somehow that energy returns to you, then goes back, and it circulates on.  And also? You feel better yourself.  So much of it is also about replacing all those self centered thoughts with doing something for someone else, however small.  Open a door, give a complement, do something for your loved ones you know they want done (like, say, picking up dog poo from the yard).  Simple.  In fact so simple it is easy to think it’s of no value.  And this can be extended to whatever is happening outside one’s immediate personal life.  Love, as Athol Fugard said, is the best subversion.

The Dog of course continues to be the constant instructor.  We had to do several business and anxiety provoking errands this week, and we all went.  The mere PRESENCE of the Dog made people smile, then laugh, then be extra helpful.  He smiled all day with enough wattage to power the yurt.  It really made me think long and hard- the simple fact of the joy inherent in living is what he manifests- even when he gets irritated about the density of Mommy not seeing that he needs a treat RIGHT NOW.  And that has a huge impact on everyone around him.  We had a good example of that, too, the other morning.  He went outside with the Partner for his morning rounds, and a hummingbird flew up to him at eye level.  They looked at each other for several seconds in an astonishingly companionable and communicative way.  The Partner asked the Dog what Hummingbird said to him and for some reason I hummed the tune from Close Encounters.  Dog? looked at me in a startled way then SMILED and I swear he also nodded.  That’s what Hummingbird said I guess- it’s a big cosmos and we should probably accept that and enjoy it.  There’s everything and more for us to see and experience and learn, no matter what the circumstance.  Here he is, probably pondering the Next Lesson if I know him.

Blessings and thanks, as always.

searching for the muse

It’s one of those days, Gentle Reader, where one’s head feels as though it is encased in a jar of vaseline.  So even though I can barely move I’m still thinking about all the things I’d LIKE to do given it’s Saturday and all.

I actually started a new drawing this past week, and got the garden planted for the most part, negotiating tricky things like where to put the cabbage.  I’ve taken a bunch of pictures now that I am firmly in the 21st century.  However the chasm of getting pictures to reproduce on my laptop after being sent from the SMARTPHONE is still big and deep so the promised stellar Dog Portrait will have to wait for another day. *sigh*  Someone remarked to me a long time ago that watching my life was like watching someone hiking up an uneven surface, advancing a few steps, then being grabbed on the scruff of the neck by a wolf and taken someplace completely different, where the enterprise started all over.

I’m not sure, truthfully, that this is a fanciful characterization, and this past week, including photo, er, bombs…. lent some clarity to how it works in practice  For example.  It finally dawned on me that 90% of interactions with “professionals” of any ilk is aimed at keeping you chasing your tail.  There’s the scruff of the neck part.  I need some medical tests.  Provider says, contact your insurance to see if they’ll pay for it. So I do that. And they say, first,  we can’t tell you THAT. I say, what has to happen so that you CAN tell me? They say, the doctor has to send us the order. I felt my eyes cross as I thanked the person for their “help”, declined to take a customer service survey, and hung up.  What this means in actuality is that I will have to go to the lab, where they will look at my insurance and in a crowded room say loudly what that lowly insurance is and that it probably won’t pay, by which time I will have already, since I’m in the lab, signed up for the tests.  In short, you can’t find out if a procedure will be paid for until after you have it.  Which, if whether not it gets paid for is a potential deal breaker, is a bit of a problem.  So that was fun.  BUT.

Clearly progress has been made because not only did I navigate this rocky ford calmly, this past week’s political events did not plunge me into a dark pit of despondency. ( This must be the part where the wolf drops me off and I keep going.) In fact, since it was virtually impossible to miss the LPV Gang’s response to certain Testimony, I found myself looking at the LPV’s attorney, and thinking, jeesh, he BARELY got his human suit zipped over his reptile body, and what a tour de force anyway! What poise in completely changing what basic English means, and confidence in describing something everyone had actually seen as being completely different than what it was.  I was less successful when hearing a snatched bit of the LPV braying about being exonerated or whatever word was used but thank god for mute buttons.  On top of every other thing that was done last week, and all the other things that got done that we don’t know about yet, this really made me feel more firmly that the entire situation, everywhere, is so rotten that only a complete change is going to do a thing.  And since the situation is rotten, it will collapse, and then? It begins again, in a completely different place, having been grabbed by the scruff of the neck by a wolf that couldn’t take it any more and hustled it away.

