From Justin to Freud

“Light and darkness dancing together, born together, born of each other, neither preceding, neither following, both fully being in joyful rhythm.”  ~  Madeleine L’Engle

 A couple of days ago I was listening to an audiobook of Carlos Castaneda’s A Separate Reality. I’ve read all of the first seven of his books at least twice. One concept in the sorcerer’s training is the practice of controlled folly. To me it comes across as the practice of impeccable action that isn’t really situational at it’s source. The situation isn’t what drives or influences the action. The action is pure intent through intuition. For some reason, while listening to Don Juan explaining, or trying to explain, controlled folly to Carlos I thought of the way we depressives have to sometimes “put on a happy face”. Not speaking for anyone else, I find that when I put on happiness and courteousness, when all I really want to do is hide, or to go through the day snarling and snapping and brooding and taking a swing at something or someone, the happiness and courtesy is actually real. It is not a false face nor a brave face. Nor does this realness take away from the dark magic of depression. So what you have is two seemingly opposed moods existing at the same time. Both are real. It’s not a paradox. It’s a creative act. But the genuine nature of the illness doesn’t give sway. It can be forgotten, sometimes for long spans of sweet time, but it is there waiting when the will grows weak. At the end of a hard day’s work I sometimes feel trepidation at the thought of coming home. I’m tired, the will is weak. But controlled folly won’t hold sway with the cat. All she wants is food at that moment. But my point here is to explain, or attempt to, why I can feel so tired all the time, my face slightly scrunched in pain that refuses to remain hidden, the spring in my step faded to a clomp, and trusty anxiety rattling everything on sight. It take a lot of energy to hold will power up against the darkness within. Now – Enough of that.

The fine fellow above is Justin. He is commonly known, among his handlers, as a grouchy and somewhat dangerous animal. I’ll grant them that, he can be that way. But I took it to task to get closer to Justin, without getting sliced or punctured. It’s a personal project. I want all y’all to know that in my worldview it impossible to avoid something that seems to me to be a fact: I must change right alongside Justin. I can’t make him do anything. He won’t budge if I don’t. I’ve made significant strides with my furry feline friend. I can handle him and box with him without injury. Bear in mind that cats are friggin dangerous! But now, when he bites, it is in a rather somber-seeming playful way, as if he is down with our playtime, training time, whatever, yet he retains the distinct notion that he isn’t supposed to be participating. He sometimes gets this delightfully confused look on his face, like why am I doing this? It’s not supposed to be this way. What I get out of it is that I have to appeal to and then reconnect with my own animal nature. Friggin upper primate, upright house apes, mobile vehicles for the monkey mind. Oops! Sorry, I had a momentary lapse of reason. Now, by having this reunion with the animal within I have greater access to the Gaian consciousness. Before I slide too far off course here I will return to Justin by saying that the more I trust him, which is difficult at first, and the more I trust my own nature, then the more it all comes together. It takes time, patience, and will. Justin has ‘shelter shock’; my own term for whatever glitches develop when a cat is incarcerated. My theory is that he is grouchy and mildly dangerous because he is locked up. We have this in common.

Hey, why don’t we have a ‘note in closing’ today, shall we?! It should be fun. I have a situation currently that, when it first occurred, picked me up like a rag doll in the grip of the Goddess and showed me the Cosmos, holding me there until I grokked, at which point she put me back down, into the moment, and I was like all wha’. HA! And all y’all thought that the moment is all there is? Ain’t ya stepped outside lately? There is more beyond the moment. The moment ain’t nuthin compared to what  .  .  .  I had best leave that train of thought lie before I go on and piss somebody off. Oh, did I tell you that the goddess didn’t just leave me there to wonder? No, she told me to wait. She told me to friggin wait. At least waiting has one nice benefit. It means there is more to come. I love a good story, and this is a good one. As Freud said, one owes oneself discretion. That’s all folks. I ain’t tellin’ no more.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Dances With Cats

“Getting hold of the difficulty deep down is what is hard. Because if it is grasped near the surface it simply remains the difficulty it was. It has to be pulled out by the roots; and that involves our beginning to think about these things in a new way. The change is as decisive as, for example, that from the alchemical to the chemical way of thinking. The new way of thinking is what is so hard to establish. Once the new way of thinking has been established, the old problems vanish; indeed they become hard to recapture. For they go with our way of expressing ourselves and, if we clothe ourselves in a new form of expression, the old problems are discarded along with the old garment.”   ~  Ludwig

