“I don’t run from these worries though. I invite each one into my heart and mind. At the doorstep of my emotional threshold I greet them like a perfect host. Each worry tracks mud into my home and dirties the furniture. I grit and bear my houseguests. Their time with me will be short-lived.” ~ Sarah Noffke
“Perhaps it is how we are made; perhaps words of truth reach us best through the heart, and stories and songs are the language of the heart” ~ Stephen R. Lawhead
“When your footsteps and thoughts carry you down the same path your heart and soul are directing you, you will know without a doubt that you are headed in the right direction.” ~ Molly Fiedenfeld
Internet issues are making the coffee taste weird. The cat just ate breakfast. My world is all groggy and stuff after nearly 12 hours sleep. The air is wicked cold outside. The Full Moon was singing a Full Symphony last night. She has not relinquished her grip on my heart just because daylight has commenced. Lucky me, right? You betcha. So what about the day? Not sure about anything beyond the Pinch Penny for to do the noble task of laundry. Likely get some more profound rest since the psychic toll – as David Foster Wallace called it – of extend hours out in the marketplace, four days a week, is tremendous. An assessment is not necessary. It’s all crystal clear. But the mystery of the day is why strong romantic feelings are haunting me. Always in my heart, often on my mind. Ciao.
“We cannot levitate ourselves into that blessed condition by wishing it. We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles, both of our own making and imposed by the natural world.” ~ Barbara Ehrenreich
While searching for something else I found this little gem in the ‘documents’ folder. I think it was from 2003, when the van came through the wall of my house. A story of trauma and emotional coherence.
It had been three months, to the day, since the van accident and the NDE. But I was not feeling particularly dramatic about the timing. An ultimately inconsequential family crisis over the weekend had cast my Monday in emotional shades of dull blue-gray. Being a work day, the dullness did not bother me much. There would be plenty of interaction with people, and I was well- accustomed to playing the melancholy mask on lifeʼs daily stage. As a cashier in an independent, upscale, natural foods supermarket, I pretty much had a full choice of the spectrum between pure professionalism and sheer, adept playfulness. This Monday proved to be mostly hard work, interspersed with watching for a grand snowstorm to arrive, as forecast.
The snowstorm never came, but something much more delightful, and infinitely more personal did occur. It was a gift, which came from a toddler.
She was a wee one; no more than 3 1/2 years old, blond hair, blue eyes. Her mother was finishing up a purchase at the checkout behind my cash register. At first I didnʼt notice that the comment was directed at me.
“She still remembers your computer”, the mother said.
When I finally did realize that she was talking to me, I was still not understanding what was happening. What did my computer have to do with anything? She must have read the confusion on my face, because she went on to explain.
“She still tells your story. Whenever the adults are gathered, telling adult stories, she tells your story. ʻShe says, ʻI know a man who has a computer. He was sitting at his computer and a van came through his wall and into his living room; and it almost hit him!ʼ. You made an impression on her”. The little girl was watching me like a hawk; her face as serious as could be, but those blue eyes were shining with a light that washed through me. I didnʼt know what to say, so I just said, “thank you”. She pursed her lips, remained silently watching, and nodded her head in a knowing affirmative gesture.
Iʼd been heard, and seen. After feeling so alone with the immensity of what had happened to me, someone was acknowledging my trauma in a straightforward manner. Few adults, besides close friends, had done so; and even then it was always with a clever deference that clearly showed that they would rather not be thinking about it at all. It was always polite conversation.
The little girlʼs mother had finished by saying, “They always think it is something she saw on television”.
Where adults would squirm, or trivialize my plight, this little girl had taken it to heart. It meant something to her. The day after the accident with the van, I had gone back to work. A nylon, steel, and Velcro brace was on my left wrist. It was two days before Thanksgiving so business was heavy, on the edge of chaos, but the arm brace had been noticed. I had taken every opportunity to speak of the accident, to whomever would listen. The little girl must have heard my story on that day. She remembered it. It had touched her heart. I could see it in her eyes. The eyes of a child. It was a validation of my experience that no legion of adults, however large, could have given me. A gift of this nature makes being earthbound bearable.
