Category: Day-to-day
Pareidolia
One of my favorite words. It is how the mind finds a pattern in random data. The key part of the word is the “idol” part and frequently the mind finds a human face or body. The phenomenon is likely a survival/tribal mechanism.
This is a picture of a huge old oak tree on my work-home route. I see a
rms and a body with a woman’s breast. I like her (the tree) a lot. She comforts me with her waves on the way to the office and distracts me from the Culvers’ chocolate sundae billboard in the next block on the way home. She stands near the road edge of a large farm property that (hopefully) will stay as long as I do.
I honor her — not worship like a Druid — as a powerful reminder of shared consciousness. It’s easy to see a tree like this with some level of stoic awareness and as valuable a part of all that is as I am.
Read my poem, My Witness Tree on Poetiosity.
Dug-for Beauty
Wednesday morning on my walk I noticed the lovely sunrise immediately. I chased it block-to-block for wherever I could see it more clearly. Seeing the rare roses, pinks, and golds of the palette were as sweet as candy!
This winter has been warmer, but monochromatic. Heather gray is the predominant color. Looking out the window this afternoon, I see a sweatsuit gray sky, greiged, crusty snow, and dark puddles. The parking lot lights have come on (it’s noon) already. We’ve had so many gray days, I make sure I’m getting a Vitamin D daily. (I’m in no danger of getting rickets.)
The glorious sunrise is the obvious choice for beauty, but there is a difference finding beauty in the gray today. The light is softer, more like variations on a theme. The farm field beyond the parking lot is slightly foggy and silvered. The bare brown trees near the building take on sepia contrast tones. The wet road is shinier. The rain leaves trails on the windows. The feeling turns one quiet, muted, pushing me to be home, with a small fire burning, a book to read, and a hand-made blanket covering my legs.
Dug-for beauty isn’t really about looking really hard, working for it or earning it. It’s really reflective of your experience when you notice how much better looking a person gets as you learn more about him or her, how kind they are, and how much they like you.
Pirate Emotions
50 days abstinent and the emotions are roiling. You don’t know why you’re eating [compulsively] until you stop eating.
My number one emotion lately is anger. Turns out I had chocolate-covered rage. That’s what those bags of Brach’s Double-dipped chocolate covered peanuts really were. I have no reason. It’s just there. I did learn one interesting thing by sitting out on the deck and just feeling it charge through my body. I thought I had to be alone with my anger because I was “dangerous.” Huh??? When I ask myself if that is true, I have to answer no. But it still feels pretty solid. Maybe memory-foam like solid. Read my poem at Poetiosity.
The other emotion is grief. My oldest cat, Delilah, died yesterday. She was 16 and had a great kitty life even if she was a total butt-kitty. I’m missing her, and I am so tired. I found this great explanation online:
“Your body is so very wise. It will try to slow you down and invite you to authentically mourn the losses that touch your life. The emotions of grief are often experienced as bodily-felt energies. We mourn life losses from the inside out. In our experience as a physician and grief counselor, it is only when we care for ourselves physically that we can integrate our losses emotionally and spiritually. Allow us to introduce you to how your body attempts to slow you down and prepare you to mourn your life losses.” From GriefWords.com
“And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief.” – C.S. Lewis
About Three Hours Without a Pirate Attack
On my walk this morning I was listening to the audio book, The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer. It’s a pretty good book overall. It doesn’t contain new concepts (to me, at least), but it does have a perspective that’s different enough to give me pause sometimes. The narrator (it’s not read by the author) described how one must make the commitment to be happy and not to let anything that happens — because stuff will happen — dissuade you from that commitment.
Zap! I realized I was making some other people in charge of my happiness. My mind is so sneaky!!!
