“Oh I can see your tracks
But I won’t follow them
I’ll just hope for rain
Or some kind of crazy wind
To erase them
And chase them into oblivion
Oh I can smell the smoke
From your fire, babe
But I’ll leave you alone
And sleep in this lonely cave
And pray for
A storm to scrub this dirt away
Oh I can hear the snakes
Creeping cross the scene
I’m quaking in my boots
But you won’t hear me scream
You’re half way
Down to New Orleans
You’re half way
Down to New Orleans”
–source
“Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.”
–unknown
How many of us sit? steel? fixed firmament? we project, we do not breathe. We project, I am intelligent, I read books. We project, lengthy quotations, rote memory. Sometimes what is projected are missing heads. That can be what I see.
It’s eleven o’clock! Do you know where your head is?
Goooooooood Morning!!!
There was a wonderful and renewing
thundershower last night and in the blink of a few flashes of lightning
and much dancing and delight, the view simply changed. I am grateful for
that.
I had tea and I thought upon someone’s blog post about
fundamentals and organizing life and friends. I noticed what I said to
him. I laughed inside. I smiled at the laughing, attributing it to the
rain and grounding. I took the children to school. I left the school and
the normal sort of reminder list of things I should do, things that I
used to do that kept me well, went through my mind. The but-butters
chimed in with…nooooooo you should do this or do that while you are
fresh and clear and so on and so forth.
I watched myself stepping off of the side of my cliff…
And I shouted to myself DESIRE!!
Desire
removed guilt and shame. It organized the next right thing
automatically. I went to the college and I grabbed Parabola
magazine–the one I’ve been wanting to go view but didn’t quite make it
there. I walked all of the way to the other side of the library to sit
in the morning sun. I thought I did so to avoid the lights which can
create neurological havoc, hence my avoidance. I sat down and opened the
magazine and felt the pages on my fingers, as if no one else had
touched this issue. I read the forward and realized the draw to seek out
this particular issue. I heard…elisa, look! in my head and I turned
to the right. The entire section where I chose to sit was solid glass
walls with stones of all sorts and grasses and roses. A rabbit had come
and was just sitting perked up looking at me. Remember desire, joy, and
enchantment. I read one of the articles and decided to come home. The
article brought to the front of my mind the Tao.
I followed
simple Tao thoughts to a group online that posts ‘studies’ of the
verses. My own copies of the Tao, do not match translations and
interpretations that are posted there. However, this morning the verse
that drew me to it was Verse 66. The chosen title for it was “Living by
Emulating the Sea”. I sighed and then shook my head a little and then
thought to myself, well read all of the comments, there are other
versions and interpretations there. And I did.
In the comment involving The Tao of Emerson by Richard Grossman, I found this:
“From the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson – ”Greatness”
A sensible man avoids introducing the names
of his creditable companions,
And is content putting his fact or theme
simply on its ground.
You shall not tell me that your commercial house,
your partners or yourself are of importance;
You shall not tell me that you have learned
to know men;
You shall make me feel that
your saying so un-says it.“
So very simple. It seems to fit.
But, this is only the shoelace of the shoe and though I think that I
like it, I went off to find the rest of the shoe to try it on and to see
how it fits, how it was made, before I buy it. The entire essay “Greatness”. Enjoy!
DARN IT ALL!
This is my What the Heckle and Jeckle Face!
I made a comment over on Kathy’s blog, Close the Door and Stay Inside All Winter. And then, I responded to another comment. And then, Kathy had her own reply. It’s what happens on blogs quite frequently!
This morning, I got up and began to do my pleasant normally pleasant morning routine. I became engaged before I finished the first cup of tea. Normally, is not my best decision in the day, to do so before having the third cup. Just ask those who know me! I am particularly enjoying a new blog that I’m writing, which I am keeping private, for now. In it, I’m expressing things that I do not often express and in ways that I do not often express them. I think that I like it, though some of the things can feel ugly in parts. And then I get feedback, and the hidden ‘ugly’ bits, just become normal. (OOOOOo….maybe THAT’S ENOUGH!!!—this is directed at Kathy! Everyone wave madly to Kathy)
But every day, as I finish reading or writing there, I come back to the dashboard here and look at the February Passion Creative Every Day 2011 commitment that I made. And I have posted nothing. Well, I have posted many things indeed, just all privately. So, I am accumulating guilt and some small amount of shame–the shame part is odd for me to do. I’m frowning at the little one jumping up and down waving a hand madly in the air saying…look look at meeee I AMMMM working very hard over hear…do you see me do you?!?!?!
We can all take a moment to sigh and shake our heads, maybe even an eye roll at it. Anyway, when I do commit to something BOY DO I!!!!!!! Even to my detriment! And the things to which I commit, I do not even always realize that I have made an agreement with myself to commit, until I come to an internal and unfamiliar fussing, which makes not so much sense. Fine! It’s the wave of sudden Passion that does it, makes me aware, brings a tacit agreement to light. It can then present me with a difficulty making a conscious choice, to continue it, to decide why I took such a thing upon myself to begin with, and can I make it of good use.
