Alive Again (# 248)

3. F. From morning to night…just like that. Moments of magic…(hmmm, Phil Ochs). A good day but quiet. Snow is on its way tonight, and then more tomorrow. Did much reading tonight…there were some funny moments in the logs. I enjoyed a discussion of the religion of one’s avatar as opposed to oneself. Adams is much more Christian than ***. Adams can pass as a muslim wearing proper attire and sits in a Buddhist meditation group most nights. That is really a wonder and a joy that we can put identities behind us and just be. We can be what we are, and not what we have. That is a relatively happy thought and I remember to appreciate it as I must do with unhappy thoughts the next time they come.

2. Gr. Starting today that it is Saturday and the two stressful things on my calendar have passed. For my other usual items.

1. TGT. I have spent a few hours appreciating being alive for yet another day (I wonder how many it has been now? – do some quick math and get an idea–wow – that’s quite a bit of getting up in the morning). As I sometimes do, I wonder what will be in store for me. It is a relief to be past yesterday and starting to heal now. It will mean staying in and not getting out to the woods; I’ll have to imagine that today.

For the past few days I have been relentless in trying to get back in the groove in PaB. I renewed my attempt to approach thinsg with a child-like attitude and it has led me to some new understandings. I have the sense it may be time to slow things down a little. I still have quite a bit of work to make the Chronicles into something coherent. There is just so much material.

Toads and Mermaids (#247)

7. F. …and yes the counting the breaths did help

6. BrM. I did it counting exhales this time. I can see that coming in handy in my appointment today

5. F. Just read the 1 am log from last night’s session where Wol quoted Stim and while the exercises were interesting, and I want to try them, what popped out at me was a new addition to APAPB and Rumi’s poem….”meet all distractions with compassionate inclusion” (Stim). So here is compassion and appreciation tied together. Wow.

4. Hmmm. I just changed the title (it was a bit too catchy). I could actually come up with something to write about with this title. Mermaids might be beautiful and seductive for sailors long at sea, but it is the toads, ugly as they are, who can transverse the land, feeling the warmth of the sun and the ground beneath their feet. Of course, the mermaids can explore the seas which are three quarters of the earth’s surface so that falls rather flat, doesn’t it. Hmmm. We must be what we are.

3. Gr. Since I am facing a nasty dentist appointment today, this is a great way to start. for friends, loved ones, for opportunityies, and I am still working for starters.

2. TGT. A bright sunny day and alive again to enjoy it.

1. The above title has nothing to do with anything I plan to write today but I am running out of titles after 246 posts and you have to admit it is a catchy title.

Dreaming Anxiety (# 246)

9. F. Last stop before slumberville. I ponder some of my earlier cones, no koans Who is impatient? Who is angry. Hmmm. There were others. There are so many ways to look a these things. Tomorrow I face some physical pain in my guest house.

8. I watched my thoughts while at the Zen Retreat but WordPress lost it in the save. Nothing special…I was tired..I thought about Santa Maria le Blanca and how the more learn about the building the less likely there is evidence enough to speculate about the women’s gallery. I thought about my anger about work and wonder how much fear is behind the anger. So I am going from fear to anger to anxiety to feeling depressed. The Rumi poem is giving me the confidence to be open wih myself about awful thoughts. It is odd to think of welcoming them. Meanness, fear, anger a part of being human just as is happiness, peacefulness and love. But love is a step above. Where did I read or hear that? Love can transcend those. I remember now…my session with Stim and Bertrum when I talked about the dogs and anger. “And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.” I Corinthians 13:3. (The lesson for today)

7. BrM. I pause from working on the Chronicles just as a stop

6. F. This morning Pema sent me a poem by Rumi that I have posted on a page here. Every time I read it I seem to see something new.  Can I learn to appreciate feelings of depression or anxiety.

5. BrM. Remembering Love. This morning I thought about how I am often so self involved and how different it might be to do self exploration away in a retreat or a monastery where one does not interact with many people.  One would not have to be so aware of how badly one is acting with the people one meets. Growth in this area seems to come so slowly.  Love needs to emanate from within. It can not be forced.

I thought of being a child this morning and watching an adult quickly change moods on a dime. For the first time I am witnessing the cause of that happening in me. I never before observed the carrying around of all these emotions together on different layers until now. Where have I been?

4. Still experiencing the layers and the resulting emotional changes I am experiencing. My outlook changes so quickly.

3. Gr. I think of my usual list first and then, as I often do, look for other things. I am grateful for PaB and all the opportunities that have come with it.

