wisdom

IN THE DESERT AGAIN

I’m not God and I don’t have the whole wide world in my hands. I’m not and I don’t but I wouldn’t mind if I am and I do. It’s wishful thinking but what if wishes do come true? I’m feeling helpless and useless at the moment. I’m at the wall with nowhere to move. I can only take a deep breath and heave a heavy sigh for relief. This is real life.

So I am here, to lay some of my anguish on the page, the anguish of acceptance. I am not God. I do not have control of everything. I suppose this is the first part of the meditation practice called R.A.I.N. It stands for recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture.

Recognize what is happening;
Allow the experience to be there, just as it is;
Investigate with interest and care;
Nurture with self-compassion.

I’ve learned the first step of recognizing what is happening. But allowing the experience to be there, just as it is, is not so easy. I want to fix it with the first inkling of discomfort it brings. I can see myself getting into my Supergirl/Wonder Woman suit, all hyped up to the rescue and change the situation. There’s an urgency in me. I feel there’s no time to investigate with interest and care. I tend to berate myself rather than nuture.  I recognize what is happening in me. I want to change.

I am here, tapping out what I recognize and know. It’s been exhausting hosting all the thoughts and emotions inside my body. They’ve been in the wash cycle too many days , agitating and agitating. Now it’s time for the rinse to kick in and the dirt to drain out. I will hang on to the good stuff. I’m not God but I wouldn’t mind if he gives me a hand, light my path and point the way. It’s difficult navigating in the dark.

I haven’t been out in the desert for awhile now. I have missed my time there. I miss the emptiness, the silence and the arid air. I miss the seemingly endless time and the peace to heal body and soul. Most of all, I miss the conversations with God. His presence was all around me there. My heart was opened to accept and receive. Somehow every day life happend and it closed up shop. I have been sleeping on the job. I’m awake now and in the desert. I hope he will show me some wisdom and compassion.

SOLDIERING ON, COUNTING MY BLESSINGS

August 8

I’m struggling with the clouds and my own darkness today. Nobody is winning. We’re even-steven. I’m trying to stay on top of the day, not letting ‘nature’ get the best of me. I’m feeling autumn’s effects on me though it doesn’t officially start till September 23.

August 9

As you can see, my time here was short here yesterday.

August 10

Saturday, my swim day but my swim cap had ripped last week and I haven’t bought another. My brain fog continues. The other day, I thought I had fed Sheba her supper but according to the way she was after me, I hadn’t. She did settled down after. Small forgetfulness. No harm done. Just annoyed with myself. Still I’m happy and yet not happy I didn’t swim today. I’m feeling the hibernation response this week. If I was a bear, I could crawl into my log and sleep without guilt.

But I am not a bear, so I am trying my best to stay awake. I’m sleepy though I got my 8 hours last night. Perhaps tapping on the keyboard will help. So many things are looking at me for attention. They weigh on me, making me all the more sleepy. I wish I could just close my eyes and snore away the day. Why must I feel I have to soldier on? I put so many silly obligations on my shoulders. I suppose it’s my upbringing and all those slogans slung in my face through the years.

Slogans have served me well through difficult times though I’m critical of them now. I’m just going through a phase. Let me just keep soldiering on with the help of wisdom from some very wise people.

  • “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”– Martin Luther King
  • A problem is a chance for you to do your best.”–Duke Ellington
  • “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”—Franklin D. Roosevelt
  • f you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
  • “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” – Louisa May Alcott
  • “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” –  Lao Tzu
  •  “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”– Albert Einstein

So I’ve soldiered on well into the day and life. Looking back on it all, I’m happy and satisfied with how they both have gone. I wouldn’t change anything since I can’t. Library and coffee days with my mother are precious. I am grateful that our library carries Chinese books. My mother loves books. The best conversations I have are with my mother. She is the wisest woman that I know. I love what she has to say of letting go of feelings, people and things. That if we don’t, we make ourselves miserable and guilty even though the guilt is not ours to own. I’m going to work on that one. I’m mulling it over as I sip my green tea. I’m calling it a day.

 

AFTER THE STORM

I did not get much sleep last night after all. But then I was not completely sleepless either. Sheba continued to be restless through the night, pacing, whimpering, and wanting in and out of the house. I talked and stroked her in between, trying to lengthen each period of calm. I remained relax, acting confident, assuring her everything was ok. I listened to Tara Brach’s podcast on my iPhone. It was an appropriate topic – The Path of Spiritual Surrender. But I can’t tell you the gist of it this morning. My mind is completely blank. It’s something I would hope for through meditation. So it’s not all bad.

Remaining calm and acting normal helped Sheba and myself as well. There had been flashes of lightning in the early part of the night but no thunder. The house was hot so most of the windows were opened. I was drifting off to sleep when the storm broke. It was furious, the wind and rain, thunder and lightning. The doors to the bathroom and bedroom slammed shut. Sheba came scampering to me, quivering. After closing the windows, we settled back in bed. I could hear her panting on her cushion. It was after 3:30 am. She felt the storm before it came.

