hunger

We entered the restaurant, it was seat yourself, we chose a booth in the front room and sat down.

"Somebody put salt on this table!" he said.

I held my tongue but wanted to say -
No dude, "there is salt on this table" might be accurate but the "somebody put it" bugs me. You say it as if someone did it on purpose. Have you honestly never noticed how easily it is for salt sprinkling from a shaker to bounce, scatter and land on things other than the intended food target? Can you not make an observation without placing blame? What's with all the knee-jerk fault finding? I heard annoyance in your voice. Who promised you perfection?

I was happy that there was enough money in the checking account this night that we could eat out cuz there hadn't been earlier in the week. I'd had a long day out and about, was tired and didn't want to go home and have to pull a meal together. I was happy that the booth in the front room was open. I prefer booths and I strongly prefer the front room of this restaurant over the louder brighter ones in back. I was happy that we did not have to wait for a table. I was happy that there wasn't sticky syrup and jelly or greasy margarine on the table as I had encountered at breakfast. Grains of salt were no biggie for me, not worth getting riled about.

As a matter of fact the only thing truly negative on my mind was my lack of a dinner companion possessing the ego-resilience capable of discussing my observations and all the weighty thoughts that filled my head as a result of his salt comment -
state vs trait, orientation, expectation, awareness, affect, agency, the death of a marriage, the purpose of love, the care of soul, happiness, suffering, non-permanence, transition, balance, darkness, way-finding, instinct, intuition, fate, sadness, blindness, wholeness....

"And so tell me, how did your business trip go?"

Say CHEEEEESE!

SO what is it with old photographs?

You know what I mean, right?

They don't bring true happiness or comfort, do they?

Or is it only me? who is ruminating - - -

"oh god I was so skinny then, if only..... we could go back.... and appreciate.....

"wow! I look so happy!..... Ahhhh if only I could be that happy today....

But was I? happy?
Well of course I was...
No!... No?...
Well, yeah, No.
When I think about it, no, I was probably bluffing... but damn don't it look good!

Actually though I don't remember the moment in which that pic was snapped, I don't remember it at all...
I don't remember squat to be honest.
Hmmmm, well now, still, how shall I go about being happy today? happy as I appeared to be on that day?... I think that's the attraction....cuz THAT is something I want, something I need... seeing that smile reminded me...
Oh no.... wait, you say that can't be done, I can't go back huh?... I can't be that again. Yeah, that day is past... and it was never what it seemed to begin with.

BUT but I swear I can ALMOST touch it! afterall I have this picture.... and it is tugging at my heart-strings...

What is that longing?
What is it?
Torture?
Why?
Longing for what?
Something real?
but That wasn't real.
If it had been real I think I'd still feel it, I'd still be it,
I'd exude IT instead of this loneliness that dogs me.

Is anything real?
idk

These pics, were real at some point in the past? I want them to be real. I want them to be now.

They document times past, past times yes, but real ones no less.
There is comfort in that, right?
Why not take comfort where you can?
But the feeling they bring isn't really comfort.
And so, wtf does all this mean?

Why are you staring at the pics again?
Why are you framing them, labeling them, uploading them? Don't you have something better to do with your time?

You can't touch them, they are soul-flight.
Wishing them tangible only fills you with longing, for an illusion, that never was.
You can't be them.... ever.... and/or again.
You can only be now, now. And never know, if now was, or was not. So, be.
Be done with
the past.

prismatic coefficients

Open Wide

make my heart beat
scare me
confuse me 
help me laugh at myself

forever learning
forever off-balance
forever entertained
the world is ours, you know

giddy is a good thing
!play! with me now
puleeeeeezzz.....
ha haha I love it when you beg :DDD

"And I'm just a student of the game that they taught me"

In a conversation the other day about a new Linkin Park song, I couldn't help but recall a Clash song from my college days.
Later I spun the two together and think I got a glimpse of something kinda profound :)

In 1979's Guns of Brixton, The Clash sang,
"When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun"


On A Thousand Suns, Linkin Park's latest cd,
in a song full of rhythm, clashing sounds and spiraling energy,
the lines,
"Oh when they come for me
Come for me
I'll be gone"
float along smooth and free,
contrasting nicely with the rest of the song,
and with Guns of Brixton.



