What Happens Now (#200)

13. F. Help me to see the neutral level in important things

12. On the spoon: if Being inhabits the spoon, then Being is looking at me though the spoon. I leave Being, a term that does not yet having real meaning for me except as a euphemism, and think about God inhabiting everything around me, watching me. Watching how foolishly I behave but loving me anyway. I look around at the things around me. Pema talks of the Burning Bush. I look around and think about God in every object, one by one. This then IS holy ground. I begin to see that when I touch things or other beings I need to do so with respect for God. Wow, wouldn’t it change one’s life if one thought like that as one went about one’s business. All of life would be holy ground.

11. I see an old photograph on the wall and I take it down to get a better look at it while I am writing but I am immediately sorry. It is covered with dust and it rubs off on everything as I try to put it in viewing range. It takes me awhile to clean up.

The photograph is a sepia tone but it has yellowed. The matting also has yellowed. The frame is deep set with a deep brown and black paint, and gilt on the innermost frame. The gold is cracked. There is a beautiful pattern painted on the gold in black. The picture is a farm. The top two fifths is a blank sky and the lower third is grassy. The house is on the left and runs from the center to about an eighth of the width from the left edge. There are curtains carefully hung in each window of the main structure. It is a white farmhouse with a standard box with an -a frame type roof and a porch in the front (2/3 closed in) and a one-story addition on the right. There is a large greenhouse extending forward from the center toward the right. In back is a fairly modest barn. There is a horse and buggy on the far left, partly hidden in shrubbery with a very well dressed woman in standing before it. A lone horse stands a bit behind that. There is a well-dressed man in a waistcoat holding a watering can a bit behind the horse and buggy.  There is a boy in a brim hat, and another hatless boy, on the steps, in front of the porch which has a lovely trellis and two chairs. Much further to the right is a seated woman. Finally in front of the side addition is a well-dressed man and woman and a boy with a little dog. Finally there is a litle church on a pole at the end of the greenhouse nearest the viewer, possibly a bird house, possibly a weather vane.

On a deeper level this is a portrait or a family and their farm. We can assume they have two horses they value and one buggy because they proudly have arrayed them for the photographer. On e can imagine them possibly sprucing things up unless this was an itinerant photographer. They would have put on their Sunday best clothes and discussed where to stand. It is interesting that they spread so far apart. One might assume they either had a group portrait taken too or they only had the funds for the one picture. One might imagine this hanging in the living room of that house, proudly displayed for many years. Maybe the photograph was sold in an estate sale at some point. It is sad thinking of it separated from the family.

On a more neutral level this is an object, a fading photograph in a pretty frame. There is a story but it is lost.

10. I am entertaining doubts about my conclusions. Do I have it all wrong? My fears seem so silly…so full of “self”. They definitely are of the negative, sometimes possessive quality. The neutral must exist. I am just not seeing or understanding it. Is that because I do not accept what I am? That would deem to circle back to the identities in which case my conclusions are not so off. (I corrected a typo “oft” here). Correct conclusions seem to not so oft.

9. For the fun of it I go back to the spoon. What am I to the spoon? The spoon sits by me. The spoon occupies the space with me. The spoon feeds me. I conclude that I am nothing to the spoon. It cares naught whether I exist or not. Does it affect the spoon whether I use it or someone else or whether it is buried in the ground for 500 years?

8. F. I stop. I haven’t been able to concentrate on my exercise today. Cleaned up some leaves. Could only concentrate on the task although I tried to look at appearances. I am just tired. I have a crazy idea that the engine that drives me might be wrapped up in one of the identities. There is an easy way to test that if so. I resolve to do that this afternoon. I begin to look at my close relationships on the three levels. I can see the two from both ends, i.e from me and toward me. What is the neutral level?

7. Went shopping for some clothes today and was surprised (I shouldn’t have been) at the way SL has changed my perception of clothes. Still I did not dwell upon it too much because I still knew what I needed, went about my business and departed quickly. But it was an instance where I was a visitor from SL looking at clothes in RL. Maybe when I think about it, there will be something there.

6. I fall asleep again and wake up without seemingly having dreamed. The weight of the blankets feels heavy on me and my eyes sting. I have the silly thought that I am glad that I did not dream about being a policeman. I reread Pema’s comment from #198. I missed the fact that level 2 has a more possessive quality. That doesn’t relate well to my number 2 identity I don’t think. That may be a bit more confirmation that it is an identity. I now have some new eyes to look at things; in a away I have become an immigrant in my own land.

5. Gr. So much for which to be grateful…

4. TGT. Another day of life on planet earth. I wonder if I will begin to see things differently now.

3. I just read Pema’s comment on the blog yesterday. I like the word “inclusive” better than “neutral”.

2. Well after writing, I did go to sleep with memories of feeling close to God when young. At that time I thought God was with me and helped me. The collorary was that I could not do anything myself without God. What I learned when I lost God I found I was quite capable of functioning. What I missed was the beautiful feeling of being one with God.

For the rest of the night I seemed to have a very different dream with some variations. I was going to be a firefighter. It started with a mentor showing me the ropes. On the way we passed a building with open windows. My mentor shouted a friendly greeting into a basement window and a voice shouted back. It was my mentor’s uncle in there with his buddies. Through the night I learned to fight fires with bad equipment. The town was poor and could not afford new equipment. Our first fire engine was made of lead. It melted somewhere through the night. The uncle kept appearing. He seemed to be jealous of my mentor and kept doing things to help that put us all in danger. He may have been the one responsible for the lead fire engine getting too close to the fire. There seemed to be no other point to the dream. One significance is that I never remember dreams like either of these two before.

Other family members report of having weird dreams with the bug. Does the bug help seeing things with new eyes?

1. It is the middle of the night and I have woken up. I am wide awake. I had a silly dream about bicycling to North Carolina on a dare. Someone said I couldn’t do it in two weeks and I set off to prove them wrong. I spent a little time imagining a route. I have no idea what that is about but I was sneaking my bike on to the train for the first familiar leg of the journey. Am I embarking on a new journey?

I also have been thinking about incidents that might have formed my identities but I don’t think that is what has me awake. I feel I may have identified the first time the voice of Adams the rebel appeared; it was a memorable incident in childhood with a voice saying “no it was not all your fault”. But I know it won’t help to dwell on the past except maybe on how it differs from the present which is where my fears are located. I know that I need to drop the fears. Pema brought up the movie metaphor again tonight. If I am able to drop these identities that go so deep. and the fears that accompany them, in other words, if they are just a movie, then I will become an avid believer in the metaphor. That seems only fair.

In October I see a great sapce and my body gets frightened and I do not sleep regularly for two months. That settles down and I am able to see past two long-held identities and now I seem to have scared myself again. In the back of my mind I believe there is the question being asked, “what do you do to make sure your fears do not become reality?” I not only need to see clearly but I must learn to act, to `think more about others, and yes, to be more compassionate, or in Chrisitian terms to love more freely. Faith, hope and love…the greatest of these is love. Therein lies all my sense of urgency. I think back to the night I asked God to come through the door and I felt the presence. But I know now I was not ready to see beyond my dark,  little closed in space. I am opened up this morning. Please come in.