We are none the worse for the night. We got up at our usual time, though probably not as spry. The garden got a good soaking. The raised beds are a bit soggy with the excessive water dripping from the drains. The rain barrels got refilled. The lettuce and carrots got a little flattened, but they’ve recovered. Already it is hot with the sun shining brightly. If not for the puddles of water and the dirt and debris from the fast and hard driving rain, you would not suspect there had been a thunder storm.

We’ve have had our morning constitutional walk. Now I am enjoying another cuppa in my outdoor space before it gets too hot. Sheba is catching up on her sleep. There’s a hum of a lawnmower and the whoosh of traffic. Above them, the birds are serenading me. It’s a beautiful Sunday morning. I have no wants but the present moment.

I’ve been reading a little bit of Pema Chondron’s writings every day. Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change contains wisdom I need. The wisdom soaks in, little by little every day. Understanding is the key to change. When I finally ‘get it’, it is illuminating. No wonder they call it a ‘lightbulb moment’. Understanding can and has eased my anguish over many things. I am more at peace with myself and the world. That is not to say I GOT IT and that is the end of the story.

No, I’m still struggling. The struggle never ends. When it does, I think that’s when life is over. I’m struggling still, but I am kinder to myself. I cut myself some slack. I try not to take ownership of everything, good or bad. I am not that powerful. I am not God. I’m more awake, more engaged, more interested, more eager. I am committed in living a meaningful, in the moment life. I will keep on brainstorming and learning in this, my own creative space.

 

 

CHOICES, SABBATICALS, WORDS

Three more days till the end of January. Three more days till the end of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I do have alot to say today as in every day. The getting them out is not the easy thing. How do I start? is always the question. How to introduce and lead in, is difficult. There is the natural flow and rhythm of a conversation between people/friends. With some people, I don’t have to think about it. We get together, greet each other and talk happens. It’s effortless.

Other times, I have to give it some careful thought. How do I want the direction of our time together and conversation go? What is the nature of our relationship? How well do I know this person? Do I want to keep the relationship? In the past, I have not practiced due tact and wisdom. I have not been discerning. It is not that I am a blunt and tactless person. I know manners and proper etiquette. I have never told anyone to their face that I hate their guts, or that their outfit is really bad, never mind what their hair looks like. Maybe I would have been better off if I had been THAT honest.

AND to be honest I have to admit, I haven’t won many valentines for being the proper, polite, honest and helpful person that I am. Obviously that hasn’t been working for me. I have started to mend my ways. I try not to be so frigging uptight.  I don’t have to be the proper all the time. I probably ended up doing all the wrong things by trying so hard. I have failed on a few occasions, of course but I am learning. Now, I’ve given in to just tending to myself for awhile. I’m doing little things like sleeping in a bit, taking a little sabbatical from my aerobics class, minding my own business and wearing blinders. I do not want to hear/see any SOS calls. Sometimes I think I’m more powerful than I am. I am NOT powerful at all.

You know what? I’m feeling better already in one week. I wasn’t liking myself. I wasn’t like how I was going about life. Not that I know how to go about it now. I’m taking a sabbatical from knowing, too. I’m just going to chill and observe. I do feel a softness opening up in me. I think I needed this week’s rest from going with the beat and pumping iron. I’ve gotten a few ideas from Jennifer Louden on how to get back my creative flow. I also use the tips for creative living. The tips I got today are:

  1. Relaxing my body before I do anything so that I can be opened to receive creative energy
  2. Taking back time from being addicted to technology for better use.
  3. Choosing an art and doing it – a small project /day. Choose a medium and act on it.

I have chosen words for today. I’ll get into the paint and pencils another day. For the Ultimate Blog Challenge, out and over till tomorrow.

 

TENDING MYSELF

I’ve never been comfortable in my own life. It never felt like it was mine. I’ve been living for others, not for myself. Nobody asked me to. Perhaps I received the message from the great collect. I absorbed it through osmosis through the years. And now, realizing that my years has a finite number, I’m having a lightbulb moment. Hey, this isn’t how it’s suppose to be! Where is my life, my legacy? I have no moments for my video of highlights. In this moment I can only think of compromises and good enoughs.

Still, sitting here, tapping away on this beautiful August morning, I’m pretty satisfied. I hear the caw caw of a crow. Sheba’s laying at my feet. It is warm. I have the laundry hanging on the racks – one on the deck and the other out in the yard. It is still relatively comfortable in the shade. But if you catch the sun bouncing off a surface, it is so hot. The earth is burning up. We are still here. It is good to be living in this moment in time. I hope there is time to rescue our planet. I hope there is time to live my own life.

