Two Ways to Take a Walk

This afternoon as the sun was setting, I took a walk to ponder my lesson plans and get some nature and exercise. It had been raining all day and the sun was just coming out, lighting up the clouds and shooting down golden paths of light between the tree trunks and onto the new spring grass and moss. As I was walking back along the quiet road, a woman walked out of her driveway right ahead of me.

It was at this moment that I turned and saw an incredible arrangement: the hillside was covered in wild rose bushes, elegant stalks arching together in man-high poufs, small delicate green leaves just starting to grow. Rays of golden sunlight catching and back lighting them. And all of them covered in innumerable water droplets, that caught the sun and burned like fiery diamonds. Thousands upon thousands of them. Like the hillside was decorated with impossibly delicate and intricate crystal candelabras, burning with the brightness of miniature suns. And then the breeze would come, cool, refreshing, clean, smelling of recent rain and clean forest, softly caressing my face. Then the vines would shiver, and the brilliant gems would twinkle like stars or fireworks.

It was impossibly lovely. It was more than a heart could bear or contain. Like someone holding a cup under an open fire-hydrant, you feel the waste, your little heart-cup can only hold and experience and enjoy a tiny fraction of the humongous beauty being poured into it, the rest is just overwhelm, too much to be experienced.

Meanwhile, the woman in front of me, headphones in, head down, was power walking to get her heart rate in the optimal zone. Heck, maybe when she was checking her iphone it was plugged into her heart and she was looking at her heart rate. She saw nothing. She felt nothing. I imagine she was thinking about something that had happened to her earlier today, or worrying about something she had to do tomorrow.

I kept going, pondering the unknown sadness of missing such beauty, and stopped at another wild-rose candelabra/firework, discovering one single drop of water that was catching the light, not as a brilliant white, but flickering, even when the other droplets stood still, between orange and red. Larger as well. A different kind of jewel.

Here is something that I recommend: Sacrifice your past and your future into your now.

It requires a conscious decision, and we often go back to the past and future thinking that is our current habit, and then we need to reset it. But it makes life so exceptionally richer. It is almost the difference between living and not living at all. And as long as you do not also sacrifice your common sense, it will not prevent you from adequately planning for the future. But it will prevent you from missing your life as it happens to you.

Whoops. I thought I was finally going to go to bed nice and early.

Well, good night all  ^_^

Half Full

The great thing about being sleep deprived is never having to worry about insomnia.

Life as Metaphor

This morning I was washing some strawberries in my hands, at the kitchen sink. They were the dark red that signifies optimal sweetness and impending mold if not eaten soon, so I had a huge, barely contained double-fist-full. As I was quickly moving my hands around under the stream, anxious to get them washed and eaten, I saw one of the topmost strawberries tilt and start to fall. It was particularly ripe looking. With a quiet, "noooooo..." I watched it fall, and as I awkwardly tried to move my ungainly handful of berries to cover the garbage disposal drain, it bounced tock-a-donk-dunk into the drain. I looked down with sadness and regret.

You could make of that many different metaphors and lessons. The two that struck me immediately were: one, this is what happens when we try to grasp too much. Even if it's a good thing, if we try to hold onto too much, we end up losing some of what we have. Two, if we try to hurry through life to get to the good bits, we end up destroying some of those good bits we're trying to get to.


In other news, I went for a walk today at my parent's house. I so much prefer my parent's house for environment over New York City. So so much. But New York has the people and events that I need, for my growth and sustenance.  New York's got the people, the forest and garden have the place.

When I got back from the walk, I stopped by the garden, which had a bed of invincible kale that had overwintered and was putting out new leaves. I snacked on a few and was amazed to discover the sweetest, tenderest kale I'd ever eaten. If cold doesn't kill a plant, it makes it sweeter; apparently the plant starts manufacturing more sugars, because sugar water freezes at lower temperatures. That way the water in the plant can stay liquid, even below thirty-two fahrenheit. And new spring growth is almost always the tenderest and least bitter.

Anyways, suddenly I was back with mother earth, resting against her heart, held and loved, and all was right with the world. I crouched around the lawn, eating fresh new dandelion leaves, and a few little white flowers from the mustard family, piquant and lively, dusting the grass like yesterday's snow.

This all just reminded me, viscerally, of how I want to live. This is the kind of thing I want to do at home. All the time. I'm not sure how to have both this and what the city offers. But hopefully I'll find a way.