Tis a difficult morning. Anxiety flushes me with pulses of itchy energy. The waves are much like the ones I saw wash upon the white sand beach at Navarre Beach, Florida, churning beneath a spray of brine, pushing forth white foam, up toward the surface, beneath a gray stormy sky. The wind? Harsh and somewhat chilled. This morning is like that. I want to jump out of my skin but the beauty I see in abundance says no, which is a confirmation, a covert yes. Sit still. This too shall pass. I often hate that phrase: “This too shall pass”. It gives me an image of George Harrison in a full lotus position, whereas I prefer to see him rocking out on stage. Dude like get up and dance. Yes I know that the stillness, the silence of mind, are a dance in themselves, but I’d like to see Ram Dass do that while you wail on your trusty guitar. Just sayin’ dude, get up. And here I am, dancing on my stool. I think I’ll get up and pour another cup of coffee. Yes, I’d like that.

“Cosmic humor, especially about your own predicament, is an important part of your journey.”  ~  Ram Dass

Now, I’m a huge fan of Cosmic Humor. I mean, who wouldn’t be. Don’t ask me for an example, because ya had ta be there, and that in itself is funny. I think I’m in this headspace/mood because I was listening to an audio book of Castaneda’s A Separate Reality yesterday, as I laid out a coat of weatherproofing on my ex’s front porch/deck. She’s giving me little jobs for pay, to help me through the low point of my life. My companions there were bluebirds and red finches. Honorable companions. And they sang sweetly as well. Hear that, Señor Harrison, Don George, get up and dance, and sing, like dude you are a master so ándele, k. As for me? I must work today to give service to cats. Kevin Costner, stand aside sir, I’m Dances with cats!

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Her Gift of Fire

“All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.”  ~  Kenneth Grahame, Wind in the Willows

Green light, go. Coffee is on. It’s not a metaphor, so relax. My coffee machine has a green light on the ‘on’ switch. Pretty basic stuff. But the problem is that I forgot to put the fresh coffee grounds into the filter basket so the second round has begun. The coffee will be ready in a few minutes. Now that may be a metaphor. As such, I know exactly what it means to me. Eight days away, it is. This is a personal mystery, folks, so don’t ask. I don’t want to spoil the magic. The metaphor reminds me to remember: the line of sight is not a straight line. It never was.

Rosie the cat captured and killed two voles last night, in separate incidents. She is not a mass murderer. I don’t think cats have it in ’em. I am grateful that she incapacitated them before she brought them to me. I hate chasing friggin voles at 4 friggin AM! But, now I have my coffee. I finally did it right, k? I have only myself to apologize to. I’m not into the blame game. Attribution will do just fine, thank you very much, and it can really elicit some blank stares at times, which is kinda sorta fun, if you ask me, whereas blame is viewed as drama, and anti-drama is so de rigueur at this time in history. Apologies kinda rock as well. But, the lavender hour is upon me as I tap away on the keyboard and think of Jerry Jeff Walker, and Mr. Bojangles, and tapping, and dancing, and coffee. I see lavender in the early portion of dawn, not blue. I love it that way. Too much blues and you are left with only sighs. Sigh.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding, they learn by some other way — by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!”   ~  Richard Feynman

“There is no place so dangerous as a world without magic.”  ~  Terry Goodkind, Soul of the Fire

Meadowlark, high cirrus brush strokes against infinite blue, donkeys at pasture, coffee  .  .  .  now that’s magic for ya. It’s a slow start to a busy day, my sitting out where I can view the Sacred Mountain is something rare, although I see it every day. Some things that we see every day are rare. Tis beauty that makes them so, not frequent absence. I’ve gotta move faster today. I’ve had the slows lately. My bad. It’s causing me trouble at work, something about my too freely sharing burdens. I don’t get ’em, others do. That doesn’t seem fair to me. I seem to have forgotten to run with the crowd. They run, I run, but what is lost? Beauty is one thing, if you ask me. But the crowd can have me, although on my own terms. I hold the right to feel tired from moving too fast, k? Don’t even try it. Hand me a can of red Bull and I will have to break out my treasured philosophy and let you have it. I will storm you with words and concepts until you beg for simple commercial products. That, my friend, is not a pretty picture, much less a beautiful one. I’ve got magic. Let me use it. And if I require a burden then share, let me have it. You’ve hoarded long enough. Don’t bogart that burden, my friend, pass it over to me.