All this is to say there was some wisdom in that wolf analogy.  We live with the illusion that people are in control.  Then when things go some way we don’t want, we get bent out of shape.  Depending on where we are on the food chain, we either go after the nearest thing until it’s all gone, or? We assess our position.  Maybe we do nothing for a while.  Maybe we give thanks for having enough brain left to take in what’s going on without wasting a lot of energy in resistance.  Resistance really IS futile, because so often resistance is just a small spoiled brat deep down stamping its feet and saying, no I don’t like it like this, I will not accept reality and I’m not playing.  Instead of looking at what it is, not shooting the messenger so to speak, and doing something DIFFERENT.  Turns out that changing your thinking isn’t as hard as it seems in the gnarly initial stages- it’s a matter of consistency and gentle focus.  Also turns out that this very act is what does change things.  It reminded me of a story about two yogis.  One was under a tree, a huge, huge tree with uncountable leaves.  The guru told this yogi that he had as many lives to go as there were leaves on the tree.  The yogi thought for a minute, smiled and said, good! I take refuge in this Work!  The guru proceeded to the next yogi, who was sitting on the ground in a clearing, next to two ants, telling him that it looked like he had two lives to go only.  This yogi pitched a massive hissy fit: this wasn’t how he liked it, he’d worked so hard, it was wrong and unfair, etc. etc. You know.  All the stuff we say to ourselves when we resist what IS.

So. Let us give thanks for wolves.  And also pray for technological inspiration so the Dog may be revealed in his current photographic splendiferousness.  In the meantime, do what you can do.  Gandhi said that even if what you had to do seemed completely unimportant, it was most important that you do it.  So, yee haw, right?  Blessings and thanks!

 

what just happened here?

Lately it’s been a daily-ish experience to kind of have my head, unexpectedly of course, snap around and wonder what just happened here?  It’s almost as though Sleeping Somebody just woke up and however much sleep is rubbed from the eyes, it’s still an unfamiliar vista.

Staring at the now Very Big fennel area in the garden, which was seeded  four years ago, I not only wonder where the time went but who was that masked person who planted those seeds?  The descendants of Tyrant, the OG Hummingbird, flock around the feeder now and eat all together.  We can see the markings of everyone who went before, including the amazing copper hummy we saw last year.  Spring came and went, in the usual quick fashion of this place, with incredible lush swaths of green everywhere and the wild flowers blooming as if in arranged bouquets, short to tall, complementary colors.  Lots of new cows and goats and lizards.  It took about a month but now everything is dry and crisp for the most part, the snow and cold are a memory, and the rabbits are once again lying in the relative coolness of shade spots on the driveway.

I’m feeling the permanence of the impermanent, maybe.  We try, all of us I think, to throw off the weight of entropy, of inertia, what F. Scott Fitzgerald called the dead hand of the past, and live our lives.  At least we try to do that when we commit to being present, feeling what we’re feeling and following that, in an effort to find Peace of Mind. And when we are able to do that? There is a brilliance to things that is almost blinding,  They race by, they stand still, but everything is somehow different in its unfamiliar familiarity.  It’s a flow, a big river of energy and light and stops and gos.

