I sure have been crabby lately.

A deep need to scuttle along ocean floor, searching and seeking and looking just not very patiently.

And, I have no idea what I’m looking for. So, a good clue that I need to take refuge in all the things I’ve set aside to make room for worry and doubt and hesitancy. Later this week I’m going up to our Monastery at Mt. Shasta to spend a little time with the monks in their daily activity and let things settle down a bit, within.

These past two years have been variously difficult for everyone I know or have come into contact with, and my presumption is that many people just didn’t have the necessary tools at hand to help them cope with change, pending disaster, upheaval of the norm and all the ‘usual’ unpleasantness. What I didn’t notice was that my presumption of having tools nearby and at hand did not mean that I was reaching for or using them in a useful way for my circumstances.

I recognize that approaching life and its offerings as something to be manipulated by tools one has acquired, is pretty shallow, yet can be useful and necessar, although a bit like driving with one flat tire because three can still get you there, and when things get worse, fix it all. That feels like a strategy, almost a solution, albeit temporary; yet it is merely avoiding. Compounding delusions later on by following hope.

Even so, we can acquire skills, outlooks, practices and ways of doing, being and thinking, that may move us in the right direction when distracted, lost or dreaming. Help and outlook can provide us with practices and ways of doing that influence our being and thinking into more kind and helpful lives. Helpful and kind to others and ourselves, perhaps in equal measure.

I have noticed and it has come to my attention (subtle differences in applicability), that when one of my tires gets low I will adjust my driving for a time out of compensatory driving habits, but at some point I continue as it gets more noticeable and just hope it gets better, or there is a gas station/service center ahead…The tire may then go flat and my choices are still the same and have greater probability for real disaster, if I continue on in just pure hope and a sense of luck.

Better to stop and wait for some help. I have been down this road before…There’s a fair amount of local traffic.

I wait by the roadside, a warm evening

Ticking sounds as the engine

Cools down and I remember

A bottle of water I have and

Go and check the Owners Manual

And “How to Fix a Flat”