Just a little pressure, just a whisper, just enough to make it move. It isn't necessary to pour the entire bag of sand on one side of the scale, just start with a grain of sand, then add another one, and keep adding them until the scale balances.
Moving too slowly? Something is going to come along and push you. Moving too fast? Something will be in your way.
Procrastination/Patience, exuberance/reticence, fear/love, all these things will arise in their turn. The response triggers are somatic by now. I am pissed off and impatient before I have had a chance to notice it. As soon as it is visible, audible, tangible,-that tight feeling in the gut, that's a nice time to stand back and say, "Oh, yes, I remember you. What is it you want?" It's always something. Getting there sooner? just racing to the grave. That's all the finish line is anyhow; once a goal has been attained, another one appears, once everything seems to be worked out, watch out, because it's a sign of imminent unraveling.
Things are taken away, a few molecules at a time. Somewhere on the continuum I catch glimpses, I see that I have been walking or driving or sitting in a dream, and thinking it is the real place, but the one that consensus reality designates as the real place tells me a different story. That place is always waiting with a list of what needs to be done to get the shit together before it's too late. Pain, then anaesthesia, until the next time I pull the covers down and peek out to see if the world has changed for the [subjective] better. It hasn't, most of the time.
The moments when it's possible to notice the unregulated beauty of the unforeseen are the juicy delights I look for every day.
Lately, it has occurred to me that I have been viewing death all wrong. Not that it is something to be sought, but that it may not be something to be feared. It is either nothing at all, or it is something, but whatever that is is undefinable, I don't care what religious practice gets applied to it. In some ways, it is irrelevant
As I spin back and forth in the time machine, recalling what I was so desperate for, and never able to find, to this place that Roseanne Barr called the youth of old age, where the things I regret are things I didn't know existed, and would be pointless to hunt down now. It would be like ignoring the evening bird song because I was too busy grieving for the morning.
In this increasingly difficult physical world, what has been stripped away leaves the undeniable now, where there is richness of a kind I thought fit to overlook. The gift of being able to walk, of being able to breathe, of reading, of being able to see, to be independent and live in my remote and complicated home. Absolutely ordinary life, bursting with goodness and light. How did I miss it? I have plugged my ears and squeezed shut my eyes and yelled "la la la la la!" like a 2 year old. Life on my terms. Not this, but that. Well, I had to get spoken sharply to, I suppose, the light pressure and whispers weren't enough, but at least nobody was sent with airhorns, or trumpets. Yet.
Moving too slowly? Something is going to come along and push you. Moving too fast? Something will be in your way.
Procrastination/Patience, exuberance/reticence, fear/love, all these things will arise in their turn. The response triggers are somatic by now. I am pissed off and impatient before I have had a chance to notice it. As soon as it is visible, audible, tangible,-that tight feeling in the gut, that's a nice time to stand back and say, "Oh, yes, I remember you. What is it you want?" It's always something. Getting there sooner? just racing to the grave. That's all the finish line is anyhow; once a goal has been attained, another one appears, once everything seems to be worked out, watch out, because it's a sign of imminent unraveling.
Things are taken away, a few molecules at a time. Somewhere on the continuum I catch glimpses, I see that I have been walking or driving or sitting in a dream, and thinking it is the real place, but the one that consensus reality designates as the real place tells me a different story. That place is always waiting with a list of what needs to be done to get the shit together before it's too late. Pain, then anaesthesia, until the next time I pull the covers down and peek out to see if the world has changed for the [subjective] better. It hasn't, most of the time.
The moments when it's possible to notice the unregulated beauty of the unforeseen are the juicy delights I look for every day.
Lately, it has occurred to me that I have been viewing death all wrong. Not that it is something to be sought, but that it may not be something to be feared. It is either nothing at all, or it is something, but whatever that is is undefinable, I don't care what religious practice gets applied to it. In some ways, it is irrelevant
As I spin back and forth in the time machine, recalling what I was so desperate for, and never able to find, to this place that Roseanne Barr called the youth of old age, where the things I regret are things I didn't know existed, and would be pointless to hunt down now. It would be like ignoring the evening bird song because I was too busy grieving for the morning.
In this increasingly difficult physical world, what has been stripped away leaves the undeniable now, where there is richness of a kind I thought fit to overlook. The gift of being able to walk, of being able to breathe, of reading, of being able to see, to be independent and live in my remote and complicated home. Absolutely ordinary life, bursting with goodness and light. How did I miss it? I have plugged my ears and squeezed shut my eyes and yelled "la la la la la!" like a 2 year old. Life on my terms. Not this, but that. Well, I had to get spoken sharply to, I suppose, the light pressure and whispers weren't enough, but at least nobody was sent with airhorns, or trumpets. Yet.