Our quotidian struggles have come and gone and been replaced by new ones, of course.  (Notwithstanding the periodic bleak moments that happen when I hear “the news” however briefly and it seems like we are in a Really Deep Hole that Goes On Forever.  Like seeing that a municipality in Oregon is going to spray a 200 acre organic farm with Roundup to “eradicate weeds” so, I’m guessing, they won’t grow on the Interstate.  Uh.  If that isn’t a deep hole I don’t know what is.) The leap into the 21st century continues and I only cried once.  So I’m proud of myself, continuing to assume that my learning curve will be a curve and not a sheer drop off a cliff.  Photography, for example, how to actually get the pictures somewhere else than the phone….my oh my.  But, hope springs eternal.  In other news: The Dog did something strange and had to be rushed to the Vet a week ago, an untimely bank account draining, equanimity squashing ordeal.  However, he appears to have been restored to vim and vigor from Whatever Happened (see?) and once again I am overwhelmed with gratitude. The xrays revealed that he has an absolutely splendid trachea and spine, so there was that as well.  His Legend Continues of course.  He had to be sedated and when he woke up and came out to the waiting room? He bounded out with a huge grin, trotted briskly over to the reception counter, stood up and put his paws down as if to say, hey! I’m here! Where are the treats? Drinks for everybody!  The staff continued to tell the tale of it later in the week when I went in for…well, more treats…and they pointed to me and said, you should see HER dog!  In other good news all the seeds I planted germinated….still waiting on the culinary herbs but it may already be too hot for them.  The Partner has done a stellar job of clearing grasses and mixing soils and transplanting tiny tomato seedlings.  The beans are in, soon to be followed by winter and summer squash, melons and cucumbers.

The continuing sense of deep unease and doubt is something I’m trying to experience calmly, in order to deal with it without screaming.  Admittedly life here is a matter of continual touch and go, new gnarly things rear their heads constantly, and we watch our opportunities to adequately support ourselves dwindle.  Most of this has to do with things that are entirely beyond our control, and the only influence we have is in how we think about these things and each moment as it happens.  Given that there is so much beauty and reward here even amidst the challenges, it’s pretty disorienting. It’s a strange business working on equilibrium and basic happiness in view of the fact that everything dies and is reborn, over and over, and we really don’t have much clarity about that for the most part.  Nor are there really any reliable guidebooks, other than those containing what is often referred to as “perennial wisdom”.  It takes some time to absorb that perennial wisdom, let’s just say.  I’m wondering how to get it to work at the checkout stand in the grocery store, for example.  As in, why NO.  That total is NOT OK.  How about a whole lot less?

In the end it probably comes down to good housekeeping.  Not only can you not take it with you, you shouldn’t lug it to the departure gate either.  Nothing stays the same, even when the architecture and firmament are recognizable.  This is actually a good thing, and leads me to my personal big question, which is: why why why why why is there all this fear?  All the acting out, selfishness, war, unfairness in the world….has a substrate of fear.  So really.  What are we so afraid of?  Even in the worst circumstances peace can be found, the moving river of whatever this is moves, you take the next step into the what is, if we’re honest, always unknown.  But it isn’t necessarily BAD.  In fact, it’s often really good.  Nothing to fear. Maybe that’s what’s been happening.

Blessings and thanks!

 

understanding

I’ve been pondering the course of my life lately, Gentle Reader. And I have FINALLY gotten a bit of it. There was a fair amount of blood and composure loss along the way, but that’s life in the fast lane, apparently.

Anyway.  Not to belabor things, I grew up, as do many, with hardly anyone who understood me even a little.  I mean, of course, they THOUGHT they understood me.  This understanding  mostly consisted of an assumption that I would, given a range of possible behaviors, always pick the worst one.  It was pretty much a constant no confidence vote.  Bullying occurred.  Physical harm occurred.  If I was sick, the doctor always assumed it was “in my head”- which, as it turns out? Not the case. (Of course all of this DID create things “in my head”, but that was probably Creator going, hah, let’s make this interesting. We know she’s dyslexic, so let’s make this bassackwards to begin with!)  I took this, as do many, to mean that *I* was unworthy, had something wrong with me.  Understanding the psychological underpinnings of it all has been a life long quest.

