Woke up early this morning to the refreshing sound of rain, A real rain. It continued for several hours. The drought here is taken in stride by most people since there isn’t a whole lot you can do about drought. However,you can do something about how you relate to the conditions that a drought brings on; but the drought is a drought.

I’ve a similar experience with my personal drought. I’ve had to work at relearning how to correctly relate to the conditions of my life. The conditions being all those things that  comprise the daily ins and outs and ups and downs of life. How do I get the correct perspective on those conditions? For me, the most helpful things is to notice two things: One, that no matter what the condition is, pleasant or unpleasant, it will change. Two, that most conditions are merely information upon which I have a huge array of choices as regards action, or non-action.

The same is true of weather reports. They are just information, on which, most of it I don’t really have to react or respond to, too vigorously, if at all. So, as I get more and more information about the weather in my life and how I respond to it, I begin to build a picture of the CLIMATE wherein I exist/live. This becomes very useful information because I’m the one who has created the climate of my life by how I respond to the weather in it.

Yeah. I know. Typical tortured metaphor, but then I never metaphor I didn’t like. Or a really cheap pun, as it turns out.

Anyway, life is interesting again in an engaging way and it should be an interesting Winter.

These next few weeks I’m going to actively start looking for a place to live, short-term until late Spring, at which point I think I’ll know more as to decision regarding where I want to invest my energy and life. At  this point I haven’t a clue but I’m still very drawn to the Inland Northwest, and that’s a lot of room.

I’m feeling wave-tossed

And a bit windblown.

Floating and circling

Around the center of

My life, mind and heart.

What does that mean?

A few days ago after a couple of conversations with people that I take refuge in (monks), I felt a load lift. It was an old load that I’ve carried around for a very, very long time. Longer than I can remember; it’s sometimes a part of me and other times I want to get rid of it, because i feel the weight.

Yet, yet. I also know that there is nothing I need to excise or get rid of, but there are some things that could use a fresh view and closer seeing/looking on my part.

So it was, and I feel less dis-eased. “What a difference a day makes”, as the old song title would have it: “Twenty-four little hours brought the sun and the flowers. where there used to be rain…” (toss up between whose version was better; Dinah Washington or Little Anthony?), yes this too shall pass, and return again in a slightly different form.

I do need to see all the facets of this jewel it seems.

Tomorrow I return to temple full-time(ish) and look forward to buckling down a little in my practice. At this point I foresee maybe a couple of months there, but time and situation will determine things. I may want to get a little job at some point or find a to great to pass up deal elsewhere in regard to a living situation in this super-tight and expensive real estate market; but mostly I want to drop my little plans and designs for a while and just abide and allow things to develop without all my effing input.

Cheesh! I can be a load.

Today I am very grateful and content. So many nice, honest, compassionate people in my life and I persist in worrying about unessential things. Oh, well.

I do look forward to tomorrow though.

Another day to try and do better.

What could be better?

Nothing, that’s what!

It’s been a while since I last posted because I seem to be adrift. With the move, then the temporary settling into the temple, then the two weeks house sitting (and dog and cat caring), and then back to the temple; for not too long I’ve since decided, because I feel I need more freedom of movement. I need to be flexible so that I can find some part-time work that interests me and have the time and space to pursue some other interests as well, and have time for some traveling that I wish to do in the Fall/Winter.

So, up in the air.

It’s not a place I particularly like being at this point in my life but it is not incongruent with my over-all situation. There is a real need, though to go very carefully and mindfully in any directions I decide on because I am at a point, too, where I can probably get into screwy places just by virtue of the fact of being at loose ends. Attaching to the temple and the monk who is there is a good firm foundation for me and I see I have lots to learn and lots that I’ve “learned” that bears deeper scrutiny and more meditation. 

I’ve also been going back to more AA meetings because they too provide a solid anchor that has served so well in my and Linda’s life; after all that’s where we met and without which we would not have been able to cobble together a reasonable life.

The process of facing my yearning and neediness shortly before and after Linda’s death continues and is still uncomfortable because even though I can swallow some tough truths about myself; they do take time to digest fully.

A process it is.

Today I’m waiting to hear from a friend who I was supposed to visit this morning up in Napa, but it turns out the earthquake that woke me in the early hours of Sunday (It actually centered in American Canyon where I worked for almost ten years), did a lot of damage to his house and the section of downtown Napa where we were going to have lunch; so I offered to come up and help for a few hours, but I expect I’ll be more in the way since the whole are has difficulties with water and various services that have been curtailed by the damage, California; fires earthquakes and drought.

I’m sure there are various sects of crazy people all nodding their heads and and praying for more of the same for the heathen liberal left wing communist,bla-bla-blah Californians. Ad nauseum.

Anyway, my friend just called and I’m going up to Napa for a couple of hours just to say hello. I started to sponsor him in AA over 25 years ago and we developed a long time friendship, so this is a good thing to do.

More tomorrow, hopefully….

Air tossed, I fly.

It is not freeing. 

Causes looking

and then seeing.

.

This is a note on my fridge. A loose quote from Shantideva. It is to remind me that when I suffer (feel uncomfortable in a wide range of feelings),  I better take a close look and see how I got there. Mostly I can see that I Got There. It didn’t come up on me.