Hey, who’s that girl. Tis a woman, not a girl. The jpg. above is Brighid, the Celtic goddess. She is my spirit guide. Her gift of fire is one that I cherish, especially now, these days, currently, whatever. My energy assemblage point is friggin weak, partially from inadequate intake of food, and partially from a down cycle depressive phase. Brighid’s gift of fire lifts me up. I love it when that happens. Her love reminds me to dance, however slow or fast, and She reminds me, as well, to hold the line, to stay connected through the filaments of destiny that, I hope, will bring to me a blessed event, only eight small days from now. I am most certainly friggin tired of small days. I need a big one, not because I am needy, I’m not, it’s because I saw something, I felt something, and I want to engage once again the dazzle of unexpected beauty, and the breathtaking wonder, and the dismantling of rather stolid expectations, and presumptions being what they are they will be sprinkled upon the earth, where my bare feet can engage with the Earth upon them, so that I can walk upon them, so that when I see, when I feel again, I can accept the gentle trembling of grace within my heart. I haven’t felt like this in a long time.

It’s time to wrap this post up. It’s laundry day. I will have time to read while the machines spin; probably Rick Strassman’s powerful DMT and the Soul of Prophecy. That’s a promo plug. Rick’s a friend, and a seriously deep and provocative writer. My writing has been restricted to this blog for quite some time now. There is another writer I need to see and talk to before I step outside of the bounds of EyeYotee, but you will still get your daily fix, promise. Hey! My reader stats blew sky-high for the first post after my lost week. Thank you. Yes, thank you.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Report From the Cat Cage

“Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn’t block traffic.”  ~  Dan Rather

“So what did you do with your time, Mr. Ebert?”. Ummm, can I get back to you on that? The Universe made me do it. I didn’t have any choice. Can I have some coffee now?

This past week has been a unacceptable. One of the things in life that keeps me going is to express myself through this blog. Sure, I could have stopped by McDonald’s early and tapped out an entry over a cup of pretty good coffee. But, do you think anyone would have noticed? McD’s has WiFi. I’d probably have shown up late to work. Silence is what I chose. No WiFi at home? Hurry up and get it back. I grew up with no WiFi. It ain’t no big deal, k? Now – I think the part I missed most about being off line for a week was the news. How do these people get along without me anyway? I mean, is Bernie Sanders still my man? Yup, seems so. And Game of Thrones? Don’t push me. Just don’t. I saw the first three seasons. Too much blood. When did this become news?

The rooster is crowing and the coffee is good. I have a strong urge to be trite. I’m glad I don’t feel like that often. Novelty is the way to go – if the Universe says it’s okay. What is it with the Universe anyway? We used to be in it but now it is some force elsewhere that grants us favors, and I’m like all dude yer favors don’t live up to the dictates of my likings, K, so what the F am I even talking to you for? Dude chill, life goes on without you. Get over yourself.

It seems I may have forgotten how to do this blogging thing. If I were to choose a team of experts to  .  .  .  oh, never mind. But Chris Rock would be one of them. I’m used to sitting in front of my iMac each morning, so, without Internet, I tapped in to the multiple books I have in the Kindle app in this contraption. I’ve got some pretty good stuff! My first choice was Rick Strassman’s rather mind-blowing DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: A new Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible. It’s a great book. It will make you think. From there I went to some essays by David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen. The power of good literary writing fed my soul, for what that’s worth. But I think that’s where I got lost. Franzen and Wallace are among the greats. Don’t get me wrong. But that don’t get me friggin nowhere when it comes to the guy tailgating me on Highway 64, or the woman at McD’s, in front of me in line, complaining that her hash browns were undercooked. No, wait. Nobody complains about the food at McD’s. We go in there knowing what we’re getting. I made that up. There was no woman. And yet, not two weeks ago I was sitting on the floor of a cat cage with a beautiful young woman. She wanted a cat and I was helping get one. But that is not where my head was at. Not at all. My head was like all asking the Universe for a chance to meet her for coffee sometime. No – wait. It was the look in her eyes, the curl of her striking red hair, and the way she smiled when I told her that I am a writer and I write about death and dying. If that’s not a good pickup line I don’t know what is. She smiled. The Universe smiled.

