And opinion…

Random Thanksgiving thoughts. A holiday created to celebrate the beginning of two centuries of extermination of the North American natives by an Empire that has done more murder, violence, theft and damage to the world than any other in human history and left a legacy of strife in almost all former colonies that still costs thousands of lives to this day.

The world as constituted, is violent, greedy, unforgiving and molded by passions that seems insurmountable. 10,000,000 to 17,000,000 minks “culled” in a country the size of Massachusetts. Those mink were destined to die anyway for coats and ‘accessories’ that cater to barbaric fashion habits and the common delusion that the world is purposed for our personal whims and desires. The numbers are actually doubly depressing.

Slowly and surely we are becoming more humane on the side of compassion and understanding. The world is a better and safer place than it has ever been (for people), and since our violent and greedy natures are often driven by ideologies and commerce we will all pay a steep price for being ignorant and sometimes deliberately blind when it suits us. It is too late to mitigate certain ecological upheavals that are imminent and neither the Moon nor Mars, will be of much help.

My opinion in regard to the above intertwining categories is that there actually is much to be thankful for which can hold all of the above. Chiefly, my gratitude is for the basic human quandary that since we can and have gotten up to all sorts of mistaken, unhelpful, greed-driven and destructive behaviors; there is an other side of that ‘coin’ which is our inherent love, caring, helping, building and creating an actual tenderness towards others and our-selves, which can embrace, and hold, all of those contradictions.

We can look up and see that there is more. A softer human aspect that can listen to the Quiet that shapes the music of life, and love; and quietly know what we are ultimately about.

We may not clearly see all

Ways we all gain clarity

Seeing-Listening quietly,

Rather than looking-hearing in

That acquisitive fashion.

There is supposed to be a Chinese saying that is described as a type of curse one may utter, probably more so than yell, which translates as “…may you live in interesting times…”. The implication being that ‘interesting times’ are usually fraught with all sorts of potential downsides that make life uncertain which can be uncomfortable. Sounds like every day, at any time, anywhere.

Certainly our times are interesting right now, and my observations of myself and people I have regular conversations with, seem to have a similar sense in that, even though there’s a lot of stuff going on with extra noise, fear, doubt and worry thats more pervasive; I notice that I’m much more in tune with my response to the extra that’s going on, and I have a strong sense that this is an opportunity for many of us to look at our own inner lives and responses now that there’s a bit of an edge to everyday life in social and cultural interactions.

To believe the media is to think that we are all in a major crisis of great variety and complexity and the best thing we can do is somehow get back to our comfortable and normal ways of the past. I don’t remember those days. Maybe if I took a stack of newspapers from the last 100 years and just randomly selected 200 headlines they would paint a picture of normal and a “good old days” that sadly is no longer within our reach. Probably not.

Life has always been difficult and messy and scary and painful and confusing; were it not so, there would be no ease and order and comfort and joy and understanding.

Somewhere between these seemingly opposing ideas or possibilities is where we all have to live. The best we may be able to do is to be aware when those different aspects arise and then try not to make too big a deal about any of them; knowing that stuff happens and stuff changes is actually a huge wisdom that encompasses everything.

As in every Thing, real or not.

The more I change the

More I remain the

Same, seeing only

Aging and opinions.

There’s way more

Going On if I’m

Participating in

Reality. As in

Being part of.

Not merely viewing,

Comparing

Contrasting, which

Are bondage,

Not release

Or ease.

The Chinese word for Emptiness is not easier to deal with when exploring the mind, than it is in English. All words are maps, some more precise than others. Even with maps lots of explorations have gotten lost and wandered until they found something new to the explorer, then the wandering was suddenly ‘successful’. What we discover is not new to the beings/things that live/abide there, or to others that have passed through, even once.

We are stuck with words and languages. Things get lost in translation, or so it seems. I wonder if they don’t get lost in exploration.

How many things in this world were discovered when explorers, scientists, investigators, curious and wondering folks set out to see what’s over that range of mountains, or over that range of science or thought. Often the wondering turned into wandering and the unexpected appeared as something new. There’s nothing ‘new’ as such, there’s Hoped For, WTF? and Interesting! and Wow! In most instances things are discovered when we wander of the path that we had intended to keep and then came to an unexpected cliff, or bear.

My mind goes off the path a lot from what I intend for it, more so and differently now that Age is a real thing. Nevertheless, I set out to explore my mind some time ago when I wanted to change Me. I didn’t have any idea of what I was doing or very clear on why, it just felt urgent.

So, I’m here on a computer, noodling.

And, its been very interesting and the longer I travel in that vast field, of meadows and mountains and forests and rivers and lakes and oceans of this little mind; I often find I’ve gone around some sort of circle because things seem familiar and known, yet different and knowable.

As I go on and my dreams change and gratitude just appears and my fears always become my teachers not friends, yet familiar.

In meantime, I also have to learn my new cell phone, sew a button on a favorite shirt, reheat some food so I can watch The News and realize everything is not comfortable for most, but that’s part of any journey or exploration whether we know we are on one or not.

Often I see that I’m an oarsman on some vessel of discovery and exploration and am grateful for the wind, and the wind has nothing to do with Me.

wandering lost I find my way

lost in the way I find the

ordinary. Looking for my glasses.

Below is a Text I sent to a friend this morning who asked me for my thoughts on how to get a little perspective on today, Election Day in the U.S.

“First off, we are no longer able to go back to any kind of normal. Varieties of turbulence will influence the rest of our lives. We are not really, for some time into the future, able to just navigate through some sort of seasonal storm. The whole world is facing a Climate crisis. The actual “climate” and the social climate will alter slowly for the most part but us comfortable one’s will feel the change more deeply.
So we have navigate through New changing conditions that will resemble our former comfort zone less and less.
Yet, here we are. This has happened to many societies in the past, we can read about that, it’s kind of banal big-picture wise, but with real climate change happening behind the scenes, so to speak, because we’re so fixated on politics and social/cultural conditions…

The only way out is the way in.

These are the times when we have to be very practical and along with that explore what may be the meaning of a True Refuge. Maybe it’s time to see what’s past/beyond, ‘Oh, God! Help me get through this year/election/relationship/ skin infection blah blah blah…’ And, participate in changing how we look at the world, because obviously if we saw things more clearly we would not be as frightened.
So, I recommend trying to sit still several times each day and when the fear and tension arise, notice it; look at it and ask. ‘What is there to learn from this?’ Its actually not fear, it’s an uncomfortable pointing to something that is inevitably a teaching for our own good.
God is not fucking with us. He/She is just asking that we try to look without our personal interests being the main objective of our daily life.
Quit asking why you’re not happy, start examining the nature of your dissatisfaction with the World, as constituted.
I’m not being mean here, that’s how I have to talk to myself in order to begin to clear up the fogs caused by the Universe not being answerable to my deepest wish for me not to be uncomfortable..

(Although I am offered the choice of trying to be still. slight addition for blog)

I hope that parses ok, cause I ain’t re-reading it. It’s too long”

Life is hard and then we die

Life is easy and then we die

We are born and then we die

We make choices and decisions

And then we die. The choices and

Decisions are what we leave behind, so

It seems they often need some help,

The kindness of strangers.