Archived August 2005 Rainy Day Thoughts
Wednesday, August 31, 2005,
Unwinding
I am trying to unwind from a busy week-end involving driving up to Port Angeles, Washington-- about 6 hours from the farm, meeting daughter and family, taking the Coho across to Victoria, doing the usual mix of museums, shopping and exploring for new places; then of course, repeat the whole process in reverse. It was a good trip but tiring and I'm feeling the tired part the most right now.
We discovered one of the most beautiful places on this earth-- in my opinion-- out of Port Renfrew and along the wild west coast of Vancouver Island. It is a bit of a drive up the Coast, some of it over bridges that go down to one lane to the small community of Port Renfrew. Then a bit farther up you find the park with a trail that leads to the water. It was all discovery as we'd never been there before. The rocks, waves, ocean, peace and quiet, just all made me know why the Native Americans in this area designed su
ch beautiful spiritual symbols to depict their place in the universe and their understanding of the Cosmos. I felt such a strong sense of the beauty and mysticism in this place. It would be easy to spend a week there, maybe even a summer, but probably hard to live there given its distance from other things and its ruggedness. It was soul rejuvenating to explore the rocks, look in the tidal pools, but hard on the body to get there-- especially at my age. The kids loved it.I got home from the trip, well even on it, dreaming of family but not in the positive way I might expect after such a pleasant trip. The dreams were of family (aunts who are long gone over to the other side) being disappointed in me, their expectations that I didn't meet or other family members going off and leaving me. I know dreams are intended to help me see insights, that my subconscious wishes to get through to me; but right now am not sure what these told me. Maybe with time it'll be clearer. I do know that family has always been a mixed bag for me. Part of me is proud of where I came, my people, the ones I helped form and those who formed me; and part of me sees an ongoing conflict between who I am and who they want me to be.
politics
I haven't written about politics much in this blog as I experiment with learning how to best use it. There were a few early on whines about how unhappy I was with the direction the country was taking us, but in general I have done my political ranting other places-- like with the family. But my not writing here is not because it's not important to me. As a writer, politics matter a great deal to me and I see them in all relationships between humans.
Political politics though has been an area that although I read extensively, I try to avoid currently ranting about. I came to a decision which is part of why I have been leaving it alone. It's for the most part (beyond writing letters, making phone calls, donating money, and voting regularly) where I can't do much to change things. Often I read what both American parties suggest and feel neither have a grip on what I believe the country should be doing. Not that I don't have an opinion on which comes closer.
I read a book many years ago about effective habits for living which has continued to influence my life; and in it the author discussed circles of control, influence and beyond our control and emphasized how we should concentrate our energies in those places we either can control (mostly that's just us) or where we can influence (family and friends on good days). Politics in general is outside those circles, and I have noticed not only I, but others, can spend so much time ranting over them that we end up not dealing with what is in our control or influence.
Emotions should be reserved for those places we can actually have an impact. If I followed true Buddhist thinking, I'd not have emotions even there. Que sera sera but I'm not living on that plane. When I let my emotions carry me away on what is happening in the government today, I am wasting them on an area where I cannot do anything and sometimes I think that's part of the appeal to some people. They put their energy emotionally into what's gone wrong somewhere else to avoid thinking about what is going wrong a lot closer to home.
I have noticed that to avoid this emotional overreaction, some avoid politics totally, don't read anything, but I see that as equally wrong. We need to know. We need to act when there is something we can do, but it has to all be in the logical end of our being. No emotions wasted on it, simply good solid thinking and do what we can to fix anything we hear about that is fixable.
This all sounds very good but right now I can't quite manage it. My emotions bubble over on political this or that and because of that I am avoiding writing about it. That may not make sense but que sera sera *s*
Political politics though has been an area that although I read extensively, I try to avoid currently ranting about. I came to a decision which is part of why I have been leaving it alone. It's for the most part (beyond writing letters, making phone calls, donating money, and voting regularly) where I can't do much to change things. Often I read what both American parties suggest and feel neither have a grip on what I believe the country should be doing. Not that I don't have an opinion on which comes closer.