The space heater just kicked in so I have to turn it off because the chill is already gone. The cat is asleep and my coffee cup has gone dry. I’ve been off the Internet for a week now and all I got from that sabbatical is an odd urge to be able to write like David Foster Wallace, to stretch out a sentence beyond all belief, waiting so patiently for the rhythm of the syntax to cut deep into the blankets of belief that obscure daily life, deftly so and sadly good at it, following a lodestar in a literary way, wrestling, or playing tennis with, the very vernacular expression that is so often accused of trashing the English language, wringing out true expression like a damp rag, watching as the fluid from the rag drips down into the stainless steel basin where it all goes down the drain, as if it were a metaphor rather than a simple truth, and that truth smiles as it always does, although sometimes covertly, knowing that a metaphor is a picture of a pattern, a jpg. of the soul, and that truthful smile winks as well, in homage to the tailgaters in life, and the hash brown lovers, people who know how to live and to do it fast, faster than the wind, faster than anything, faster than any friggin metaphor could even hope to go, yet all is not lost when a slow guy can sit on the floor of a cat cage, in the company of a beautiful red-haired woman, and he feels it, feels the love, feels the Universe smile, he knows what is real and he hopes she will return. She got herself a new cat and he helped. This is what’s real. Speed kills, my friends. Slow down and quit whoopin’ on them folks who don’t comply with your speed protocol. Smile, love, cherish the moment.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Absense

My apologies for my absence. Internet is off at home. My landlady is having trouble getting  Century Link to restore the service. Be back soon.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

The Survival Value of Confusion

“The bravest people are the ones who don’t mind looking like cowards.”  ~  T. H. White

There seems, this morning, to be no initial moment. I had to just jump in. Maybe it’s the stress on my brain from being in the right about something that I am powerless to change. I appear to be the only right one, which is probably not a good way to be. Poor me. I know this is all kinda sorta abstract but who can blame me, in fact that may not be a problem, it just might be a solution. A scientific paper starts with an abstract. A scientific paper may someday lead to empirical facts, which can influence reality on occasion. Come to think of it I won’t waste my time waiting. I may not be right. Tis no more than confusion I am expressing. That and edginess go hand in hand.

It should be a somewhat detached day for me. Perhaps that’s why I find it so hard to write. Sore shoulders as well. Headache, distractions, maybe all paths to peaceful acceptance. I am not, no way no how, going into aphorisms this morning. I am sometimes a fan of confusion. It can be a survival technique that keeps you from acting when action ain’t what’s needed. That kind  of . . . oh, never mind.

“The old grey donkey, Eeyore stood by himself in a thistly corner of the Forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, “Why?” and sometimes he thought, “Wherefore?” and sometimes he thought, “Inasmuch as which?” and sometimes he didn’t quite know what he was thinking about.”   ~  A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

That’s me today. Let’s move forward, shall we? You know the drill.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

I Can See for Miles and Miles

“Maybe to those who love is given sight To pierce the wall of seeming night And know it pure beyond all imagining”  ~  Bruce Cockburn