I have another story from last week. Unwritten until now because of time constraints. Even now, I start to worry I'm spending too much time writing a blog post and need to get back to the more pressing deadlines in my life. Preparing classes and presentations and taxes and all the necessary minutiae of all the administrative and self-educative demands of life.

Anyhoo, here it is:
Last week, at my parents house, while I was alone there, taking out the compost, a bird got into the garage. When I came back, it was banging itself against the garage door windows, thought the opposite garage door was open. I thought maybe I was scaring it, so I moved over to the other side of the garage. That way if it wanted to get away from me, it would have to fly towards the open door. But it just kept banging itself against the windows. So, with my best impersonation of Dr. Doolittle, I said, "The way out is over there." And pointed to the open garage door. Instantly the bird changed its behavior, started moving towards the open door, and flew out. That made my day. More of that in my life please.

This post brought to you by a lack of time managment

Must...publish...something. It's past one a.m. I've finally finished the project that was due today. I suspect my effort was largely unnecessarily. I think perhaps I need to improve my time management, and my prioritization, and my ability to focus and ignore unimportant distractions. And distinguish what is an unimportant distraction.

But I learned some fascinating and useful things, and made a kick-butt powerpoint presentation on Easter and the unity of faiths, based on Joseph Campbell's work on archetypes.

I keep writing posts, but not having time to edit them, so they just stay in my drafts folder. Writing is easy. Editing takes far more time. I wonder if I'll ever find it as easy and quick to edit as it is to write? I'll assume it's like everything else: practice and you will achieve.

Oh, here's a good quote, related to that. From Grandfather (Tom Brown Jr's teacher). I don't have the exact quote right now, so I'll have to paraphrase:
'The main thing standing in the way of mastery, is oneself.'

I take that to mean: good news! You can easily achieve mastery, if you really want. Just put in the time and dedication. The only thing stopping you from doing that, is yourself. Which is way more within your control than anything else in the world.

I should probably take this all as a sign that I need to stop accepting requests from people to do things. Just for a bit, so I can catch up on sleep and long term essential projects, like taxes.

And yet, I can't help thinking that if I was just a bit better at focusing and ignoring distractions, I could easily get it all done. Maybe Santa can get me those virtues for Christmas.

OK guys, that's all I got for now.

Beleaguered and rumpled, but with much love,
-I

Famous Quotes

"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

                                               -Facebook

Inadvertently Funny Advertising

I saw this advertisement on the subway. This is amazing. I am so happy that this exists. Who could resist that pitch?

“Try our amazing NANOTECHNOLOGY braces that are installed BEHIND YOUR TEETH! Just like I’m hiding right now behind your couch in the living room!

We will HAND DELIVER and INSTALL these braces INTO YOUR GUMS AND FACE BONES and onto the backs of all your teeth WHILE YOU SLEEP!

Best of all these braces are PERMANENT and will SELF INSTALL after they are welded to your teeth and jawbones by sending up TINY NANOTUBUELS into your brain through the nasal cavity which will then REPROGRAM YOU TO CRAVE HUMAN FLESH, giving you an all-time great smile and a twinkle in your eye!

Like I have!

Operators are standing by to take your call now and I am standing by in your living room closet ready to perform the install! CALL NOW! Free visit! 6 months to perfect teeth! I have your cat hostage!

…

Am I the only one who hears that when I see the original advertisement? I am? Well, that's why I share. You're welcome. Sweet dreams ;-)

-IO

The Bhagavad Gita and My Life

OK, this is just too good to let go. This is a perfect teaching moment, born of my own failure:

Context:
From a translation of the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 48:
"Perform actions, O Dhananjaya, steadfast in yoga, abandoning attachment, being the same in regard to success and failure. Equanimity is the path to Unity.

And verse 49:
"Far inferior is mere action to action performed with wisdom. Take refuge in wisdom, O Dhananjaya. Wretched are the result seekers.

Now, this sounds like so much highfalutin' philosophy, but let's give a practical example from real life that just happened to me:

The setup: I had just completed writing my assigned freelance articles for the week. It required a lot of focus, I wasn't getting paid well, considering how much time I was putting in, and I was doing my very best to make sure the quality was high. I get to the shared google doc, where three of my fellow freelance writers had been divided amongst the various bite sized tourist spot descriptions. I go to post my completed work, and suddenly see that I have just done the wrong descriptions. There are only a few hours before the deadline, and I have another meeting coming up in a few minutes.