Now I am not gonna sit here and say I know the songwriters' intentions or references; or try to propose that theses songs are related in anyway other than in  my head. My thoughts linking these songs are likely more a projection of who I am and where I am at this time in my life. However I don't think that makes my thoughts any less valid, so here they are.

When forced to choose, I want to come out fighting. And indeed I have done that pretty much lifelong. I fought and I lost. I tried and I came up short. I made it through but paid a high price. Life beat me down repeatedly. And each time I resolved that next time I would find a way to work harder, fight stronger, longer, on and on. Eventually somewhere around middle age, the Universe once again upped the ante on me and finally I had to fold.

Now days I am trying to go with the flow, unattached to the struggle, not grasping at any single outcome.

I've decided that life is like white water canoeing. Eventually you learn to respect the river. Frantic strokes in fast moving water rarely get you where you want to be. Sometimes less is more. A little rudder, a bit of draw, keep one eye open, breathe. Perhaps if I had paid a little more attention when I was younger and running those rapids, I could have applied this river-running philosophy to life in general, and saved myself years of trouble. Naw! that'd have been too easy.

When I was younger I was wearing blinders. I was sure and certain because of my limited view. I thought the only choice was 'which side are you on?'. I've come to learn however, that we often have more choices than we realize. Nothing is black and white. Seeing beyond the obvious is my new goal.

I like the Jungian concept of holding the tension of opposites. While it may look at first glance to be passive, it is not the same as coming to the door with your hands on your head and letting the police state take over. What can happen is that if you hold the tension long enough without choosing sides, if you just let things unfold, then most always a new previously unrecognized option/solution will present itself, making both the trigger-of-your-gun fight and the hands-on-your-head giving up unnecessary. When we engage and choose, we doom ourselves to endless alternating struggles, resulting in friction and pain.

I believe it is an art to be absent, to be formless, to wait in the open stillness, to follow our own path. We've the ever-present potential within us, it is always there - to not fight, not struggle, to not get caught in the good-bad right-wrong duality, to not let others define us.
The trick is it takes trust, courage and a little practice.

How you gonna come?........ is a deceptively simple question.
I'll be gone............................is an answer opening in to the limitless.

Ouch

The topic of chronic pain and suffering has been in my head alot recently.

An oddball shoulder pain this summer, came and went for a while, and then turned back up this fall and taking over my life through the heart of winter. She is back in her cage now but not fully tamed. I've hope that by the time spring bursts, she'll be a long gone memory. But well, you just never know. This body gets older everyday and things don't always bounce back like they used to anymore. I'm not sure when that day is gonna come when what got pushed outta shape never rebounds. I fear it is just around the corner; OR, shit! who knows! maybe it was yesterday and only time will tell. Like menopause, many things are defined in retrospect.

I recall during my mother's last few years, her psychiatrist several times likening her psyche to a rubber band that had been stretched one too many times. I think my psyche is strong and flourishing, but the jury is still out on my physical body. And that uncertainty weighs heavyily.

I watched my brother-in-law and my cat die slowly this winter (yes, I said cat, yes, "just" a pet. He and his suffering btw count just as much in my book as any other :) For the past year my husband has struggled with an auto-immune disease that attacks muscle fiber. Also this week I learned of a friend's difficult battle with a amorphous disease barely recognized by the medical establishment.
Damn damn damn what the hell are we supposed to do?????
Will it never stop?

Earlier this week someone mentioned to me the Buddhist idea of "the second arrow". The idea was that we can't necessarily avoid the first arrow which is the the original wounding, the initial pain. But the second arrow is different.