The rain was falling hard when I woke up. The alarm got me this time. Usually I wake before it chimes. I must have needed it. And somehow, after waking, during my morning perusal internet cruise of the news, I lost an hour. But the rain has stopped. Now, it was a night of fitful dreams. I could tell by the giant tuft of twisted hair protruding from my head, like Ed Grimly, Martin Short’s character on Saturday Night Live, except my tuft emerged just above my left ear. Martin is one of the funniest men on the planet. That’s what I’m saying. Put him and Dana Carvey together in an improv spot and you’d likely have to carry me home. I love those guys. I’m glad it rained. As for the fitful sleep I have to suspect that something is afoot – or was – along the topographical shadow stuff of the astral plane. See, I never sleep on my left side, it’s always the right side, or, rarely, on my back. You may not believe in the stuff of astral intrusion, psychic attack, or the sloppy spell cast by some friggin guy who forked out two grand for a five day seminar on how to influence events without bothering to show up. That guy is a danger to us all. But so is some acquaintance who has it in for you. Just the mere fact of the grumbles they have can affect your equanimity. Or some bruja, or some nitwit with an iPad app that forecasts doom for all who oppose him. The best advice I can give for psychic self protection is to, as Taylor Swift so eloquently put it, shake it off. That’s what I’ll do. Already started. But I will still see if I can do the figurin’ needed to identify the culprit who haunted my dreams. Like dude ain’t ya got your own dreams? Why me? But it could have simply been myself. Anxiety dreams, drawing assumptions from the long-range scanners. Assumptions drawn from watching too much Star Trek

This dawn has clouds. They are gray stuff drifting in from the south. Pretty stuff in a gray sort of way. I’m a big fan of storms, and an all-night rain makes me feel clean. So, what will the new day bring? Cats. I can count on that. We got one in yesterday, and I named him Winston, in honor of Winston Churchill, from whom I learned to never give up. The guy was bipolar as well, as am I, so I can relate in some presumptuous sort of way. Presumptions do not always preclude accuracy.

Become a good noticer. Pay attention to the feelings, hunches, and intuitions that flood your life every day. If you do you will see that premonitions are not rare, but a natural part of our lives.  ~  Larry Dossey MD

The fine fellow in today’s opening photo, here on the wonderful EyeYotee blog, is named Bruiser. When Bruiser first came in to the shelter I could see that he was so relaxed and open that it was clear that he valued being off of the streets, so much so in fact that the presence of people who deigned to put him in a cage was not what it seems. He now had folks to feed him. His hunting days were over and he was at peace. He still is. Bruiser has a grapefruit-sized head which is covered with tiny scars. The guy was a brawler. The mere fact that the scars are all tiny attests to the probable fact that he was a winner as well. Losers bear larger scars. For the most part. Bruiser loves people, and he loves to have his belly rubbed. Come look. Ask for me. I’ll show ya, k? Ask for me. I have large scars. I know this cat well. Very well.

It is hard to fight when the fight ain’t fair.  ~  Taylor Swift.

It’s been a while since I invited Taylor Swift to lunch, so sweetie, come on over and indulge me. You are admired, girl. Your musical talent and business sense are truly impressive, yet in all honesty I’d simply like to be in the presence of your bright smile while I nibbled on a slice of pizza. Sure I could find a bright smile around here, there is no lack of those kinds of smiles, but I’m in a low place and I like to dream big. No funny business. Don’t even try it. I know a good pizza joint. Come look. That’s all. It has to be you. Well, maybe Anne Hathaway . . . ummm . . . sweetie? Anne, you’re invited as well. I don’t like to discriminate. The three of us would have a grand time. Do you like Pizza? Come look, k? If Taylor doesn’t show up, that’s okay.

That’s all for today’s post. From premonitions and dream intrusions to a brawling cat, and on to Anne Hathaway. What a day it’s going to be! Come look.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Empathy for the Boxer

“The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.”   ~  Carl Sagan

I recently met someone, quite by chance, from another, more modern, animal shelter in our region. As a shelter caregiver I was fascinated by the fact that I have never been to another shelter. The one where I work is the only one I know. Sure, the idea of better facilities intrigued me but it was the animals for me, and I told her that cats are special and magical for me. So the cat’s out of the bag. They are magical beings. Says me. Yes, I’d like to see how a less rustic shelter looks and operates but I have many cats to tend to. It’s a soul connection. It’s about the animals. Not speed, not quality, but animals. They need hugs and spontaneous chit chat and pets and smiles and giggles. As for the speed and quality thing I mention here I am speaking about the work. Quality is a no-brainer. My innate attitude toward this is that I nearly fear sacrificing quality for speed. That attitude is tempered with the need for speed at times. Which totally lights up my attitude toward speed. Speed is an only when necessary thing for me. Yes, yes, yes, I tend to drive slow as well. Dude like if I can’t see your front bumper dude it doesn’t mean I am driving too slow; if I see that I am lagging a bit and someone behind me on the highway is  inconvenienced by it I take it up to the speed limit. After that, if you still hide that bumper from my view, it is you dude, not me dude. I won’t say you are being rude dude, I just wanted a rhyme in this sentence. You are driving too fast. Live with it. So much for philosophy, right?