Boop, Boop, Boop. Backing the truck up. . . I’ve been attending OA meetings for the last few weeks. I kept looking for “glowing” people: Someone who had mastered abstinence, seemed calm and serene, and seemed — happy. But I didn’t see any one like that. The meetings here are lightly attended, too. I had even ultimatumed myself, that if there were only a couple people in the Sunday meeting, I was going to stop going. So that meeting had over twenty people (rats!) and some interesting sharing. However, I still didn’t see anyone who looked happy [to me]. This made me angry and kind of pleased, too. Again, my mind is very sneaky.
Now this morning, I realized I had put them in charge of my happiness. I wasn’t going to be happy because they weren’t acting like I wanted them to act. Just like there is no “because” in love, there is no “because” in happy. This is probably a case of not seeing because I wasn’t being.
In that great way of the universe, when I decide to be happy no matter what, interesting things validate it, not cause it. Janet Jackson’s “Nasty” song just came up on the song shuffle. I read there will be a blue moon on Friday. I am going to have coffee and a hug with a friend on Sunday morning. Contented sigh.
30 Days Abstinent
Tuesday I passed 30 days abstinent. For the most part, it’s been easier this time (so far). I’ve had a few random, bizarre thoughts like “I’m going to make fudge when I get home.” Sheesh! It’s 85 degrees out. Or “Teddy Grahams won’t really count as a cookie.” My most prevalent thought has been, “I don’t want to be the kind of person who can’t eat chocolate the rest of my life.”
If I say the line, I have a physical reaction – a tenseness that slides up the sides of my neck and under my ears. I can say that I’ll never drink soda ever again. I drink it so rarely now, I have no attachment. If I say I’ll never eat meat again, I feel a little sad, but I don’t feel resistance in the same way as with chocolate.
I just noticed I used the word ‘can’t’ there – not ‘chooses’ or ‘doesn’t’ or ‘won’t.’ ‘Can’t’ feels like it’s imposed from outside of me and a bit o’victim tossed in. ‘Choose’ or ‘won’t’ require ownership and decision power. It takes considerable effort to say the phrase with either of those words and a bazillion secondary feelings come roaring up and start stomping in my stomach. Now if I just ate candy, I could fill that spot.
I want to get up and start cleaning something.
35 Days Without Candy; 0 Days Without Pirate Attack
On March 16th, on a whim — truly, it was a whim, not seriously planned, anticipated, or dreaded — I stopped eating chocolate in any form, candy, cake, cookies, ice cream, etc. I had wondered, what would it be like? Well, now I know. I think it might be like giving up meth or crack. Seriously.
days without pirate attack
I won’t say I’ve given up sugar. For me, the word candy is loaded and is where I needed to explore. In our culture, candy is celebrated, approved, and encouraged. The candy aisle in Walgreens is two-sided, full of everything from exotic 70% cacao bars, to boxes of Junior Mints, to bags of individually wrapped Dove milk chocolate, and everything in between. As I think about the store, they carry more candy than any other section. The over-the-counter meds take up only one side of an aisle! Looks like they know their market and stock accordingly.
I’m not saying that chocolate is evil. I still love it. It’s just that I am feeling more and more like I am using it to assuage an emotional need. I am pretty proud that I am noticing the feelings associated with the desire for candy and exploring them. It’s not pride that I haven’t eaten any. This restriction is a forty days in the desert looking for enlightenment.
Time traveling
Days Without Pirate Attack:
I am happy March is here and with it [slightly] warmer weather. I can get out of the house and take longer walks. The strange thing that keeps happening is I’m noticing strange deja vu-esque feelings elicited by temperatures, a breeze, the smell of the ground thawing, the angle of the light. Hmmm. I really don’t know what’s causing it, but a feeling arises in my body and my memory identifies with the feeling.
I bring in Harry Palmer’s tool “This is weird.” I say it and I am able to keep a separate point-of-view while I let the feeling drift through my body. Keeping a separate point-of-view keeps me out of the creation — not completely, but enough to avoid overwhelm. I’d say I’m whelmed. The nostalgia and the longing trips the time travel trigger, and I’m back nearly forty years and I feel like I’m back in central California, driving toward San Luis Obispo from King City. Other times I’m different places, different times, but in those moments they are real.