I read a book many years ago about effective habits for living which has continued to influence my life; and in it the author discussed circles of control, influence and beyond our control and emphasized how we should concentrate our energies in those places we either can control (mostly that's just us) or where we can influence (family and friends on good days). Politics in general is outside those circles, and I have noticed not only I, but others, can spend so much time ranting over them that we end up not dealing with what is in our control or influence.
Emotions should be reserved for those places we can actually have an impact. If I followed true Buddhist thinking, I'd not have emotions even there. Que sera sera but I'm not living on that plane. When I let my emotions carry me away on what is happening in the government today, I am wasting them on an area where I cannot do anything and sometimes I think that's part of the appeal to some people. They put their energy emotionally into what's gone wrong somewhere else to avoid thinking about what is going wrong a lot closer to home.
I have noticed that to avoid this emotional overreaction, some avoid politics totally, don't read anything, but I see that as equally wrong. We need to know. We need to act when there is something we can do, but it has to all be in the logical end of our being. No emotions wasted on it, simply good solid thinking and do what we can to fix anything we hear about that is fixable.
This all sounds very good but right now I can't quite manage it. My emotions bubble over on political this or that and because of that I am avoiding writing about it. That may not make sense but que sera sera *s*
wisdom
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
I woke up this morning thinking about all the things I had wanted that I knew I couldn't realistically have and all the things my friends tell me they want but they won't get for assorted reasons. We cannot eat candy bars regularly and stay slim. We cannot be physically healthy if we don't exercise and eat right. Diseases do come along that were lying in wait and we cannot ignore their presence. We cannot have the cute young guy down the road if we are getting old and he can't get the girl the football player is dating. I am thinking a happy life is at least halfway made up by understanding and applying the words in the serenity prayer.
The little house in this blog is one in Montana alongside a creek-- a place I stayed this summer for a week. It is not for sale and I can't say if it was that it'd be a wise choice for me to own it but it is the kind of thing I have dreamed I wanted. Small house, on the edge of wilderness, horses nearby, town not so far away that it's an unreasonable drive, hiking just across the valley in those mountains, river to learn to fly fish in just down the road, but there are all the 'buts' that go with it-- can I afford a place like that? Is it too far from my kids? What kind of life would I make there? Do I have the courage to go for it?
I have imagined myself an old woman in a place like that. A woman who still cuts her own firewood, who hikes regularly, who is tall, slender and strong-- for her age. Given that I am now almost 62 myself, I have to recognize the strength of a young woman will never again be mine. Another of those provinces of the Serenity Prayer to take care of. Do what we can to fix it but recognize the things that are not fixable and enjoy the reality of what is.
Every year I write a set of goals for the coming year with the New Year or mostly I do. I enjoy the satisfaction of thinking what I did the year before to make my life what I want. I enjoy the challenge of coming up with some big and baby steps to get to where I want to be. I also use collages (3 of them a year apart in the late spring) to work through this process of making dreams reality. Oh I have tried many things to move my life forward but in the end the things that get changed are those I change-- when I can. Back to the Serenity Prayer.
(for anyone who has not done a collage as a tool to help your subconscious work with you toward your goals, you cut pictures from magazines, words also if you want, anything that strikes your fancy. When you have a pile of these symbols, you get out your poster board and begin gluing the pictures to the board wherever you see them fitting. I bought glass and frames to hang mine on the wall near my desk where I can constantly be reminded of the spirit of what I want in my life. This is an example of one of mine from '03.)
The little house in this blog is one in Montana alongside a creek-- a place I stayed this summer for a week. It is not for sale and I can't say if it was that it'd be a wise choice for me to own it but it is the kind of thing I have dreamed I wanted. Small house, on the edge of wilderness, horses nearby, town not so far away that it's an unreasonable drive, hiking just across the valley in those mountains, river to learn to fly fish in just down the road, but there are all the 'buts' that go with it-- can I afford a place like that? Is it too far from my kids? What kind of life would I make there? Do I have the courage to go for it?
I have imagined myself an old woman in a place like that. A woman who still cuts her own firewood, who hikes regularly, who is tall, slender and strong-- for her age. Given that I am now almost 62 myself, I have to recognize the strength of a young woman will never again be mine. Another of those provinces of the Serenity Prayer to take care of. Do what we can to fix it but recognize the things that are not fixable and enjoy the reality of what is.
