The Copious Wonder in This World

“It has to be emphasized that if the pain were readily describable most of the countless sufferers from this ancient affliction would have been able to confidently depict for their friends and loved ones (even their physicians) some of the actual dimensions of their torment, and perhaps elicit a comprehension that has been generally lacking; such incomprehension has usually been due not to a failure of sympathy but to the basic inability of healthy people to imagine a form of torment so alien to everyday experience.” ~ William Styron

It is already pas 6 AM, on a workday. I shouldn’t be beginning a post at this point, but I have a case of what the great Dana Carvey calls “the fuck-its”. Yes, I am going to work, and I will have fun. This depressive phase has been going on for what I would call too long if I was not aware already that there is no time in true depression. No time. It is irrelevant. This is a major reason that I’ve been sparse and sporadic in my posting here. Except for friends that know me, it is unlikely you would even know that I am depressed to look at me. It’s exhausting to endure this with proper and efficacious management. The happiness is not a facade, it is authentic. The amount of energy it takes to support and maintain it is excruciating because you know the pain will rush back in as soon as social necessity is no longer in sway. But this morning I say fuck it. I got to watch the Full Moon sink behind the sage up on the little ridge. Magic is afoot in the land. A certain woman’s smile is a marking flag to remind me of the copious wonder in this world. Geez o’ Pete, I’ve been watching – in order, from the beginning – “The X-Files” on Hulu. It’s playing with my perspicacity in a big way, and stirring my sleepy creative imagination. Onward.

Beauty is the way. Goof gloriously.

Wu Wei and the Longing

“I like what I do. Some writers have said in print that they hated writing and it was just a chore and a burden. I certainly don’t feel that way about it. Sometimes it’s difficult. You know, you always have this image of the perfect thing which you can never achieve, but which you never stop trying to achieve. But I think … that’s your signpost and your guide. You’ll never get there, but without it you won’t get anywhere.” ~ Cormac McCarthy

A cold and windy morning. Chance of snow this afternoon. That second feature of then day is the one I’m hoping for. Falling snow is one of the best mind-sanitizers I know. Goddess knows I need it! I came into close contact – a few days ago – with a couple of Texas boys with their bandanas hangin’ below their noses, and a loud disparagement of the thermometer I insisted they use before entering the store. The one guy was oozing retrained violence and rage. That’s his business – except he was right up next to me and could have easily taken a swing at me. The boys left in a huff, calling me a profane name as they walked out. No harm came, but I got triggered, so my two days off are a cortisone flushing, cat lap providing, plenty of fluids, PTSD nursing, marathon. Alas, the laundry must be done. It takes 1.25 hours to do that. No biggie, and I get to see my grumpy Native friend who works there. Always a pleasure. Heart of gold, that one. Me? I’m achy and cranky these days, yet finding the maintaining of happiness to be no great chore. Perseverance furthers. So says Lao Tzu. Yes, it will be a wu wei (< link) kind of day. Walk with the Celtic goddess, Brighid, I will. The Taoist concept of we wei melds quite nicely with the Celtic concept of Longing.

“There is some strange sense in which distance and closeness are sisters, the two sides of the one experience. Distance awakens longing; closeness is belonging. Yet they are always in a dynamic interflow with each other. When we fix or locate them definitively, we injure our growth. It is an interesting imaginative exercise to interchange them: to consider what is near as distant and to consider the distant as intimate.” ~ John O’Donohue

Yes, I got to see her the other day – the woman I am always delighted to see. She gives me that instant connection to the Goddess. I so easily drift off from that connection. But I love the human side of my friend as well.

“Perhaps your hunger to belong is always active and intense because you belonged so totally before you came here. This hunger to belong is the echo and reverberation of your invisible heritage. You are from somewhere else, where you were known, embraced and sheltered. This is also the secret root from which all longing grows. Something in you knows, perhaps remembers, that eternal belonging liberates longing into its surest and most potent creativity. This is why your longing is often wiser than your conventional sense of appropriateness, safety and truth… Your longing desires to take you towards the absolute realization of all the possibilities that sleep in the clay of your heart; it knows your eternal potential, and it will not rest until it is awakened.”~ John O’Donohue

Listen, I’ve got a moaning hungry cat behind me, and her admonitions are getting to me. Time to feed my old cat, then pull myself together enough to go into Taos for a while. Later, y’all.

Beauty is the way. Goof gloriously.