This morning I understood something, at long last, and as a result of all of the above.  We know people are often hesitant to ask for any kind of help, lest they be judged.  And who judges someone who needs help? Someone who doesn’t understand, doesn’t WANT to understand, just doesn’t get the necessity of understanding.  Sometimes because of an attitude that those asking for help are less than, not good, and an endless string of words I’m sure you can conjure for yourselves. Or, alternatively, there are people who put their shingles out as “helping” – more often than not, they do not, and often project the things they actually don’t understand or need to know or evolve through on to you, expressing their personal situation as containing some kind of  found Absolute Truth, and yours fairly regularly as being entirely lacking in truth of any sort.  Of course as you go along through life it becomes more apparent that the old adage is true: those who know, don’t say (or at least they’re not SELLING it to you), and those who say, don’t know (because they often are kind of selling it to you).   We all often go along with this sort of thing. You think this person knows more than you do. (Or, in more political contexts, they have more “power” than you, which means they can exert that in potentially unpleasant ways.) Yet you know they’re not really paying attention to what’s happening in front of them- so there’s this kind of unpeaceful icky feeling that arises when you think…uh oh.  This might not be right.  What do I do NOW?

So, then, knowing.  What the heck is that? And how do you come to it?

The simple version is, shut up and pay attention.  Breathe.  Direct your attention to what things FEEL like.  You already have the equipment you need, even if it has been allowed to rust and fall apart a bit.  The mind is a wonderful tool, but it needs guidance.  The heart and soul reveal that guidance in the form of FEELING.  The brain then can do its job of sorting through those feelings, presenting the findings (probably to the gut, the third brain in TCM- and after all the stomach is quite a reliable indicator of how you FEEL) and moving on.  The tricky part is how much old habituation gets in the way.  If you were raised to be a blackbelt level co-dependent (thank you Ann Lamott!) this means that the brain actually has to step in and say, hey wait a minute.  That pull you feel toward that person or thing and the overwhelming urge to Do Something For/With Them/It? What is that exactly? Then you start thinking about what help really is, after all.  And who really needs it.  Often after the zillionth hair raising situation where it’s 24/7 drama, you realize it’s you who needs the help.  And you can’t be afraid to ask for it- but you do needs some tools to find the right source.

Which then gets you to what I think of as the crux.  Understanding.  Until you begin to move in the world with understanding, with the intention to understand what the other person is experiencing, you’ll never really know what to DO.  Real understanding doesn’t involve control, or power, or any kind of manipulation to a “desired” outcome, or any rule other than do no harm. More like simply turning the lights on,  it’s ultimately an expanded version of: if it’s on fire, don’t stick your hand into it without a damn good reason and don’t get an attitude about it, either. Understanding gives you a map, a picture, a way to move.  Following your feelings to understanding lets you not pick that THING that really isn’t good for you, whatever it may be and whatever anyone else says about it.  It can lead you to see so much more than you used to.

While none of this may be particularly rewarded by the culture at large? it makes life a lot more- a lot more everything.  More enjoyable, deeper, more beautiful.  The pain is still there because pain just exists.  But it is finite, and that may be the biggest thing understanding gives you.  The negative really IS finite, a piece of a bigger whole.  That bigger whole contains everything along with the negatives, and my view is, we’re here now.  We might as well look around and experience it, and say thank you, while we’re at it.

It’s funny how these “personal history” things feel so Big and Important (when in reality they’re more like gigantic, unsightly doorstops placed here and there, but almost never at an actual door they’re holding open).  I think that’s probably a function of where we were size-wise when we started looking at them.  It’s a long road, though, and really best and most enjoyably traveled without the baggage we THINK  we have to have.  Unencumbered is a good word, don’t you think?  Now that I think about this word, I remember that my teacher said that true healing is really unencumbered communication with Creator.  The feeling associated with that? is joy.  And we really can all have that.

Blessings and thanks!