This picture will make sense eventually--maybe.
Here
I am sitting in my office on wheels, aka pickup
truck, outside the grocery store. the day is gray, not like the picture
above. My little dog is beside me licking her paw. I’m sipping a latte’
bought on the way here, and since I also carried a notebook from
home, I open it.
This quote popped out at me: “We change what we focus
on.”
No, that’s only half the story. We might manifest, or
draw to us what we focus on, but change is another matter. It appears that sad,
depressing, or hurtful stories get fixed in our gray matter waiting to be
cycled and recycled over and over.
I left the house in an emotional slump, but now,
having changed the scenery and meeting fun people at Dutch Bros coffee Kiosk,
my emotional state is creeping its way up.
It’s been a trying week here in Junction City.
On Saturday the 22nd, the mother of my
brother died of Alzheimer’s. The following day, Sunday—strange as this is—my
daughter’s mother-in-law Phyllis, died. On Sunday, Phyllis, just short of 92, a
lady who lived a long life, was bright in mind, had a stroke on the eve of
Saturday, and died Sunday morning. She had a
long life and a short death. Well played Phyllis.
I awakened in the night, saddened that Phyllis was
gone, then got mad, thinking, Shit, no happy endings.
I want to throw rocks—not at anybody or any living
thing, just throw rocks for the sake of alleviating frustration. I can hear them
plunking in the water.
I have endeavored to maintain a positive attitude here
on this blog. However, what do you do when you feel slammed?
Do you keep quiet?
Do you crawl under the covers and pull the blanket
over your head?
Do you turn to other humans that might understand, not
to dump on them, but to seek guidance, and yes, for tea and sympathy?
I turn pen to
paper…
I remember what Julia Cameron said in The Artist’s Way about writing morning
pages. Writing out your thoughts and feelings is
a way to release tension, to throw out the junk. It is putting a period at the
end of a sentence, instead of the mind’s tendency to replay.
Your morning pages will clear the way for your
creative endeavors. And don’t show these pages to anyone.
Am I breaking a code here?
No. My intention here is to release frustration but to also be of service to
others.
I have a friend who, over the holidays season relives
the death of her dog and other family members
who died during this time of the year. She
suffers over and over every year. That’s what I call fixing it in your brain.
Contrast this to another friend who says she is happy
all the time, and since I know her history, I also know that she has slain
dragons in her day.
To take a spiritual journey is to grow.
You know how it is if we have a goal and once reached if we don’t set a new goal we stagnate,
become despondent and glum.
Time to get out the warrior’s sword and slay—oh I like
dragons—let’s slay demons instead.
After I said, “Shit, no happy endings,” a little voice
spoke to me, “You signed up for this life this knowing full well the rules,
birth—death. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do something
with the middle. Besides, think of it
this way, Phyllis will get to see her husband she has sorely missed for 40
years.
The Mystic, Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek surmises that life “is often cruel, but
always beautiful. The least we can do is try to be there.”
“The emerging heroic ideal does not see life
as a challenge to be overcome, but a gift
to be received.” (From The
Hero Within by Carol S Pearson.)
Remember, the hero is you.
The world honors struggle, and wealth and celebrity.
Heroes are—you know, those people, or animals, who have done courageous deeds,
saved someone from a burning building or from
other perils.
Those rarefied events come few and far between. Life comes daily.
Think of the quiet souls who take their journeys, face
their fears, and daily walk through the fire of human experience. These are the
heroes I am talking about.
The increased complexity of life has caused many to
feel powerless. Notice how bad deeds are winked at, or ignored. If an employee
sees something amiss, his boss might call him into the office admonishing him:
“We don’t need any heroes around here.”
Yes, we do — whistle blowers,
people who speak up, people who live their lives
and speak their truth.
Let’s look at it this way; we have a 2 million-year-old brain that’s not designed to make us happy. It’s designed for survival—and it’s always
looking for what’s wrong instead of what’s right.
Happy is our job.
I’ve tried to place a guardian at the door of my mind,
and it fights me. It brings up images I hate. They say we can control our
thoughts, but what do you do when those thoughts go amuck?
Get out! Do something different! Get out of your own mind!
We do fall into an emotional slump sometimes, grappling
with death is one, but there are arguments, disagreements, disappointments—You
know, life.
“I wish you would get over this problem with death,”
says the teacher Abraham. “You are forever beings.”
My daughter says, “Yeah, I wish we would get over it
too.”
It may sound simple, but everybody has fears. Everyone
is concerned about death—we have been
taught to fear it. Everyone thinks that they aren’t good enough, smart enough,
rich enough, or know the right people. It’s the human condition. Tony Robbins
says, “The quality of your life is where you live emotionally.”
Action works wonders. It changes the chemistry of the
body.
Now, sit up straight, put a big stupid grin on your
face. Don’t you feel better?
Dillard imagines that the dying prayer
should be, not “Please,” but “Thank you.”—as
a guest thanks his host at the door. The universe,
she explains, “was not made in jest, but in solemn, incomprehensible earnest”
I wrote all of the above yesterday.
Today is the dawning of a new age, a new year. I see a piece of blue sky.
Today I’m charging full steam ahead, and I just read
something wonderful.
If you have ever had any thoughts, as I have, about
young people and the constant play of video games, this will uplift your
spirits.
In a genre that is often associated with aggression and
violence, Jenova Chen, a video designer, called “The Digital Monk,” has
designed a video game promoting peace, generosity, and compassion through a personal trans-formative video game called
Sky. It will be released in 2019.
In 2006 a video designer said, “When a video game actually makes you cry, you know you have made it”
Apparently,
Chen has accomplished that.
Somewhere hidden among
ancient writings, we find the Supreme
Creator saying this: “In times of trouble
I will send a comforter.”
“Controlling a
group of heroic people is a bit like herding cats.”—Carol Pearson
A reader responding to Supreme Court Justice Ruth B
Ginsburg’s recent fall breaking two ribs then having cancer surgery, said, “If you need a kidney, a lung or a liver,
I’ll give you one.”
Thank you
for being here. I know you could be doing any of a number of other
things, so I totally appreciate that you sent time with me.--Jo