Riding the Demon Steed

“To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world is almost a palpable movement. To enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass of civilized mankind, who are diregardful of all such proceedings at this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars.” ~ Thomas Hardy

It would be so easy to sit here and watch the world outside sway and rattle in the cold wind on a sunny morning. Likely I will have to close the curtains anyway. Bright out there. A few minutes ago a flicker was knocking away at the suet block, with pygmy nuthatches dancing over his head. At sunrise the magic mountain spewed thick clouds, headed south in a failed attempt to block the rising Sun. And I sit here, beneath the cat, engaged in active and conscious healing mode. Yesterday was a bugger of a day. I caught an anxiety attack trying to sneak up on me. A struggle ensued, and I had to rein-in and ride that demon steed through the second half of my work shift. Coping and survival skills in dealing with PTSD can be learned. I’m glad I did. As Carlos Castaneda explained, demons can become allies if you learn to live with them. But first you have to grab that sucker, wrestle it to the ground, and meet it halfway. That’s what I’m talking about. Geez I feel like shit – cortisol flushes are treacherous. On a cold and clear and windy Sunday morning I find that the weather suites my mood. As well it should. Weather and emotions are not unalike. Yesterday was like friggin Hurricane Andrew! Nearly three decades ago I did something that I am glad for: I stood in the middle of the highway, at six foot above sea level, at 2 AM, leaning into a steady 70-80 mph wind, just for the existential heck of it. That experience is in my toolbox for dealing with PTSD. I work in a hardware store. Heed my words: you can never have enough tools. Later, y’all.

Beauty is the way. Goof gloriously.

Feeling Rather Plucky and Puckish

“There are very few innocent sentences in writing.” ~ David Foster Wallace

“Time is the shadow of the wing of the thing too big to see, rising.” ~ David Foster Wallace

The Sun finally broke through, but this morning’s icy, snowy, gray, and timeless, space was an inexplicable pleasure for me. Yes. And within the gray, gloaming tendrils, I came to realize that I have enough clean clothes, so the laundromat will have to do without me until Sunday. Without me? Yup. It is all about me lately. It has to be . . . ummmm, don’t ask; I am feeling, regardless of the ongoing fatigue, rather plucky and puckish today, so don’t go there. That part of me has been way too quiet for months now. Now . . . coffee all gone, lap cat with purrs, a day of mindfulness ahead, which includes relaxation, unless of course I for some reason get agitated, and mindfulness is also needed there. Mindfulness ain’t no good iffin ya gets ta do it only in good weather. I mean, doesn’t that kinda go against the whole point of the exercise? Just sayin’.

Beauty is the way. Goof gloriously.

Equanimity in Malevolent Climes

“Often, moreover, it is…that aspect of our being that society finds eccentric, ridiculous, or disagreeable, that holds our sweet waters, our secret well of happiness, the key to our equanimity in malevolent climes.” ~ Tom Robbins

Irony and the Heavy Heart

“Forgive but do not forget, or you will be hurt again. Forgiving changes the perspectives. Forgetting loses the lesson.” ~ Paolo Coelho

This heart has been hanging heavy these days. Trump, don’tcha know. Angry as well. As a therapist might say, there is often hidden sadness beneath the anger. Overall, at the end of the day, it’s just one big cluster of emotions. Yeh, happy Monday! Giggling here – irony doth suit me well. Sarcasm, not so much. I ended up having the weekend off, as I gifted a coworker with a day’s work. She needed the hours, and my SS benefits comes in at the end of the day tomorrow. No biggie. I slept on and off throughout Saturday, and had some more – though less – good snoozes yesterday. These days I feel it is best to budget my energy. To warehouse it as well. It’s a survival strategy for the PTSD anxiety thing. Oh, my aching adrenals. But I’d best be running along, as it is friggin -1ºF out there and I have to . . . oh, never mind, you know the drill. Hi, ho, hi, ho, ob la di ob la da.

Beauty is the way. Goof gloriously.

And how are you, Mr. Wilson?

“Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.” ~ Christopher Hitchens

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.” ~ Herman Hesse

I opened the curtains about 5 AM. First Light is too subtle to see through the dirty window, but penetration will become clearer as time moves on. Yes, it’s a nice morning. Laundry day. Sleeping cat, good coffee. A pint or two this afternoon. Impeachment trial. Wait, what?! That monster ain’t gone gump into the good night yet? Likely he will pull the trigger at least once before he goes. And he will be gone before too long. He loves to be the center of attention. The point when the center can no longer hold will come. He is imbalance incarnate. Wow. That phrase scares the shit out of me. And how are you, Mr. Wilson? (Click for link to explain exactly what I am alluding to here) Yeh, I’m into pookas and other Nature Spirits. Met a few as well. Skittish they are. You will likely break the connection just by talking freely about them. Nuff said, right? Yup. I feel scattered like dust in the wind. A good way to start the day. It is good to share a bit this morning. PTSD is triggered bigtime right now. I’m off. Ciao.

Beauty is the way. Goof gloriously.