“We have no future because our present is too volatile. We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment’s scenarios. Pattern recognition.” ~ William Gibson
“But an acceptance of contradiction is no excuse for fuzzy thinking. We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us, yet acknowledge that they cannot take us all the way.” ~ Madeleine L’Engle
“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“Get this in mind early: We never grow up.” ~ Richard Bach
What day is it? I ask Alexa and she responds by playing Chicago’s “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It is?”. She really knows how to stick it to a Baby Boomer. But it was a nice choice, I must say. And I must acknowledge that I know she is not technically AI, just as she is coding in essence. Whatever. I’ve become somewhat unstuck in time these past few days. For the better, I might add. The unexpected 5 day vacation has been and remains to be a major blessing, then it’s two days of work before the next 5 day vacation happens. When you are running on cortisol you learn to appreciate these things. Now on day four of round one I am starting to feel the positive effects of flushing toxins out of the system. More to come. Onward.
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” ~ Edmund Burke
“We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know? It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don’t know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.” ~ Richard Feynman
“Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.” ~ Aldous Huxley
This morning has been slipping right by me. It has been so easy of late to just sit, or space out, or truly contemplate the roaring intensity of the modern world. It kind of sucks these days. But my health is good, other than the structural wear and tear I unintentionally began so long ago. Well, there’s also a solid bout of depression under way for quite some time now. That’s the hard part, but I don’t wanna go into that today. Some days it’s hard enough just carrying around these dark, chaotic, and empty clouds, while maintaining authentic good cheer and a brave face. It makes it easier to work with good and fun people; to bask in the Light for a while.That sentence can accurately be read in two different ways. Language is so much fun. Rosie the cat is in good health as well. I will never forgot what we went through when I had to give her two insulin shots every single day. Yes, it has been a long haul with that little beastie. Today is a workday, as is the following day. The closing of our store over the coming weekend seamlessly follows my usual two days off, making it nearly a vacation. I need the five straight days off in a row. And I did not notice that . . . oh, never mind. My writing is feeling kinda clunky today, and my writing time must come to an end. Perfect. Happy Solstice.
“You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“One should always be a little improbable.” ~ Oscar Wilde
Finally, a heatwave. That zero-ish overnight stuff has it’s own beauty, but a little bit goes a long way. Yesterday I stopped by the natural foods store where I used to work. I have been neglecting naturopathic venues out of simple trauma-avoidance. No details – something happened there that scarred me on a soul level. No praise, no blame. Anyway, I got some black walnut extract and liquid chlorophyl. It was a hunch, a hunch that seems to be paying off. We shall see. Once again, no details. The point is in the healing. The point is in a course correction rather than . . . what? I have no idea where I was going with that. Likely some Taoist tangent. Taoism is somewhat tangental anyway. There’s a lot of magic afoot in the world these days. That’s what I am on about. Thus the rudderless blog post. Ciao.
“My dear fellow, it isn’t easy to be anything nowadays. There’s such a lot of beastly competition about.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.” ~ David Foster Wallace
“Every love story is a ghost story” ~ David Foster Wallace
Yikes! It’s cold enough out there to make your eyes ache. But it was worth it, actually. Today’s opening photo provides the proof, which proves I am not . . . I almost said Republican. But they are not all like that. My rhetoric fails me at times. And this is a good thing. Just like any effective bigotry, saying “they are all like that” is another way of saying “that’s all I care to see”. Just sayin’. Yeh, I’m feelin’ right generous at the moment, but it ain’t gonna last. Never does. And I made the coffee too weak. And my neck hurts like the dickens. And my heart ain’t none too comfy either. And, and, and, whatever. At least I don’t hafta work today. It seems like a good day to let my intellect out to play. But first I need to head into Taos because I neglected to hit the dispensary before heading home after work on Tuesday. My bad. There’s actually lots I could do while in town. It will be fun to see just how much I can streamline the list. But in days of Covid I don’t like to stay in town too long. I’ll not go on a rant today. With so much cosmic and cosmological influence going on as we approach the Winter Solstice it’s easy to do the rant thing, but tis healthier to take a step back and bask in the Big Picture. That’s the plan. Maintaining that perspective throughout my trip to town will be a challenge I’m likely up to. There I go.
