For the future 8 December

I'm getting a day start on tomorrow.  I will be busy in the morning and my loquaciousness ebbs as the sun moves along its wintry path.

So...

Hmm, most of life is learning what to call things.   See those faces hovering over you - mom, dad, perhaps the family dog.   This is why the onset of forgetfulness in old age causes the not-quite-so-old to look upon forgetters with pity if not disdain.  Truthfully, the younger are probably fearful of what may or will be their fate. 

At the end time - our exit from the body - we will forget it all. For a time, so I’ve read and so I believe.  Unless my/your consciousness can transcend its bodily encasement while living it will slumber for a while until reawakening in a new setting; be it physical, astral or whatever.

I’ve been having, since early on, a kind of mental stuttering when it comes to recalling a word or name.  Honestly, I am simply bored with trying to match the name of the person/thing with the internal identity of this ‘thing’ that I know.  I know for sure who ‘Susie-x’ is and recalling her name accurately doesn’t interest me sometimes.  Other times it does.  Other times I am please to see how igniting the name of a person we both know and identify is a pleasing experience.

My whole mind or today is December 7th

The most annoying thing is to be annoyed.  It is particularly bad when you know that the annoyance is ridiculous and that in about any amount of time you’ll be over the annoyance.

Or worse, the annoyance will have morphed into a malignant obsession with the subject of your annoyance which, in any case, means that the 2nd Amendment for you should be repealed.

Then again, 2nd Amendment promoters and rabid anti’s are both annoying.  The rabidity of both sides is the problem.  There is no vaccine and a better health care plan won’t do it.

-

 Opened up my Outlook to respond to a submission that’s sitting as a saved Word document along with this fledgling 2-pager doc.  As I saw or recognized the submission, one of my meditation-quotes popped up as a reminder.  As they do and as they must.

After reading the quote and for about 20 seconds I’ve driven myself into an open field of peacefulness, of remembrance.  I blow on this tiny taper of – peace, inner awareness, acceptance – and everything is in perfect alignment.  A spiritual chiropractic adjustment.  Pain free for a time.  Wonderful.

So, here’s the quote: "Even if you meditate only for a little while each morning and evening, let your whole mind be absorbed in God during those periods. Gradually you will begin to feel His response." - Daya Mata 

Your whole mind?  - My whole mind? - An insurmountable Everest rises before me.

I wonder if we, who are most of the time scattered mentally, physically & emotionally, can grasp this point. The utter enormity of bringing the whole mind under control. But if we don’t reach out to grasp we’ll never reach anything ‘beyond.’   It’s a conundrum.  And all of this is for a benefit we can only, mostly, dream of or hope for.

And if this is where today's entrye concludes then it is better than the most vivified poem or creative piece I could write.  Sure, I’d like to write something that captivates a reader. But it is more than enough if my inner solarium is rejuvenated, vivified by this momentary realization.

I’ve watched and read too many Mt. Everest expeditions to be overly impressed by hiking achievements.  Climbers still must descend and thaw out with the rest of us.  And ponder those frozen folks stopped, mid-stride, pulverized by the external conditions that ended their journeys.  Or suspended for, as I know, we are reborn and take up the journey from where we left off.  Karmically, that is.  No, not in a linear time/space situation. 

We drift into the snowbank of forgetful reincarnations and who knows how many times we’ve passed ourselves along the trail.

Deliver me from delusion.

Dec 6th

Nothing written but lots of weeding done.  Did anyone see me do it?  Did it really happen?  Of course if I tried to grow weeds they'd die like unrepentant soldiers in a lost cause.

Weeds are manifestations of all we are not.  

Had visions of burning – fires leaping - last night or early this morning.  Wonder if it’s impressions from news about the hillside fires in southern California.  Massive flames spreading and exploding everywhere.

An inflammatory holocaust.