My whole body gets hot, and I feel like a big inflatable animal that's just sprung a leak and is quickly deflating to a flat, empty puddle of plasticy fabric on the ground. All that work, for nothing. Someone else was assigned to it so I doubt they'll pay me for it. It was totally my mistake--I double check that, looking at the revisions history to make sure they didn't change who was assigned what. Nope.

The solution: I'm feeling pretty unhappy, and then it hits me: this is a perfect example of "being attached to the fruits of my actions." And all that other stuff the above Gita verses recommend against. I didn't realize I was so attached, but there's nothing like life to show you where you're not as evolved as you think you are.

I realize I'm obviously attached to doing a good job, having people think well of me, getting paid, and keeping my job. All things I now think are in jeopardy. It also hits me that I've been forgetting to dedicate my action and the results (the fruits) to God. Another suggestion from the Gita. Sheepishly I offer up the results of the work I've been doing, into the fire of the Divine, apologizing for forgetting to do it earlier.

In any case, that surrender makes me start to feel better. Since I've done my best, and decided to leave any results to nature, I start to relax. I got practice writing. And I was reminded of an important lesson: when you're attached to the results, when you're not the same in regards to success and failure, sometimes you'll feel good and sometimes you'll feel really bad. Also: triple check your assignments!

Finally starting to re-inflate to a point where I can deal with the rest of the day, I remember a few details about the shared document. I realize it's possible the person who was assigned to the travel destinations I accidentally did, may not have started working on them yet. In which case, maybe--just maybe--she can do the one's that were assigned to me instead. I send emails and make comments on the doc, first apologizing for what I've done, and then asking about the possibility of switching, if it's not too late. Assuming it will be of no avail, I brace myself for having to cancel my evening plans and get the articles done as quickly as possible, staying up late into the night.

A few hours later, after a wonderful session with a client, (life coaching stuff) I see an email. The other person hadn't started, the company contacted her in time, and she's doing what I was assigned. All is well. I do a little happy dance in my head and am astounded at how effective 'surrendering the fruit' was.

I would not have even thought to ask about that possibility if I'd stayed stuck and attached. I don't know what I would have done. Moped and maybe watched TV or something else to try and distract myself from how wretched I was feeling. And I would not have been in a good head space for my client. It wasn't until I let go of the attachment to success and aversion to failure, till I gave it over to the intelligence of the universe, that everything reversed itself and became OK.

Whether you want to think of this as genuine magic, or simply effective working psychology, this seems like a pretty strong mark in favor of this particular piece of advice. Also a rather harsh reminder. So there you go. The Bhagavad Gita in everyday life. Learn from my example so you don't have to go through the misery yourself.

And I'll leave you with verse 51:
"The wise, established in equanimity of mind, having abandoned the desire of the fruits of their actions, are freed from the bondage of birth and death and go to a state beyond evil."


As an aside and commentary on this: abandoning the desire for the fruits of action doesn't mean you don't get to enjoy anything. It's the difference between:

1)
Climbing up an apple tree, breaking branches and knocking apples as you go, and then ripping an unripe apple off the tree, causing more damage, then falling down and spraining your ankle. And the apple isn't even good because it's not ripe.
And
2)
Noticing a ripe apple falling as you're watering the tree, picking up the apple, dusting it off, and thoroughly enjoying it's crisp sweetness, ripened to perfection.


Now I'll see if I can get a nice bonus one up for you, since I missed last weekend.

I'm Alive!

Apologies for the lack of post last week. I have been crazy busy, cleaning up my house and my life. Along with normal work. I am a bit frazzled. Frazzled. That word always seemed glamorous to me. Like it meant "covered in shiny silver sequins."

I've got a bunch of posts that I can put up as soon as I go over them with a quick edit, so hopefully this weekend I'll have something besides this for you. Perhaps even two posts. I could technically do that now but I feel like I'm suffocating in my room and need to go for a walk very badly. Too much work that requires being inside, by myself.

OK, love to all you good people. I miss you, my friends. I want to spend more time with you, less time rushing and worrying about my performance. Or, you know, zero time rushing and worrying, because doing that is unpleasant and exhausting.

Love,
Keep on keepin' on,
-I