Every year I write a set of goals for the coming year with the New Year or mostly I do. I enjoy the satisfaction of thinking what I did the year before to make my life what I want. I enjoy the challenge of coming up with some big and baby steps to get to where I want to be. I also use collages (3 of them a year apart in the late spring) to work through this process of making dreams reality. Oh I have tried many things to move my life forward but in the end the things that get changed are those I change-- when I can. Back to the Serenity Prayer.
(for anyone who has not done a collage as a tool to help your subconscious work with you toward your goals, you cut pictures from magazines, words also if you want, anything that strikes your fancy. When you have a pile of these symbols, you get out your poster board and begin gluing the pictures to the board wherever you see them fitting. I bought glass and frames to hang mine on the wall near my desk where I can constantly be reminded of the spirit of what I want in my life. This is an example of one of mine from '03.)
Passion or Obsession?
I have been reading Grizzly Maze the story of Timothy Treadwell's fatal obsession with Alaskan bears-- in particular grizzlies. It has made me think about the whole thing of when passion crosses the line and becomes obsession. Is one healthy and one not? If so, what converts passion into obsession?
The dictionary says obsession is preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling. Passion follows along the same line, even to the state of being in pain but doesn't say it's unreasonable, but then there is the Passion of the Christ. Was that passion or an obsession-- certainly if we used commonsense, as we think of it, it'd be an obsession that brought Christ to the cross. Maybe obsession is what takes someone into a realm of creativity or action that changes worlds whereas pssion just leads to the bed-- figuratively speaking.
Treadwell certainly had an obsessive desire to be with bears, to become one with bears (something he actually succeeded in albeit not quite as he had doubtless planned). Still he lived his life exactly as he chose, lived it right on the edge and while it eventually did kill him, was his a fitter end than overdosing on a Malibu beach? Perhaps his obession saved him from mediocrity even if it did shorten his lifespan. If he had sat at home where it was safe, read books on grizzlies but not gone out to live amongst them, might that have been called a passionate interest? The bear experts have fits to imply that Treadwell did any good but is it any less valid to do what he did than sit on the sidelines measuring and observing? Treadwell lived a vibrant, passionate life and used all the tools at his disposal to maintain doing that. Did it accomplish anything? Does anything in the end? A life well lived-- even if a bit unusual-- might be the only real accomplishment anyone can claim.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
There is nothing reasonable about obsession, you can't argue with it or talk someone out of it-- at least not until they are ready to release it, but have obsessions been why we had a Van Gogh who painted even though no one bought his work? Is obsession why we have electricity? Is an obsession why we had Lewis and Clark or Columbus or so many others who set out on an exploration with no certainty they would return? Are great deeds logical? Was the concept of a Round Table and Arthur's Knights a passionate quest or an obsessive one? As best we know it, it led to Arthur's death and failure of the experiment-- except the dream grew possibly into something more than it ever was in history and even today lingers on in men's hearts. Can great deeds be attained by acting sensibly? Is a life lived sensibly superior to one that bucks the odds and reaches out for that obsession even if they fail? Certainly for every person who had an obsession that led to a medical breakthrough, there were thousands or more who had it and it led to madness or an old age of disappointment.
I have experienced more than a few passions in my life given my nature but I believe-- at this point-- I have only had one obession. It definitely wasn't sensible or logical. Even today I think on it and my blood rises, my heart beats faster. I don't necessarily regret that experience, but did it get me anywhere to go through it? I don't believe I handled it well but was that the fault of the obsession or my being unprepared to handle it given we live in a culture that stresses mediocrity as the safest venue for anything. Risk implies failure as part of its nature. Obsession is risky.
When I began writing this, I was convinced obsession was bad and passion good. Now I wonder if obsession might be a gift we don't appreciate enough. I think I may do some more research on the topic...
The dictionary says obsession is preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling. Passion follows along the same line, even to the state of being in pain but doesn't say it's unreasonable, but then there is the Passion of the Christ. Was that passion or an obsession-- certainly if we used commonsense, as we think of it, it'd be an obsession that brought Christ to the cross. Maybe obsession is what takes someone into a realm of creativity or action that changes worlds whereas pssion just leads to the bed-- figuratively speaking.
