PHOTOS FROM A BALLOON RIDE IN JAN 2013

DREAM: GARDEN

Image of a garden on a higher tier of ground with exquisite, miniaturized trees and plants. I water them to strengthen them so that they will be able to endure the drought and diminished supply of water later on.

The message here is: nurture the young saplings, strengthen them now while the water is plentiful so later, in scarcity, which is probable and inevitable, they will have within them the resources to endure. I think of Theresa of Avila’s image of praying while you can to strengthen yourself for the times when you cannot pray. The garden is the garden of my soul.

LOVING YOURSELF # 1

I am labeling all these posts on loving yourself as # 1 because it seems to me that they all come first. I also write them because the topic has become increasingly important to me as I age. It may, of course, not be important to you, but I can only write about my issues.

The essential thing here is NOT TO GIVE YOURSELF A HARD TIME. I have been a master at doing this. I cannot count the ways in which I beat up on myself. Of course, I would not have written as much as I have if I hadn't done so. But then again, perhaps I would have written even more if I had been kinder to myself. Above all being kind to myself consists of this: when I am tired, I do not question it, but rest; when I am hungry, I eat, moderately, of course, for being moderate is another way of loving and not abusing yourself; when I am sleepy, I put myself to be, to hell with what else needs doing; when I want to take days off from writing to play, hang out, be lazy, I do so; when I have too many social commitments and I want to get back to my study and into myself, I do so without apologies to anyone, etc, etc. Bottom line: being attuned to the needs of my soul and feeding them.

WRITING TEACHES ME HOW TO LIVE

The process of writing, when it isn’t so frustrating is truly amazing. I think this is the reason that writing fascinates me. Every word and idea and image presents me with many ways I can go. Sometimes, of course, I do explore many options, frequently getting entangled if not strangled on them. The paralysis that follows is an indication that I haven’t found the way. And then miraculously one day I know which one to take and how to go. This knowing always feels like grace.

Coercion, force, power doesn’t work.  Patience, waiting, working, an alert and conscious surrendering, so very difficult to do, is what produces results.  What makes it difficult is my impatience, my pushing too hard, forgetting that coercion won’t work, that the most difficult material is also the most fruitful in terms of plot and development.

It teaches me how to live.

CONSUMING, OR THE FAILURE OF MEMORY

My stomach has been upset lately (too much consuming! ) and I realize that appetite is all about the compulsions of the limbic brain. That is why we have so little control over it. There are severed social consequences to our other uncontrolled appetites, like sex and financial greed, but (we think) food is harmless, private, and therefore overindulge in them. Controlling this appetite is less a question of mind over matter than mind over older mind. Today, I have told myself, I will only eat fruit. I will lay out my rations on the kitchen table – this and no more; for my limbic brain, who wants to pounce on food, I will lay out a few things in the closet that it can legitimately pounce on. Consciousness must cater for the inevitable compulsion in a controlled way. I love this image because it takes into account our animalness and provides for it.    

These appetites that have their wellspring, or illspring, in us, are the strangest things. I will count a few ways, for the examples alone will say what I mean. For years and years I have known that caffeine does a number on my stomach and on my brain. But for years and years I have drunk it because my associations with tea have very long roots, in addition to tasting and feeling darn good for a few seconds or minutes. Ditto for chocolate. I have pounced on these mindlessly, instinctively. EVEN WHEN I KNEW THAT THE ILLNESS THEY CAUSE MIGHT KEEP ME FROM WRITING FOR DAYS AND DAYS. I think it has a lot to do with  failure of memory. I tell myself over and over that I must drink a glass of water before I eat, or during, and one after to curb the gobblin in me that keeps on eating once it has started to eat, but I forget it every time, and the gobblin wins each time.

Memory then is the root of wisdom.  Mimir, the giant in Norse Mythology that guards the well of wisdom, charges one eye for one sip of it.     

SOME OVERDUE PHOTOS FROM OUR LAMBRI TREK IN MAY

DOGS DON'T SEEK REWARDS FOR CHEWING BONES OR DOING OUR WORK IS REWARD ENOUGH

And this is exactly what I do when I research/write/revise. It is as satisfying as chewing bones. I know. Foxy and Bhalli are in bliss while they are doing it. When they're done, they look very satisfied and expect nothing else.

well, it is a little different for us corrupted humans -- and yet, not quite 'corrupted.' Ambition is the universe's way of getting things accomplished through humans. where would we be without ambition? But we have at every stage in the game of life remember that the doing of it is enough.