I’m ruminating, chewing my cud, on what is truly of value to me. It’s a worthy subject to come back to, again and again. It’s a question that I’ve been unconsciously avoiding with all my busy doings. The chaos of summer drove me to seek counsel and wisdom. Its very nature demanded attention and action. I have often found much wisdom from Caroline Myss. Now days after her 9 day online retreat, I’m not all that much wiser.

I’m not wiser but I have taken the time off from my usual routine of do this, do that and do this again. I sat still and listen to the quiet. I fasted. I returned to the part of me that loved stilllness and doing nothing. In doing so, I realized how relentless I’ve become in ‘creating’, doing, exercising, so on and forth. I had a busy schedule in retirement. Life was a frenzy. Somehow that was okay. My mind and physical being were occupied. I didn’t have to think about the hard stuff – the uncertainties and anxieties. I was busy.

Being ‘busy’ and ‘creative’ gives legitimacy to being distracted and absent from my life. I didn’t smell the coffee or the flowers. I THOUGHT I did. I hadn’t tended my garden or myself regularly. I did it haphazardly, by gosh and darn – like everything I do. Now that I know better, I’ll try to do better. But it is difficult to break out of set patterns. Having an addictive personality doesn’t help. Already I want to sign up for another course given by Caroline Myss and Andrew Harvey on our shadow selves. It would not be a bad thing but it would be another thing I’ll be chasing, being distracted and busy.

I will resist, staying in the here and now. I have enough. I am enough. It is time to bring in the laundry. It is time to push the stove back in its place. It took something falling behind it for me to clean underneath. What alot of dust, grime and dog hair! Now it’s all swept, washed and dried. Good for another 10 years.

 

THE WHYS OF MY WRITING

Do you like to write? If you do, why?

I have this compulsion and obsession to write because I love words, the sound of them and the beauty they can create stringing them together. I love how the letters, words and sentences march across the screen as I sit here tap, tapping. I write often/all the time for comfort. I write for the sound of a friendly voice, my own. I write to find objectivity, clarity, wisdom and whatever comes up in the conversation. I write to find and love myself as this poem expresses so beautifully.

Love After Love – Derek Walcott

The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other’s welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life.

I feel the need of comfort today. The wind blows and howls all day as if someone is suffering and crying. I feel the unease of someone walking over my grave. The sun and cloud vies for dominance, casting shifting shadows over the landscape. I hug myself for comfort. Really I would like to be in bed with the covers over my head. But I hear this voice saying, You can run but you can’t hide. So here I am, facing the music, tap, tapping away a bit of the fear. There’s nowhere to run.

 

BLANK PAGES

After a hot day yesterday, it is cool, cloudy and raining. Nothing remains the same. It’s good to remember that. Fear not, if you are between a rock and a hard place. That hard place will shift if ever slightly. There is room to maneuver and breathe. I’m developing navigation skills. I’m not a homing pigeon yet but my sense of direction is better. Maybe it is that I’m taking the time to think first of where I am going before dashing off helter skelter. I think I’m going to let go of that panic in me. It is time and it is no fun any longer. Not that it ever was.

So here I am, tap, tapping in my space in the dusk of early evening. I’m drinking hot water, the drink of Chinese people and mature women like me. It’s a drink I never tire of and it’s good for me. I’ve been listening to Carolyn Myss’ lecture on The Power of Your Words. I never tire of listening to her wisdom. Wisdom comes ever so slowly, even slower than a dripping tap. It will take a long time to fill my bucket. Could be the bucket has a hole in it.

Time has a way of speeding when you want it to stay. Now it is almost bedtime. I hope sleep time will come easy. I do need a good night of it to shed the day’s wear and tear.  I do so like to start each day with a blank page, no left over from the day before. I’m looking forward to the morning, to slipping into the warm of the pool and swim back and forth the length of my own lane. No thoughts, no plans, no worries.

THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD – day 119 in a year of…

Day 119, November 21, 2016 @1:48 pm

img_8405Life is hard.  The road stretches long, hard and cold before me.  It is full of ruts and holes.  If I’m not careful, I could sprain an ankle and/or fall down.  It has happened before.  Now I’m more alert and aware of where I’m going.  In these short/long 119 days, I have at least learned not to waste my energy asking unanswerable questions.  I will not be discouraged and disheartened by no answers.  Wisdom comes in slow drops in the bucket.  The bucket will fill eventually – if there are no leaks.

img_8444I cannot afford to leak out energy.  So I must always nourish myself first regardless.  Then I can tend to what’s out there.  That is the law. That is my nature.  If I am empty, I have nothing to give.  Right now I’m slaking my thirst with a cup of tea, generously sweetened with honey. Sometimes I need a little extra.  The world is filled with confusion and darkness. I see shadows and the malevolent everywhere. They waiting for me to trip and fall.  I feel their presence but I am not afraid.  I find solace in the words of the Divine.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.