Often it seems we wallow in our emotional reactions to that first arrow... "why me?"... "this is SO much trouble!"... "this is gonna ruin everything, dammit!"... "waaa boo hoo"... etc. This is the same as stabbing ourselves with a second arrow. AND news flash, this secondary suffering IS under our control. I really liked the arrow imagery. Yep, here I am walking around with a bunch of arrows hanging outta my body, dangling and wobbling with each step I take :) Why the hell would I wanna add to the collection?!

Coincidentally(?) this week I also stumbled upon a magazine article that spoke about strategies for dealing with pain. It contrasted distraction with mindfulness. It cited studies showing that distraction is the more effective strategy in the initial minutes of pain. However, it seems that mindfulness wins out in the end as the better coping strategy. The article concluded with a statement that was something like, when distraction fails, you are left with nothing. The implication was that mindfulness either did not fail or somehow didn't leave you with nothing. I found this very interesting. It seemed to me to speak a big truth.
Note: The scientist in me would really like to quote her sources accurately but I borrowed the magazine and it'd be alot of trouble to find it, and so I'll skip over that formality for now.

All this reminds me of a book I read last summer. OMG! NO! It was the summer before last, but it feels like yesterday :) The book was titled Sadomasochism in everyday life: the dynamics of power and powerlessness By Lynn S. Chancer. This book really opened my eyes. I've written about it several times online and spoken of it many many times in real life. And so why not once more?

The author spoke of the power dynamics not only between individuals, but also of those between various layers of society, business, and also nations. It seems the dynamic is the same, no matter who is playing the roles. Macro or micro, it doesn't matter. Power is paired with powerlessness all around us. Not surprisingly the party positioned masochistically, the powerless one, can get tired of the pain. Ultimately though there are always consequences whenever the masochist attempts to change the dynamic. And it is through through these gyrations of confronting these consequences, that eventually the masochist grows stronger and broader, more diverse, more adaptable, more able to cope with a variety of pressures. It would seem then that the masochist is mindful, unable to ignore the burden being placed, akiinda forced mindfulness, I suppose. Correspondingly, the sadist grows weaker and more limited, forever distracted and distanced from from 'the burden' (which is being carried by the other). In the end the only party capable of truly changing or upsetting the dynamic is the one positioned masochistically. The question is - does the dynamic flip, like a see-saw? Or can both parties move towards the middle?

Call me crazy but I think this issue of pain and suffering, this big time real world stuff, the mental and physical dis-ease that we all struggle with, fits the dynamics above. Life is a balance forever being negotiated, between our Souls and the Universe. Struggle, the second arrow, our work at distraction, only binds the fetters tighter. It's not really a win-win proposition, and frankly never really was.

how is it that I used to hate poetry?

The Guest House
Rumi

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each one has been sent
as a guide from beyond.


(The Essential Rumi, Coleman Barks translation, 1995)

planting tulips freezing fingers

I've always been an optomist
hang in there
keep trying
it'll all work out, you know it will

but sometimes all forward movement stops, joints ache, and I wonder if maybe
the cold and the dark will never end,
feeling the years piled high, this dead of winter
uninvited guest threatens to stay

but then an energy comes, like today
and I can almost touch all my desires, every single one
the yearnings no longer torture, the world is possibility made tangible
there is movement inside my chest

trudge on has morphed to delighted blossoming
the busy bee noses into all it sees

you see I'd had to continue, there's never been any other choice for me
now hoping pretending believing eternally
I come thankful for this day, for the gifts of lightness
for balance
brings truth bittersweet
the failures and sloth belong
to the core, walk hand in hand with confidence
prior impotences are never entirely forgotten
the quicksand though vanished has perpetual potential

some part of me knows
this sea change did not originate within me from my efforts
the seasons pass
I quench my thirst with a half a glass