Mystery and the Beleaguered Heart

“What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination. When the sky outside is merely pink, and the rooftops merely black: that photographic mind which paradoxically tells the truth, but the worthless truth, about the world. It is that synthesizing spirit, that “shaping” force, which prolifically sprouts and makes up its own worlds with more inventiveness than God which I desire. If I sit still and don’t do anything, the world goes on beating like a slack drum, without meaning. We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward; the poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine.” ~ Sylvia Plath

“Sympathy is the child of imagination” ~ Clarence Darrow

I sit here looking at the day, but as of yet I can see nothing of the near-future. Good, a blank slate. Not likely to last? Of course not. I’m exhausted from the past two days, where circumstances put me to juggling some intense retail pressure. Lucky me. It was nothing I couldn’t handle. After years of practice I’m fairly good at slipping into a Flow State. A good night’s sleep has me, not fresh, but fresh enough to bypass the trepidation of having to do it again today. We shall see, right? Boy howdy will we ever. In my imagination I feel the little boy who sits in wonder at it all. That’s me at a young age. I remember being awe-struck at existence on occasion. Don’t start with me on that “memory is not accurate” stuff. It doesn’t need to be accurate. Not as I see it. Memory serves – well, good thing I don’t have time to delve into that philosophical realm this morning, but it is something that has been niggling at my imagination lately. More to come . . . I suppose. Best step into the shower and get on with the day. I do not at all remember how this day will go, but a little mystery will be good for my beleaguered heart.

Beauty is the way. Goof gloriously.

The True Nature of Dawdling

“Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.” ~ G. K. Chesterton

Go figure. The groundhog speaks and then we get only six more hours of Winter. Friggin rodents. Can’t be trusted. That’s what I say. Whew – I was trying to twist that into a political metaphor but my mind just would not go there. Probably for the best. The thermometer barely touched the freezing point last night. And tis a moisty morning as well. Laundry day. Dispensary day. Recycling. Hmmmm. How boring. Rain this afternoon. Yeh, yeh, yeh . . . I know Winter is not over. I’m ready for that next deep freeze to pounce. Count on it.

Somewhere around 4 PM today it will be exactly 37 years since the freak bicycle accident that nearly killed me, and the NDE that stepped in and gave my life back to me. Or somebody’s life. That is one aspect of an NDE that is nearly impossible to describe or explain. Clinically speaking, I suppose it is basic dissociation. Whatever. I’ve gone through sometimes lengthy periods when this distinctly feels like it is not my life. I’m kinda sorta halfway there this morning, having had my fill of news for the time being. I’ve been through an active phase of PTSD ever since the January 6th coup attempt. I woke up from a nap, groggy as all get out, and when I looked online at the news I was projected into a powerful WTF holy shit phase, which quickly morphed into active trauma. Scrunched up adrenal glands and all that happy horseshit. I’m not complaining. It is best if I wrap up this post and get on down into Taos for my errands. Gray clouds are already drifting in from down Santa Fe way. Mustn’t dawdle. Or maybe I will dawdle. The errands will get done either way. And dawdling is so much fun, not to mention good for the soul.

Beauty is the way. Goof gloriously.

A Dragon and Animal Control

“Déjà vu is more than just that fleeting moment of surprise, instantly forgotten because we never bother with things that make no sense. It shows that time doesn’t pass. It’s a leap into something we have already experienced and that is being repeated.” ~ Paolo Coelho

There is a dragon hugging the mountain top. Feathered lenticular clouds, slowly slipping down the east face. Right at dawn. Beauty is the way. Me? Two days off that I know of. May be three. No hurry to know. It’s a wake and bake day. An essential, let loose, let flow . . . no, you can’t force the release of tension, no more than you can flush out the cortisol in a flash. I’ve got some serious, active PTSD going on. Tomorrow is the 37th anniversary of the day I died, or something like it. Let’s dispose of technicalities, k? That was the day the PTSD kicked in to full-bore. A long, long, time ago. I can tell you that time holds questionable relevance when it comes to stored trauma, which can pretty much embrace a day or a decade, no matter which one is true, truer, whatever. At the moment of impact trauma stops time altogether, then sends you on your way. My way today is the highway, northbound, roundabout seven miles, up to Arroyo Hondo, to Midtown Market, for ale and snacks, and, of course, a chance to chat with the smiling young woman who manages the joint. It’ll be my choice of comfort-food TV, whatever go to show I choose will be fine. Watching the same shows or series is a survival technique for anxiety sufferers. You know what’s going to happen. That’s the point. Anxiety feeds on fear of the unknown. Regardless, it’ll be fun. In closing, I want to share something I never reckoned I’d see: a guy, at the entrance to Kit Carson Park, pulled over by Town of Taos Animal Control! (note: the officer is a full-fledged police officer) Flashing yellow lights. Gosh, I wonder how that looks on his insurance record: a traffic stop by Animal Control? Who da thunk it. And I’m like dude just what exactly did you do dude?! Ciao.

Peace out, y’all. Goof gloriously.