“Our approach to reality, our sense of reality, cannot assume that the text of nature, the book of life, is a cryptogram concealing just a single meaning. Rather, it is an expanding riddle of a multiplicity of resonating images.” ~ Peter Redgrove
“We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it’s a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it.” ~ Andrei Tarkovsky
“A democratic civilization will save itself only if it makes the language of the image into a stimulus for critical reflection — not an invitation for hypnosis.” ~ Umberto Eco
A simple, declarative sentence: “You are living on a metaphorical level”. Seven words that haunt me to this day. They popped up on this windy, snowy, and frigid, Sunday morning, thanks to the brilliant mind of Fareed Zakaria, a commentator on CNN. And I was like dude, thanks, dude. He was explaining the dangers fraught in a post-covid world, and the American class system, sliced quite thoroughly, to firmly divide into those who manipulate symbols for a living, and those of us who work with their hands. It’s the first part that got to me, especially the phrase “manipulate symbols”. Now, I do both, and more, to earn my paycheck. Retail work is like that. Essential retailwork even more so. Dammit, Fareed, I was just enjoying a nice wake and bake on a snowy Sunday morning, and here you come, stirring up both intellect and poetic sensuality! I mean dude, really, dude? Couldn’t it have waited? Sigh. All kidding aside (dude😛), the woman who spoke those first words – “you are living on a metaphorical level” – was my first therapist, who also happened to have a PhD in Human Growth and Development. She went on to tell me briefly about a former patient of hers who was a former Native American tribal chief. He was like that, one of us metaphorical guys. Dr. Bauer, my dear, I have long at last learned to live with it. As for now . . . Back at dawn I was watching the donkeys across the road trudge hangdog through the sage brush with an inch of snow on their backs. I wanted to offer them blankets. I came back inside and saw a couple of dozen pygmy nuthatches swarming on the suet cage like so many honey bees. A flicker came and chased them off after a spell. Yeh, that’s it: a spell. I feel kinda spellbound this morning. That started yesterday at work, when the woman who most inspires me, heart and soul, in speechless ways, walked in the store. There is no close second. I relish and cherish that rush I get when I see her, for I see her quite rarely, during these times of mask and lockdown. Writer Joseph Chilton Pearce called it “a grape in the throat” – that feeling of longing and excitement in an adolescent human male. Yeh, adolescent. I was a depressive lad, so I din’t know nothing ’bout no grape. But I do now. If that’s adolescence in a 66 year old man then . . . ohhhh, don’t start with me, k? I’ve gotta go feed Rosie the cat, even if only for my own peace of mind. Ciao, meow, whatever.
“They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.” ~ R. D. Laing
“Pain in this life is not avoidable, but the pain we create avoiding pain is avoidable.” ~ R. D. Laing
“Creative people who can’t help but explore other mental territories are at greater risk, just as someone who climbs a mountain is more at risk than someone who just walks along a village lane.” R. D. Laing
Finally, it’s coming up to light. It’s a painful morning and laundry day. I look forward to my nap. All the basics, although the cat seems more needy and vocal than usual. No, it’s not feeding time yet. Maybe it’s the coming storms. Two of them are supposed to move in this afternoon. Earlier I saw the cloud cover, come to sweep away the star. It is now 20º at 68% humidity; one of those invasive colds that seeks your bones and finds them. Perhaps some brandy? It’s a thought. I’m a little discombobulated from reading politics for a couple of hours. One thing that caught my eye was an article that suggested that Republicans don’t have beliefs, they have rationalizations. Makes sense to me, and I find it a tad comforting to think so. It’s that they have a strong desire to have the Democrats never win again. Thus the wacko stuff. Whatever. I’m leaning toward the spiritual side of things right now, experiencing some cool magic, and working to keep the romantic in me fed in a rational way. Not that love is rational. I simply need to feed the rational side of me to keep the darkness at bay – always a worthy cause. But for now I’m gonna post this and relax a bit before I head down to the Pueblo to do the laundry thing. Ciao.