I wonder then how the firing in my brain causes this or what sensation in my body triggered the firing. Does the order matter? It’s a fascination for me how this works mechanically. Almost as fascinating as the memories themselves.
Thinking on this
“The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself.” – Pema Chodron
. . . still thinking about it.
Pirates in the Linen Closet
Nearing the end of remodeling my house, I just finished the second-to-last closet (bathroom linen closet). It’s seriously gorgeous and organized now. It took me just under a week to complete:
- Remove everything
- Toss out old, wooden shelves
- Patch holes
- Tape
- Paint
- Move items from under sinks
- Clean under sinks after I moved that stuff
- Buy new wire shelving
- Cut six separate shelves by hand with a hack saw
- Clean out old baskets
- Buy two new baskets
- Put all the stuff into organized baskets and into the closet
- Throw away what I don’t need or use any more
Cutting the shelves with a hack saw was not nearly as hard as deciding what to throw away and then doing it. Admittedly, I have very little stuff confronting me on this, but comparing is of no value. Hard to do is hard to do. (Thank you, Ash Beckham!)
the actual stuff
Some of the beliefs that are coming up include: I want the stuff to be used, to go to a “good home.” It’s perfectly good stuff. What if I need it some time? Maybe I can use it for something else. Maybe a shelter can use it. I don’t want it to be a waste of money. I don’t want to be the kind of person who buys stuff that gets thrown away. But I also don’t want to be the kind of person who has a lot of stuff. I don’t want the garbage man to see how much good stuff I throw away.
and then the kicker. . . I believe the stuff will make me cool/special/beautiful. . . loved. Didn’t know hair gel was that powerful, did you? I’m tempted to blame it on marketing, but marketing wouldn’t work if I already believed I was beautiful, if cool didn’t exist, and everyone/no one is special.
Where am I Lying?
This all started with a random thought (a judgment) about another I mentioned in a previous post, The Opposite of Lying. “She’s lying about that and it’s affecting her life and she doesn’t even realize it.” Drat. If I thought that, it must also be somehow/mostly/completely about me. How do I do lie? What is The Truth?
Days Without Pirate Attack:
In the wonderful way attention works, I read this passage yesterday. Although the author was laying the foundation for concepts, it’s applicable.
“When something is held to be true or real, existing outside of our imagined, we hold it in a different category than something that’s known to be just a concept. So does that mean that what we define as true is something we believe exists outside of our imagination? In doing so each of us frequently perceives an idea as if it were a self-evident truth.
On the other hand, if you realize that these attributes are conceptual in nature, immediately you will experience the possibility that you can change them or get free of them altogether.” Peter Ralston, The Book of Not Knowing
ah-ha! A lie requires believing an idea to be true.
Where am I lying? My being is true. Only thoughts or ideas I have are possible to be lies. Saying them is the manifestation of my thoughts about myself or thoughts about another through myself. (I’m already solid on “there is no other.”)
Where am I lying? Lies to my self rely on an idea of should-self. I should be making more money. I should have a new car. I am better than her. I am not like him. I am right. You’re doing it wrong, etc…
“You cheated on me.” “No, he doesn’t mean anything. I love you.” Are both of these lies?
How about the deflector method? “You broke my favorite cup.” “Technically, the cup, when acted upon by gravity, broke itself when it encountered a denser object – the floor. It was the Earth’s fault.” This is angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin semantics.
A lie requires believing an idea to be true.
This is not a syllogism, though. All ideas are not lies. Ideas and concepts are just that – something in my mind, my imagination. But. . . lies exist only in the imagination, therefore truth lives only there, too.
Where am I lying? I have a lot of answers now and a clear idea about the beliefs that need rooting out and why I reflected the judgment on to another.
Days Without Pirate Attack: 