2. TGT. Alive again for another go of it. I wonder what wonders might be in store for me today. Each of the past few days has brought a surprise or two.

1. I am a little late recording this and have just a few disconnected images left. Last night in the dreams I was working hard on the Chronicles. It involved folders of paper and I needed large surfaces to lay out the papers. Pema came by from time to time to check my progress and I assured him I was rolling on the project although there was much yet to do. But I kept getting moved around. The places to write were familiar spaces in the RL workplace and faculty from other departments were coming into the room to teach and very angry about my work being spread on the table. Each time I would gather the work together and move to another location. At one point I was included in the discussion and at one point one of the faculty said “Does anyone feel anxiety” and looked at me and smiled. While I felt anxious, I did not raise my hand. The last place was in a dark room with slide viewers and two two students were working on the exhibition on the other side hidden behind the viewers. Then somehow I became entrapped in the body of a rhinocerous. Whether this was a transition or a completely different dream, I do not know. But I was human size so smaller than a rhino baby. At the time I woke up, the baby and I were snuggled up against the mother and I was desperate to get out of there.

While half awake I ha a thought which seemed important at the time. I do not remember it now but I hope it comes back. This is a reminder to myself

Not “Getting” It (#245)

3. F. This morning in PaB, among other things, Pema noted it is important that we do not feel we are getting it. I am grateful that I will have no problem with that.

2. Gr. I gratefully do my mental list

1. TGT. I am halfway through the afternoon and stopping to remember it is enough to be alive on this very sunny day

Murder and Stuff (#244)

9. F. I stepped outside and the sky was a deep blue with a good number of stars for this neck of the woods.

8. F. Mmmmm. This afternoon giddy and tonight down. What is this roller coaster?

7. F. F. I am tired now

6. BrM.

5. F. pause. OK. Time to go.

4. I wonder if……if there is something else there that is emerging, should I be sailing again? For now I must watch my thoughts and move beyond the self stuff.

3. Gr. Interesting in that my usual list seems to be missing something important this morning. It is inadequate somehow.

2. TGT. I remember that it is enough to be alive, quite a thought considering my dreams last night. Here I am back in my routine and maybe it is the best place for me now

1. Last night I had numerous dreams of being murdered, seemingly in Asia, or in danger of some kind. The one I remember best was sitting in a lotus position and strangled with a silk cord. Also I remember watching a spider drop from the ceiling into my shoe; I was too fascinated watching the spider dropped to move my foot.

The coolness of the murders suggests some residue of reading parts of “In Cold Blood” after seeing the Capote movie on DVD. I also wonder about Doug’s comment about terror on the bottom layer. Yet it wasn’t so much terror as just coldly witnessing my murder.

I have an important meeting this morning which will either alleviate some of my stress of increase it. I’d rather be out walking in the woods.

Last night I commented on an incident in July. I had been thinking about it primarily from the standpoint that my first reaction was that there has been no change in me. I was wrong about at least one thing. I know now that the opening the door was a beautiful metaphor for letting my selves go so I can truly see and listen. My resulting “vision” back in July was one of being comforted rather than knowledge of what it meant to just let go of all the pain and hurt. The change part then refers to the fact that it always has been there for me. Still I needed to LEARN to drop the selves just as I had to learn to walk at some point. I guess that is the “knowledge” part.

There is another aspect to this. I can relate to July because a couple of weeks ago I decided to start over and try to approach PaB with a “childlike” mind. n neither case did I achieve it but that, along with my reading for the Chronicles is shaking up my view of things. Maybe that is part of the layers too. Is this just another way of looking at selves or am I looking at something I’ve never seen before? Why am I happy on the surface and anxious underneath? there have been suggestions in PaB about dreaming which suggest most of what is going on is unconscious.

Quiet Reflection (# 243)

1. I spent most of the evening reading through chat logs in July finally resting on the long session I had with Pema (July 26) when he so called “hammered me”. Looking back I have such feelings tonight. While reading most of the sessions, I understood much  better what was going on than I did last July. I had such a diffferent reaction to the July 26th session. That is me there still. I have learned so much, experienced so much, dropped so much but that is me. At the time I thought it was my avatar. I don’t have any idea of what to make of that.

I have some stressful things to face, first tomorrow and then  on Friday. Are they partly resposnible for my wild swings of being happy and then anxious. It is the first time I have been so aware of layers. Whichever is on the surface, the others are not far away. Now what I need to do is experiment to find out whether they each can be dropped like identities or selves. I think back to Doug’s advice, when mind or self arises, just don;t pick it up. Can I do that?

