EXERCISE BALANCES THE TEMPO

I am the living proof. Just took a vigorous (expend all that energy instead of bemoaning it, Kamla!) walk (33.55 minutes. Anal? No, precise. when you want to feel you are accomplishing something with your days, little increments help) up the hill our house is located on, saw the Earth expressing itself through exquisite color, beauty that even the fog could not obscure, and am back in my study, feeling the onset of that measured pulse that feels right.

 

TEMPO

My tempo is off these days. I am going faster than I want to, spinning around yet getting very little accomplished. This happens when I am anxious, and these days I am anxious about making my yearly trip to India for seven months. There is so much to do before leaving and together with trying to wind up my book on Guru Nanak I feel rushed when I want to rest. It affects my sleep too and that becomes a viscious circle of needing to do, not being able to, and tying myself into a knot. I go prestissimo, speed, when largo is my preferred pace, that broad, slow moving from task to task, listening only to the tempo and needs of my body for food, liquid, or rest. I have tried meditating and though it has helped, as always, I am still not where I want to be; after I am done scribbling here I will go do some yoga and go for a walk in the rain, for it is foggy and wet this morning.

Tempo is a huge topic and perhaps I will get to it a bit in later posts. Now it is time for that walk.  

MUSIC OF THE SPHERES, GUY MURCHIE

A wonderful book, first published in 1961, the kind that broadens your perspective and makes you get out of your usual way of  perceiving existence. Here are a few quotes:

"I must seek a perspective far beyond the traditional, beyond the safe and proper, even beyond the human."

"In a very real sense it (our Earth) is alive. Like an animal it stirs in its sleep, it breathes air, it grows, its wounds heal, its juices circulate, its skin metabolizes, its nerves crackle quietly with vital messages. it even rumbles with internal gas and dreams and itches a little and (through its inhabitants) feels self-conscious."

"The present mountains are just a momentary frown on the earth's face -- passing wrinkles that have only at long intervals appeared before and will never be the same again."

"Like matter itself, terra firma thus reveals her illusory nature."

GLORIOUS NARCISSISM

I talk about myself ceaselessly in these posts. Call it narcism, if you must, but I know no topic better than myself, and even this, inadequately.

WHY SHOP WHEN YOU HAVE EVERYTHING?

This has been a dilemma. I don't really need to buy anything, but I still need to shop because of the reasons I mentioned in the previous post. Shopping for new things reaffirms life and keeps the economy going (my excuse whenever Payson says, shopping again?). I have found a solution. For every new thing I buy I give one away. This is easier done in India where there are so many people you can give things away to, but in the US, too, there are many ways to recycle. So, here's another justification: SHOPPING = GENEROSITY +COMPASSION+SHARING!

TO DISSIPATE DEPRESSION #2. RENEWING OURSELVES IN SPRING

GO SHOPPING! Honestly, some people might think this is a woman's thing, but  trading, buying, selling is a human thing. We are the only species that does it. And if one doesn't do it compulsively -- and it's easy to fall into that if one is not careful -- it is a joyous thing! Important phases of my life are always heralded by a shopping spree -- not exorbitant, but like yesterday, just $150 of summer clothes. I have been in a strange limbo for many weeks now, not sleeping well, or knowing what was going on,  but just a general sense of malaise, not feeling my usual self, not sick enough to rest or well enough to do my doing, but yesterday, thanks to another of my 'vices' of which I shall perhaps speak shortly, and the shopping, I have understood what is going on and am happy today.

I am nearing the finishing of my book, just a few more strokes, and a huge vacuum is opening up in my days and I need to shift gears, which is always a difficult thing, since inertia keeps one going in the same direction, stuck in a groove, sometimes an abyss. It is the hardest thing to change gears because we are creatures of habit, which, in the best of times, is a good thing for it gives structure to our days, and structure is security and productivity. But often it becomes necessary, perhaps essential, to change directions. When writing is your whole life and you have been doing if for a long stretch, to be left without it leaves you wheeling about directionless in space. It depresses me, makes me fall sick, and I know that it can also kill me.

So, shopping, preceded by that other wise I mentioned of which I may perhaps speak later, has put it in a wonderful space. My other life has opened up. When I am in a writing phase -- which is most of the time -- I wear the same clothes over and over again, resent social activities and household chores, neglect the garden. Now all the latter things have begun to bloom. I am wearing new clothes this morning, we are going to a new place to walk today, and there is a general newness in the air. NEWNESS. My body and brain become hungry for it and I have to feed them this newness. Even in my walk yesterday I took new paths, wandered down allies never seen before, noticed trees suddenly visible in their blooming beauty. Unless we renew ourselves in spring like the earth, there is danger of falling into depression.  

TO DISSIPATE DEPRESSION

WALK! Get out of the house, without ceremony, in your walking shoes, and walk the neighborhood wherever you are. It shifts the energy in body and brain, moves it around, distributes it evenly, for what is depression but stuck energy? Even better than yoga sometimes, which requires -- for me, at least -- that you be indoors. Spring has sprung and there's no better time to be outdoors. Don't let anything deter you . . . it is a rainy, grey day today here in Del Mar in Southern California, but the walk has started off my day, albeit slowly, reluctantly. It is a great day for lying about, in bed, even, reading.