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down or cut him
‘Til he cried out in his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains  ~  Paul Simon

That’s me these days. I’ve long related to this stanza of this song. But I also have this morning’s birds – robin, meadowlark, magpie, doves, finches, a turkey, and that friggin rooster, who has been remarkably quiet this morning. It’s the barefoot island hippie boy in me. I will never lose that. Ev’ry thing cool, mon. Yes, I am feeling beaten and powerless of late. That’s why they have therapists, and I will see mine this afternoon. She’s a good one. There is really nothing to fix, it’s just understanding, and endeavoring to let fresh air into the dark places that truncated that flow of fresh air in the first place. I’ll get back up to speed. No hurry. It’s a fair fight, this life. Most of the time.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Key Lime Butter and the Oxford Comma

“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realize that you’ve been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.”   ~  Dave Barry

I miss the ocean, and I agree with Mr. Barry that what’s underneath is the big story. I learned that when my family first moved down to the Florida Keys. Look – here’s a 16 year old kid from Clayton, Missouri, quite an urban place, and he’s snorkeling with a spear gun in his hand, and he spears a mangrove snapper, and he then happens to see a not so smiling face behind him and to his right, and that face belongs to a barracuda. And when the friggin kid gets out of the water he sees that the friggin fish is friggin four feet long! Hey, I got to keep the fish. It was delicious. Have you ever tasted real Key Lime juice all done up with butter. If not, ya ain’t lived quite fully. There’s still time. Key Lime goes quite nicely in a mug of cold draft beer as well. Mine was always Budweiser, but I reckon they have those crafty beers on tap down there in the islands by now.

About our opening photo today, that’s Sean. Dude got right up in my face, and he wouldn’t keep still, which made any kind of focus hard to find. Frankly I don’t know why cats, people, whatever, do that. Do you? What I mean is do you know, not do you do that. Of course you don’t – ummm, do that, not know that. Danged focus just left me hangin’ there. My bad. Let’s move on, shall we? Sean is a really cool guy. He’s barely emerged from kitten-hood, but he has, so let’s give him that. He is the most playful cat in the cattery right now, which is greatly appreciated because he makes me laugh a lot when I get to work in the cattery. I’d like to be in there more, because I like to laugh. But there are amusing cats in both of our cat facilities so I am lucky either way. Multi-tasking luck ain’t no small achievement. Anyway, Sean is a great cat. Come see.

I’m going to keep it short this morning. It promises to be a beautiful morning. The overnight rain did the washing so the world will be fresh and clean. My outlook on life has been particularly murky of late, so I will be all full of appreciation and stuff. You often don’t know you are being uplifted until you get there. The weather folks say that tomorrow will be bright, sunny, and dry. Hey! I just used an Oxford comma. How cool is that. One of life’s little pleasures.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.

Ravens in the Garden

“Out of clutter, find simplicity.”  ~  Albert Einstein

Okay. If Uncle Albert is correct I have ample opportunity to find simplicity. Actually I am doing pretty good in that respect. This new phase of my life is a limbo phase, a phase between chapters of life. The financial crunch that hit me recently, and is still hitting me, makes it easier to sit still, to assess my situation, and to find solace in simplicity. I’m doing pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. There is one shining beacon down the tracks aways, although it is not a certainty in any way, the shine is what counts. Like the totem animal Raven I am drawn to shiny things. Whatever keeps ya goin’, right? The clouds are hanging low this morning. It’s kind of a cozy feeling. Intimate, before sunrise, soft morning before an edgy day. Going into town is always edgy for me. But that’s where the work is so that’s where I go. After 23 years in the Keys this Town of Taos still feels like a city to me, and I’ve had 20 years to get used to this feeling. Seems it will stay. No problem.