Treadwell certainly had an obsessive desire to be with bears, to become one with bears (something he actually succeeded in albeit not quite as he had doubtless planned). Still he lived his life exactly as he chose, lived it right on the edge and while it eventually did kill him, was his a fitter end than overdosing on a Malibu beach? Perhaps his obession saved him from mediocrity even if it did shorten his lifespan. If he had sat at home where it was safe, read books on grizzlies but not gone out to live amongst them, might that have been called a passionate interest? The bear experts have fits to imply that Treadwell did any good but is it any less valid to do what he did than sit on the sidelines measuring and observing? Treadwell lived a vibrant, passionate life and used all the tools at his disposal to maintain doing that. Did it accomplish anything? Does anything in the end? A life well lived-- even if a bit unusual-- might be the only real accomplishment anyone can claim.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
There is nothing reasonable about obsession, you can't argue with it or talk someone out of it-- at least not until they are ready to release it, but have obsessions been why we had a Van Gogh who painted even though no one bought his work? Is obsession why we have electricity? Is an obsession why we had Lewis and Clark or Columbus or so many others who set out on an exploration with no certainty they would return? Are great deeds logical? Was the concept of a Round Table and Arthur's Knights a passionate quest or an obsessive one? As best we know it, it led to Arthur's death and failure of the experiment-- except the dream grew possibly into something more than it ever was in history and even today lingers on in men's hearts. Can great deeds be attained by acting sensibly? Is a life lived sensibly superior to one that bucks the odds and reaches out for that obsession even if they fail? Certainly for every person who had an obsession that led to a medical breakthrough, there were thousands or more who had it and it led to madness or an old age of disappointment.
I have experienced more than a few passions in my life given my nature but I believe-- at this point-- I have only had one obession. It definitely wasn't sensible or logical. Even today I think on it and my blood rises, my heart beats faster. I don't necessarily regret that experience, but did it get me anywhere to go through it? I don't believe I handled it well but was that the fault of the obsession or my being unprepared to handle it given we live in a culture that stresses mediocrity as the safest venue for anything. Risk implies failure as part of its nature. Obsession is risky.
When I began writing this, I was convinced obsession was bad and passion good. Now I wonder if obsession might be a gift we don't appreciate enough. I think I may do some more research on the topic...
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
reincarnations
I seem to be doing a fair amount of reconsidering my choices. When I consider the roles I have played, people I have been, are they even me? They seem like other incarnations. I have done past life regressions where I meditated and went back in time to lifetimes before the birth of this woman I am today. I cannot, of course, prove that there were such lifetimes. Maybe I made them up but whatever the case, they seem as removed to the me of today as being the little girl on the farm, the young woman awkwardly trying to become a woman, the young mother, the artist, the seeker of spiritual truth, the woman who worked in the local church, the woman who left it. Were those women me?
There is a memory in me of lying naked in a small room, the window open to the sounds from the street below. The air is warm, sultry and my lover is beside me-- our affair a secret which makes the sex between us all the sweeter for knowing we have only moments, not even hours. I can see it in my memory but it came from a regression meditation. Did it really happen?
I remember sitting in church with my two small children and husband on the pew beside me. My hair was long enough that I felt it as I shifted in the seat and I felt a sense of strength and power. I was living out a purpose that gave me a feeling of power in my female self. I remember many moments like that strung out over these 60 some odd years and yet do they seem like the woman sitting here and typing today? Not really.
Then there are the differences inside me today. Sometimes I feel attractive, desirable and despite being an old woman by years, still vital and exciting; there are times I feel old, like I have become my own grandmother. One woman would believe she could still entice people to her by physical beauty; the other is sure she looks old and wrinkled. I know my strength is less than it was. There are physical problems there never used to be, but there is satisfaction in having lived a life, done so many things and having memories that I can draw upon. Memories the young woman never dreamed of in some cases.
Was I ever the Indian woman? the spanish dancer? the Greek mother, the priest? It seems as unlikely to me as that I was the woman I know I had to have been 40 years ago when I made so many life choices that still impact my life today.
There is a memory in me of lying naked in a small room, the window open to the sounds from the street below. The air is warm, sultry and my lover is beside me-- our affair a secret which makes the sex between us all the sweeter for knowing we have only moments, not even hours. I can see it in my memory but it came from a regression meditation. Did it really happen?
