Do you believe?
Do you believe in your own innate goodness?
How are we shaped?
This morning I put seed out for the birds (23 degrees – not too bad). Crunching along the deck I noticed this floe coming off of the deck railing. How did it becom
e curved? Why did it angle out as far from the wood as it did? Why did the composition look different in the top part of the floe?
I wondered about the things that shape us throughout life. The big things seem like the obvious answer, but I don’t think that’s what does it. Like this ice, it is the persistent, subtle influences that do the real shaping — factors I don’t even consider to be shapers: identifying as female, being white, born American, born middle class and midwestern, family beliefs about working hard and doing your “fair share,” etc.
How can I shift my viewpoint to gain a perspective as if outside of those factors? What will I see, feel, (and if I change the belief) experience?
Stuck
I feel stuck. I’m not doing items on my to-do list. I’m barely doing my 2016 goals. Well, not true. I’m doing them — grudgingly, perfunctorily. I don’t feel any excitement about learning or new experiences.
A friend told me to honor the feeling and just be there. I know that (don’t I??).
This is only a hum
an experience. No other being or creature has an idea that it should be somewhere else, doing something else other than what it is at every moment.
I imagine walking into my sunroom and hearing an orchid grumbling in frustration, “Oh where is my bloomin’ flower?! I should have bloomed by now!! I can’t do anything right. I am pathetic….”
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.
Snow Sticks
That’s what I call them — snow sticks. If you live anywhere where it snows consistently in the winter, you could notice these 3-foot-long, luminescent fiberglass rods on parking lot curbs and sidewalk edges. They get planted, usually in November, when the gr
ass is still green and leaves are still dropping. The day you notice them can be sad. Yes– winter and huge snow piles will be back again soon.
The purpose is obvious: You’re driving a snow plow in a pre-dawn, snow-blind, haze. Cough syrup and coffee are duking it out in your central nervous system. Your contract SLA stipulates this giant corporate parking lot must be clean before employees begin to arrive at 6:30 a.m. When you pull in it’s a smooth, shapeless, almost endless field of white — except for the Tinkerbell-size glow of the snow sticks.
We haven’t had a lot of snow [yet] this year. The sticks are more visible again thanks to a recent 35-degree high. Yesterday I thought about what I use as my own snow sticks. One is a short song (poem) by Thich Nhat Hanh.
I have arrived; I am home.
In the here, in the now.
I am solid; I am free.
In the ultimate, I dwell.
I recite it slowly, on each breath, several times. It is a Walking Meditation. I find it especially useful when my thoughts are bullet trains and I just — can’t — get an objective point-of-view of my mind. Frequently the first line triggers enough release that brings tears. Relief. Perspective. Reminder that I am not my thoughts.
Reminder that I am. I have snow sticks to help me.
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.
New Year 2016 Goals
I did a good job last year – 2015 — with my goal. I completed it each week as I had set out to do. The goal evolved from postcards with gratitude listings to postcards with poetry that reflected the image. I sent one card consistently to one person and the second card to many others, including businesses and random people. I enjoyed finding the cards and poetry, as well as identifying the second card recipient. The goal enabled me to connect with others in a memorable way and it also caused me to read and research more poetry. I experimented a couple of times with creating my own postcards. All you need is a good image, some Avery printable postcards, and a color printer.
Creating the ‘homemade’ postcards triggered one of this year’s goals. For 2016, I will create and post weekly on one of my blogs. I will post NLT Saturday each week, with the goal of posting Friday afternoon. I will include a photograph I have taken and a post related to the photograph. The post can be appropriate for either my poetry site or my awareness site. My intention is to create consistency with my blog posts and instigate some visual creativity into my practice.
I have two other goals (specific and measurable cuz that’s the way to make them) for 2016. I may write about these goals through the year, but for now I’ll just say they are (1) Re-learn French and (2) Write book.
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.
Days Without Pirate Attack: 