I stop and try to just let it all go and it appears to work although I didn’t reach the part where I felt self go completely.

Still Writing After All These Posts (# 242)

3. Sitting, having quiet reflections, in Saint Catherine Monastery in SL, looking through the icons. The Heavenly Ladder of Saint John Climacus. Seven devils pulling people off the ladder and one with a bow and arrow ready to let fly representing the eight deadly sins of the eastern church. Such a difficult path, especially compared with the simple exercises of PaB. Someday I must read the text that inspired this icon. Looking at an Annunication. What is going on in Mary’s mind. Is there any doubt? Accepting this new task from God makes her so vulnerable. What tremendous trust is required of her. the painters generally paint her listening or accepting so passively, so peacefully, none of the turmoil one might expect. A mini sermon comes on the radio feed here talking about how we each are drawn to certain sins again and again. The drunkard drawn to drunkeness, etc. I always prefer the Buddhist view where sin is concerned. But it is true that we each have certain distractions, habits or pitfalls that we go back to again and again. A 17c view of the monastery comes up and I begin thinking of how much the peoples of the world have experienced during the life of this ancient haven. So many holy men living out their lives in this small space plus those who lived in the caves up in the mountains. How easy it is to let our imaginations go in these virtual creations and feel a connection with the real place. In this case that is especially good because of the fragility of the original. All that exists there exists partly because it wwas so isolated. Even the humidity created by increasing numbers fo people are a threat.

2. Gr. I have extra things to be grateful for today. Yesterday I received a memo that indicates that something I have been worrying about likely has been averted. It is a reminder that much of the shell of our existence is beyond our control. I remember too that we control how we react to it.

1. TGT. Here I am sitting by the window looking at the presence of the appearance of the early morning sunlight on our little pear tree. I wonder about the consciousness of the tree knowing that the sap is most likely beginning to run and it is preparing for its annual display of dark pinkish-purple flowers in a few long weeks. The tree is alive but likely unaware I am here looking at it but maybe enjoying the sunlight against its limbs.

North Winds (#241)

3. F. I am up in the middle of the night. I am not unhappy or disturbed, just awake, thinking about, and feeling love for, my friends in RL and SL-PaB. Maybe something is bothering me underneath somewhere, but I want to hug the world and then tell everyone all about it. Maybe I am getting sick . Wow, the presence of appearance of love.

2. Gr. I go down my usual list in gratitude

1. TGT. Feeling very much alive after cycling against a head wind all the way in this morning. This seems to have been an usually windy winter. Not all that cold this morning but the wind was enough to sting ones face and through two layers of gloves. This was a big switch from last night when the wind pushed me home.

Reveling in PaB (#240)

4. F. It was a good day to be alive.

3. I am on the clock, so to speak with my recently acquired scribe duties. This time I went to as many PaB sessions as I could to get a sense of what was going on. One of the side effects is that I feel a bit renewed. The empty early morning office feels a bit of a holy place.

Looking back at what is now a former self in those first few weeks of PaB as I work on the Chronicles, one of the things that strikes me is that I thought this would be a short-lived venture. I was going to learn everything, it would change my life, and I would go on to living happily ever after. Looking back I am surprised that much has to be relearned, but each time it gets a bit easier. I remember Pema saying something like that to me in those first few weeks. I still understand I am very new at this and have much to learn.

2. Gr. For lack of snow while biking, for the fact I still have this job, for love ones and for friends and others who help me learn new things

1. TGT. Another fine, overcast, bleak looking day in which to adopt a sunny outlook and just be alive.

Brushing Aside Self (#239)

1. It is rather late and I haven’t written in my blog but it seems as I have been writing all day. This morning at PaB Doug added an interesting twist to the discussion of self:

doug Sosa: no need… to drop mind. just don’t pick it up. There is a process in which mind or self comes to mind. at that moment let it go by, don’t touch it.

Susi later in the same session  made this poetical observation:

Susi Alcott: all and each one has got a present from God/Life
Susi Alcott: that present is Life
Susi Alcott: each one who chooses to keep that present
Susi Alcott: is the present to Life.

This evening, as I began to get tired, I began to feel some anxiety. I thought of Doug’s statement and brushed the anxiety aside. This is the first time I’ve done it like that. No stopping, no meditation, no writing it out in the blog. Just not letting that thought take hold and moving on. The anxiety is there, just out of view but so far it has not taken over.