Random musings in early 2019...

Some people find treasures when they go to the sea; jewelry, shells, sponges...all in the sand.  It’s a talent.

When I go to the sea I find moments of transcendence.  The water on the sand.  The light in the water.  The sound that never stops and is always soothing.  The sensation of ebb and flow that comes and goes after immersion. The smell.  The sensations of water and sun on skin. These are my treasures.

-----

I like material comfort as much as the next person.  I appreciate beauty with an aesthetic that has been developed with intention. But the physical world is not what my sights are ultimately set upon.  

The images of the cosmos that we have, thanks to the technology we call science, has provided us with an easy conceptualization of what is beyond Earth’s thin layer of atmosphere. I focus on these images in my mind, often, and as part of describing to myself and contemplating where and what I am in a meditative experience.  I see myself sitting or whatever, the room, the building, the locale...always moving out (up?) seeing concentric spheres of geography, if you will, until I see the planet, the solar system, the galaxy...and out and out...all that great NASA Star Trek imagery informing images of space and the cosmos.  I find comfort in this.

Then gradually coming back, eventually returning my awareness to this body in this place.

-----

In the morning when I awaken I am still and peaceful...for a moment.  Then I feel tension rising in my body and my mind remembers where I am and what is in front of me and then I feel anxious, and a desire to burrow back into sleep and dreams, and stillness and peace.  No such luck though. I know that I will get up, so I do...and the anxiety diminishes as I move into activity. But always this sense of...like I am wearing a garment that is just a little too small.

Leaving 2018 behind

This has been a tiring year.  Every day more nonsense and nazification in Washington DC. It has been an ongoing exercise in coping with lies, cruelty, and destructiveness.  It's tiresome.

Every week I produce 90 minutes of original audio content.  It's good stuff, I respect the material, however it means always being on a production schedule with all that entails and that's tiring too.

One of the challenges I accepted during 2018 was to be less a bearer of bad news, and to be more a bearer of positivity.  That worked out pretty well. 

The work I do, the audio programs, are intended to inspire, and they do, from what people tell me.  I'm glad they do.  That's definitely part of my deal here on Earth, to offer good stuff to the world.  I chose this, I love it, and I'm glad I'm doing it.

Underneath all of that, deep down, all there is inside me is love of nature and animals, and a feeling of the primordial Earth...that's really all. The rest is fleeting.

Approaching Solstice...

This year the darkness is really calling me.  Since the end of October, Samhain, I've felt the pull.  The dreamtime calls.  Even the waking dreamtime is vivid, both with reflection and re-vision-ing.

I find myself going over residue from events, relationships, experiences, and gently massaging that stuff as it dissipates, kind of like when something is sticky and hardened on the floor, it takes some time and attention to get it cleaned up, and that act of cleaning can be very zen.

I read an article recently about how certain Buddhist monks end their lives by basically dissolving into light, (I am shorthanding this) and that the way this is done is to think nothing but loving thoughts for the rest of one's life.  I jokingly have said that "Oh well, that's not me!" but the truth is, while I do not only have loving thoughts, I mostly have loving thoughts, and sometimes thoughts that seem not loving are, in fact, motivated by love.  Political anger, for instance, is motivated by the love of justice.

I'm looking at this revisiting of past remnants as part of this business of being a more loving person.  Imagine (I'm sure you can!) having some emotional residue left from a relationship you had as a teenager...a friend, a peer, not necessarily a partner even...and just shining love on that situation and watch as the residue floats away.

Perhaps we humans are not as far from being our best as the worst among us make it seem.

Love and Hate in Brooklyn

People ask me "how are you?" and my answer lately is...I am both horrified and ecstatic. I am horrified to see the rising fascism around the world, including here in the US. I am also moved deeply by the responses to the horror. There is WAY more love than there is hate. There are WAY more people who want a peaceful society than there are who want violence and bigotry.

My own response to all this pendulates between rage and fear, and complete trust in the universe...and everything in between.

One thing I am choosing to act upon is the belief that I cannot fix the whole, me must do that collectively...but individually I can continue to do what I do which is to bring messages of inspiration and empowerment to people.

A very close friend just emailed me. The synagogue in his neighborhood in Brooklyn NY just experienced a racist graffiti attack, and the neighborhood is rallying with love and support. I am horrified that my friends children live near someone who is so hateful, and I am filled with love for my friend and his community.