I remember sitting in church with my two small children and husband on the pew beside me. My hair was long enough that I felt it as I shifted in the seat and I felt a sense of strength and power. I was living out a purpose that gave me a feeling of power in my female self. I remember many moments like that strung out over these 60 some odd years and yet do they seem like the woman sitting here and typing today? Not really.
Then there are the differences inside me today. Sometimes I feel attractive, desirable and despite being an old woman by years, still vital and exciting; there are times I feel old, like I have become my own grandmother. One woman would believe she could still entice people to her by physical beauty; the other is sure she looks old and wrinkled. I know my strength is less than it was. There are physical problems there never used to be, but there is satisfaction in having lived a life, done so many things and having memories that I can draw upon. Memories the young woman never dreamed of in some cases.
Was I ever the Indian woman? the spanish dancer? the Greek mother, the priest? It seems as unlikely to me as that I was the woman I know I had to have been 40 years ago when I made so many life choices that still impact my life today.
August 14, 2005
Me
The same me who was 16?
Sometimes
I wonder
did I ever grow up?
am I still that naive girl?
Dreaming? wishing? believing?
waiting for something that will never happen....
Is that girl disappointed in the woman she became?
the dreams that never happened,
the ones that did....
Sometimes
I wonder
did I ever grow up?
am I still that naive girl?
Dreaming? wishing? believing?
waiting for something that will never happen....
Is that girl disappointed in the woman she became?
the dreams that never happened,
the ones that did....
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Birthing
A few years back, when I first began to consider a stage of my life not far down the road, I thought over who I had been, who I was, who I was yet to be and wrote this small poem combining it with an old photo of me.
In the photo she sat, serene and happy--her eyes dark,
secrets hidden 'neath lashes.
Did she know? Did she dream what would be?
Did she know she was the mother of all I am,
all I will be?
No, she didn't know then what I know now.
The young woman was me
and I am now the mother of all she is yet to be.
Though at that time I was only in my late 40s, I knew my old woman was coming all too soon. I questioned what should I be doing to make that old woman interesting and alive, a woman people enjoyed being around, one who was still living with what is but never had forgotten the lessons of what was-- who had stored in her heart the days of lushness but didn't allow those memories to ruin her current reality,a woman grateful there were memories but not dwelling in them.
I am thinking of it all again and asking myself how much of the work have I been doing lately to be that old woman?
There is a petroglyp
h on a huge rock near the Colorado River in Utah whichs speaks to this process. It is believed it was called the birthing rock and used by the People, either to have their babies or perhaps to pray for their coming. Who knows, maybe it was also to birth dreams. It shows a figure with a round oval coming from between her loins, from her inner being.
The image can work as well for a woman today who wants to birth something new in herself-- birth her creativity, her health, a new home or perhaps even her crone. I have reverently gone there and left for the rock my hopes and dreams for what I wanted to bear forth.
What is coming out of me now is the old woman I see in my mind that I shall be-- god willing.
It's hard work birthing and this kind no less so.......................
Friday, August 05, 2005
Zen Photographs
Photographs often are just recordings of events, places, but once in awhile one is what I call a Zen photograph-- they capture an idea, a feeling that is bigger than the individual elements within the photo. They are not greater art per se but carry a message which came not through careful planning but just a going with the flow or a lucky accident. They come out of a moment where the Universe flows through the camera to tell a story bigger than its parts.
This is such a photo. The woman has waded into the ocean, not way out, not swimming but she's in the sea of life. Her arms are opening to whatever she might want to hold. She is not afraid of the tides nor the huge sea behind her. She looks ahead toward life and what she can take into herself.
A Zen photo is a gift. This one shows what I wish my life to be.
August 2, 2005,
Favorite Quotes
Let my love like sunlight surround you and yet give you illumined freedom. Tagore
If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it is yours. If it doesn't, it never was.
Dreams are necessary to life. Anais Nin
I do not unmarry...... But I marry myself. I take my fate as within. Sena Jeter Naslund
Where we choose to be-- we have that power to determine our lives. We cannot reel time backward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being. Sena Jeter Naslund
Dreams are ... illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you. Marsha Norman
The thing you have to be prepared for is that other people don't always dream your dream.
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.
Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
The Talmud says, If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?
posted by Rain Trueax at 10:45 AM
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