AH HA! A LIGHTBULB MOMENT! Quite often, when I am feeling the most passionate about a thing, I will appear on the outside to have shut down. I will go quiet. Creative thoughts and pondering of all that I just typed fill my head, along with the daily–oh look a chickens, of daily life. I can get overloaded. It can feel, to me, as if there are so many seemingly disjointed things side by side, that there is no adequate way to communicate them clearly, to present an entire picture of me at once that is honest and accurate.
I will also add, before I abruptly end this particular post, that the thought….many minds in many places vs one mind in many places. I shall have to make a decision to consider if the expression is needed or if some of it is coming from being ungrounded and me not paying attention to it. Being grounded helps me to filter out things that are irrelevant in each moment. It also lets me be aware of them, if I choose, in a less blender type manner. (and a voice says..yes but what if sometimes some of the things wanting to be expressed are truly important and you are using being grounded as a shield not to see them, because they quite conveniently don’t fit a current idea of who you think you are) Sigh. Thank you wise teacher( and pain in the ass!) I love you.
“A person may be very learned in all things, and his philosophical knowledge may be very profound. He has studied all the ancient lore of wisdom, and has even formulated his own system of metaphysics in which he has incorporated all the results of his erudition and speculation. But from the religious point of view he is yet far from enlightenment, for his study is like that of the artist who has painted a dragon and forgot to put the eyes in. His elaborate delineation and coloring in various hues of this huge mystic animal have miserably failed to produce the effect desired and attempted, for the eyes are blank and show no trace of the fiery animation which is possessed by the monster. The scholar has neglected the most important factor that is absolutely necessary in making up the complete knowledge of the universe. He thought that he knew everything under the sun when he exercised his intellectual power to its full extent and considered existence from all the possible standpoints which his understanding could grasp. But, as I stated before, the knowledge of an object is not complete unless its inner life or reason is felt; in other words, unless the duality of a knowing mind and a known object vanishes, and life is comprehended as it is and not in its intellectual mutilation.”
– Soyen Shaku
I want to thank Kathy’s comment on Morning Trip(12) for the inspiration and the inner push that helped me to move through what I will share. It was a comment back to her about what she said about being wise. (You can find her at Lake Superior Spirit).
The Comment that Became an Inside Upside Down and Backward Blog
Ok, that one has me shy, so…posting something on Wisdom 😉
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All right, this portion is an edit. I got up with my tea after sleeping in a bit and wrestling with things in my sleep (yes again), I came into WordPress as I do and read your comment again, thinking ok now what will I answer to it. I still squirm away from the label wise and wisdom. Perhaps if I chose to wrestle with that concept instead of the one that I am, I might be resting more!
My path through an answer this morning began as a trek through youtube. I wanted to see if a manner of expression which I found acceptable would present itself. I thought about easing my feeling of being vulnerable. I chuckled at myself as I said to myself, “Elisa, people do not often know just how vulnerable you have been by your choices in postings of subjects and the feelings that you express through a matching music choice or image.” At the same time the first video I encountered that felt right was:
The chatter in my head said: “Oh dear lord people will not listen to something Star Wars said!”
The emotional response was: “Ut oh, I have been “screwing up” and that I know how to “get me out”, but that I haven’t been attending seemingly disjointed incoming information to redirect myself.” I also cried, which I dislike and pretend to be cranky about, though it tells me, “Yay, on the right track!”
I was still feeling uncomfortably presenting Yoda for a wisdom response. I continued the search, and found this:
I’ve never seen the movie, nor have I read the book. I swore a lot at it, while other parts of my insides nodded in agreement uttering things like, “Seeeeeeeeeee!”
Next followed the Soupy Sales words of wisdom, that I posted above.
And, lastly, this:
Don’t start your soul out so loud or full out……mmm mmmmmmmm mmmm! What a breakfast!
Motive
“Nothing is an awe-inspiring yet essentially undigested concept, highly esteemed by writers of a mystical or existential tendency, but by most others regarded with anxiety, nausea, or panic. Nobody seems to know how to deal with it (he would of course), and plain persons generally are reported to have little difficulty in saying, seeing, hearing, and doing nothing.
The friends of nothing may be divided into two distinct though not exclusive classes: the know-nothings, who claim a phenomenological acquaintance with nothing in particular, and the fear-nothings, who, believing, with Macbeth, that “nothing is but what is not,” are thereby launched into dialectical encounter with nullity in general.
Motion
If nothing whatsoever existed, there would be no problem and no answer, and the anxieties even of existential philosophers would be permanently laid to rest. Since they are not, there is evidently nothing to worry about. But that itself should be enough to keep an existentialist happy. Unless the solution be, as some have suspected, that it is not nothing that has been worrying them, but they who have been worrying it.”
– P.L. Heath
“You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his
were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them
a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground,
look at it, and put it away in his pocket.
The friend said to the devil, “What did that man pick up?”
“He picked up a piece of Truth,” said the devil.
“That is a very bad business for you, then,” said his friend.
“Oh, not at all,” the devil replied, “I am going to let him organize it.”
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
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