December 5th

The longest-lasting rainbow was recorded in Taiwan the other day, something like 9 hours. Not a bad way to spend one's day, taking photos of a rainbow.  The previous record was about 6 hours in Florida.  

Here’s what impressed me about the description of this meteorological event.  -

Sunlight passing through rain and moisture in the air create the phenomenon, but only when viewed from the correct angle.

In our suspicious society (alright, many societies have been suspicious – a common human failing or weakness. How can we believe one another…?) the ‘angle’ is all important.  Determines our understanding and how we can understand another.

And attitude permits and increases perception.  Something like that.  Attitude + willpower.  That combination feels more like truth than most truths I’ve seen labeled as such.

Reminds me of a movie scene where the new boyfriend is told by a friend to wait to push the “On” button for the dishwasher (that he’s just filled with dishes) only when the girlfriend sees him.  The premise:  “If a man washes a dish and no one sees it, did it really happen?”

From record-shattering rainbows to getting credit for washing dishes.  This is my mind.  A circus of improbable acts.

12/4/2017 Another Day

There is a cow on the porch waiting for the rain to stop.  There is a porch somewhere that has no cows.  Porches are best when used on a sunny day with a cup of coffee or tea.  Rain is impervious to decisions about cows or coffee.

There is humor that has no punch line.  Sometimes humor is lost in the shadows of being too serious.  Being profound is not something any of us do.  It is a state of grace beyond shadows.  Best to step away from preoccupations.  Try to sympathize with the breath.  We’re breathing despite it all.  Except, of course, when we aren’t.  Let’s not get into that right now.

Hyperlinks. 

If you’re not good at magic tricks, don’t despair.  Try a hyperlink. 

If you’ve never been very smart in school, don’t whine about it.  Try a hyperlink.

When you’re lonely, hyperlinks are a virtual friend.  And jumping from link to link is like being a very popular person at a party.  Social dysfunction solved in a click.

I’ve reread for the umpteenth time the poem ‘Visiting the Parrot’ by Helen Burke.  We all know what it’s like to feel caged and to find a fellow inmate and friend helps us endure the situation.  Here lines that say it all – to me:

I sensed a fellow clown, an acrobat – squawking –
Only let them see what we want them to see.
Chintz wallpaper. Earl Grey in perfect white porcelain.
And the sky outside – beckoning.
And our two hearts like defused weapons.
•
Helen Burke © 2013 

What I particularly love about Helen's poem is that her feelings are not hidden behind the glass, so to speak.  Nor do they bully or intrude.  They reveal. 

December the Third of the Year 2017

Alright, so I read that to get yourself into writing, or back to writing, I should write 2 pages a day.  About anything .  It can be crap.  After looking over my hundreds of poems, semi-poems, revised, revised poems, I know that most of what I’ve written may be a form of crap.   Is this a depressing thought?  Not really.  

There are many more depressing thoughts that could be unearthed.  But why disinter them?  Are they valid or helpful.  Unearthing depressing thoughts is like trash diving.  Trash has its purpose: to disintegrate and be reabsorbed into basic matter.  Helping the internal environment is progressive.  Good job.

This is encouraging.  The writing… Not what I am writing but sounding off inside this blogside of my new, mandatory 2-page-a-day writing.  

I loathe discouragement.  I also abhor the spell check.  Red highlights for typos it detected.  But I also adore spell check, too.  Gives me the chance to create a small chat session with the program that must obey my every key entry.  

And when there are word highlights in blue?  What dost that meaneth?  Too early for a Google search.

It’s a good idea to give props to both sides of your inner arguments.   

Well, if  I type long enough I’ll type faster and fulfill my mundane wish, since high school, to be a speed typist or, at least, a faster typist…  

I love the three periods at the end of a sentence or phrase and am going to stick with it.  I should look up what this is called.  Ellipsis, perhaps?  I do know that they pretend to suggest further insightful pronouncement.

To be continued. ...  dot dot dot