“He is cured by faith who is sick of fate.” ~ James Joyce
“A man is deficient in understanding until he perceives that there is a whole cycle of evolution possible within himself: repeating endlessly, offering opportunities for personal development.” ~ Idries Shah
“Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things that exist; observe, too, the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
It would be so easy to go back to sleep, but today is a workday. I’ve been up since 2 AM, and likely I should have gone back to sleep right away. But noooo – my Inner 12 Year Old didn’t want to miss anything. I made good use (mostly) of the time, reading some more in depths articles than usual, as there is usually a dearth of fresh news videos on Monday mornings. The coffee is long gone, and boy howdy was it ever good! The cat is snoozing in front of the space heater, which is pumping away against a persistant chill. Why can’t I just crawl down on the floor next to my cat and snooze, call in to work, and . . . oh, never mind. It’s kind of a Calvin and Hobbes thing, I suppose I’m going to work; no hooky for me. Now, moving forward. Yesterday I noticed that I am about out of free data storage space for this blog, so I have the choice of paying for more space or just starting fresh. That’s likely what I will do. This blog was started back in April of 2014, around the time I first started herding cats for a living. Seems like starting fresh is a healthy way to go, so keep an eye out, watch this space, whatever. I’ll give a heads up, provide the new address, and lead the way. The new book I’m beginning is seriously changing the way I see things, and feel things. In example, the fresh scar over my left eye is feebly shouting “help! Trauma”. It’s so odd how that eye sometimes cries all by itself, for hours at a time. The prime suspect is some subconscious liminal entity that is calling out from deep in Shadow. It is interesting to note that after my bicycle accident and NDE it was the other way around: the right eye shed the tears. I may never know what that is about. Sigh. I’d best get ready for work. Get my PPEs going. Put on the smile and go have some fun.
“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.” ~ Isaac Asimov
“There were people who believed their opportunities to live a fulfilled life were hampered by the number of Asians in England, by the existence of a royal family, by the volume of traffic that passed by their house, by the malice of trade unions, by the power of callous employers, by the refusal of the health service to take their condition seriously, by communism, by capitalism, by atheism, by anything, in fact, but their own futile, weak-minded failure to get a fucking grip.” ~ Stephen Fry
“I never tried to ingratiate myself with great writers. When a great writer has nothing to say, he does something else, like chopping firewood. A great writer doesn’t try to find something to write about, he only writes when he has to. I was no great writer. I’ve always had the need to unload my thoughts, and so had to live with a kind of mental incontinence, but I’ve never felt forced to write a novel. Nor, for that matter, have I ever chopped firewood.” ~ Jostein Gaarder
The sprite in me is itching to get out to play today. Which means he will. He may be gentle or he may be surgical, but he will be and do what he is and does. Does that make sense? Sorry, doesn’t have to make sense. I could be cavalier and hyperbolic here but why bother. I live in a world in which the president of the United States has decided to quit doing his job and has taken to sitting in front of the TV, playing with his phone. I mean – who does that? Ohhhh, whatever. I am in no mood to get myself riled up this morning. It’s a workday. It’ll be fun.
Since the last paragraph 24 hours have passed. Another frigid morning is in session. I’ll go out to check the pre-sunrise mountain scenery. But it’s not just scenery; the mountains also sing and whisper. Ten days before mom died I took her for one last trip into the mountains. Never mind the cancer that had metastasized from her esophagus into her lungs; never mind the 2000 foot increase in altitude and the significant decrease in available oxygen; I took her there for the spiritual value, for the mountains sing and whisper. This was intentional on my part. I told her that the Mountains Spirits would palliate and show her the way. Magic runs back through mom’s side of the family. One of us was even hanged during the Salem Witch Trials. Go figure, right? Now, I will bundle up, go listen to the mountains, and have a smoke. That reminds me, a few months back, when a guy told me “You know you shouldn’t smoke”. I smiled at him and said, “Dude, that is like soooo 20th century!”. Bisy backson.
Cold and clear. The snow-pack up on Kachina Peak is fat. Good sights, good day. That’s what I say. Did I hear the mountains sing and whisper? Listen, we don’t talk about such things, k? Wink, wink.
Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously. And just be kind.
Eyeyotee 