A gentle rain is falling and the coffee is here, hot, and satisfying. I’m looking for simple. Just looking. I find myself in a reflective headspace, so far today. Reflection does not harm my work performance in any way. And it is a workday. This one will put me in the cattery, where the adoptable cats are. The other workspace is the intake/isolation area. Some of the cats there are, although healthy, arewaiting for medical clearance before they can be transferred to the cattery, which I refer to, when speaking directly to the cats, as the ‘big house’. The other cats there are dealing with health issues. Working in the cattery is my favorite, but in recent weeks I spend little time there. No problem, all the cats need love and attention. It’s just that from the cattery I can send cats to their forever homes. It’s an exquisite feeling to play a part in sending them home. There is one woman who adopted two brothers, adolescent tabby American short-hair boys, the hands down funniest cats I have seen in the cattery. When they were toddler cats I could just glance over at their cage and the looks on their little faces would crack me right up! Friggin goofballs. Cats have this uncanny knack for looking at you just at the right moment. Anyway, the woman ‘friended’ me on Facebook, and she posts photos of the boys on occasion. It gives me a feeling of deep satisfaction to see their happiness in their new, comfy home. Quentin and Thicke. That’s the boys. Huzzah.

Second cup of coffee. Lucky me. Yes, I am lucky. In this rough passage in life I am indeed, as the Light Chasers recommend, looking forward, and in doing so I am reminded that time is at times recursive, it curls back on itself. In my experience, to view time as linear is daft. Time is also, says me, fractal in nature, and resonantly spunky when novelty is at hand; take deja vu, for example. Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”. Reckon this is likely what I mean by recursive time. We move forward yet we, in our naivety, probably don’t consider that some of the effects we created through creative acts, positive or negative, follow us or precede us. When they catch up with us it ain’t nuthin’ new happenin’; we’ve been there before, and deja vu ain’t likely an appropriate explanation for those moments. Time flows, time is plastic. If we consider the timeline of our lives to be Euclidean we miss out on all the fun, and even those non-Euclidean lines don’t tell the whole story. The concepts I am conveying here are the mind-stuff I dealt with in the first few years after my NDE. In seeking meaning behind what happened during that supposedly woo woo experience I had to do something! I never put it all together back then, and I still haven’t, but the work of the late great Terence McKenna provided me with a way of at least articulating what I had learned back during those foggy days, weeks, months, and years. I found McKenna’s stuff back in the mid-’90s, when the proprietor of Merlin’s Garden turned me onto him. Merlin’s Garden was a little metaphysical bookshop on Bent Street, in Taos, New Mexico. Ravens loved the little garden in the front of that store. As big as hawks, those ravens would simply step out of your way as you moved along the walkway, on your way in or out of the store, instead of flying away. It was a timeless place, that book shoppe and its garden. I purchased two used copies of McKenna’s books and read the first one on the train, headed east to visit my best friend yonder in Massachusetts. That book took me back to that time after the NDE. Back then I had referred to God as “the Great What If”, a term drawn from the spooky world of quantum physics. I saw God as a being who was in essence pure potentiality. Life events would unfold from His bag of tricks. Maybe this is what Mark Twain was referring to when he said that history rhymes. Even God has habits.

Clouds shroud the high summits of the mountains to the east, making the sunrise peek around the aggregated moisture up yonder. I’m flying high, as you may have noticed. I reckon that it is because I am again, here and now, seeking meaning through a rough passage in my life. Poverty and temporarily sub-adequate wages are mostly inconsequential when it comes to my soul, yet they are quite consequential when it comes to my destiny, fate, whatever. Life is sweet. That’s what I’m sayin’. Unceasingly rattled by anxiety, subject to the roller coaster bipolar path I must walk, I am still flying when I get the chance. Before me is a skeevy Nerf wall that bounces me back when I try to move forward. This too shall pass. I pass the Nerf nature of the wall off as an effect from the brain damage I acquired from the freak accident that triggered my NDE. My brain is like “huh?” just talking about it. Nothing negative about that. Tools at hand, good buddy. Work with what ya got, not what ya want, or think ya want. One of my tools when openly coping with life, to hone my coping skills, is intellect. Turns out ya don’t gotta use it in the accustomed manner to have it be of use. The rational contains the irrational – yin yang and all that happy stuff. Hey I just had a deja vu as I typed “irrational”. Seems my brain is working just fine this morning. And, seems it’s not the first time.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.