Category: Meditation

I Can’t / I Can

Meditating and calming is hard today. My heart is with Dallas. My heart is with the people the police killed. My heart is with the officers and family killed by snipers.

I can’t digest the reasons a traffic stop ends in death. “I have a gun. I’m permitted to carry it.” Four shots later, dead. Some witnesses say the shots were fired before the officer finished saying. It’s contested. John Scalzi writes what I think. I can’t imagine, I can imagine, I can remember moments when an officer confronted me, but I never thought about being shot and killed. I’m white and male. It’s a different world for me.

Police are called to a convenience store. A black man is outside. Police arrive, confront him, taser him, wrestle him to the crowd. They see a gun. Bang. The narrative is contested. No one is agreeing about what happened, about what videos showed, about who remembers what.

Black people are being killed for broken tail lights. Shot in the back eight times while running away. Because they’re a threat.

Protests break out. Trials, investigations, inquiries are conducted and almost every time, from small black child with a toy gun to people tasered and on the ground, the results return, “It was justified.” The officer feared…. The officer followed proper procedures….

So, who is surprised? Someone else says, “I’m fucking tired of this. I’m fighting back. I’m taking it to them. See how they like it when they’re shot and killed without provocation, because they’re not the ones who did anything, but the system is rigged and has provoked me to this response.” And they get up there and start shooting at officers.

How many trigger words are in those sentences I wrote that people would contest? Many, many. We ‘know’ more violence isn’t the answer but we ‘know’ that nothing has been changed to protect people from being shot and killed by a good guy, bad guy, or police officer, with a gun. We know fear is rising. Imagine being a police officer right now. Imagine being a black person. Imagine being in Dallas when the shots are fired. Imagine being in a car and reaching for your wallet when shots are fired.

There will be responses. There will be posts like this. There will be prayers and pious statements that our hearts are with the victims, whether they’re officers or citizens, of this rising streak of violent death by guns, as I wrote in my first paragraph, as I, weary of these dire headlines and violence, struggle to understand. The NRA will remain silent. They’ve learned not to speak out at these moments. Bad PR. Others will make foolish statements. Some will challenge and mock, “See, those fucking police officers were good guys with guns.”

Yeah.

Reading the officers’ accounts of going into Orlando after that mass shooting – how many days ago? –  they tell of the darkness and uncertainty in the club, of going through carefully to find the shooter. Add some good guys with guns shooting at what they think is the bad gun with a gun into that charged environment of darkness and uncertainty.

But we know the future. There will be protests. Marches. Calls for change. Petitions. Blog posts. Prayers. Statements. Maybe sit-ins. Gun sales will rise again.

We know the future. Just look to the past. You don’t need to travel far.

Just travel to June.

 

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Something Had Hold of Me

Affirmations, meditations,

nothing seemed to work

sleeping, eating, drinking,

nothing seemed to work

trying, hoping, begging,

nothing seemed to work

something had hold of me

something let me go

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Blueberry Picking

I’m excited, I’ll admit. Love fruit, and blueberries top my list. We have a local place where we pick organic blueberries and buy them for two dollars a pound.

It’s just outside the town’s southside, a ten minute drive. A hot cuppa coffee in hand, we leave about 6:30, me, my wife, and our neighbor, Barb. Barb and Walt introduced us to this habit about eight years ago, I guess. I have photos of the first year’s harvest. The morning air reminds us we’re in the mountains, and higher mountains are not far, providing nature’s air conditioning.

Arriving at the gate under the sprawling trees at the end of the dirt road by the creek, we wait for the opening at seven. Our car will probably be tenth in line or so, and we’ll sit, sipping coffee and chatting until the gate opens. When it does, the cars will be motioned forward, one by one, and directed to a parking space on the lawn to the right. Collecting our gear, we’ll move toward the next queue by the bridge over the creek.

Our gear is gallon jugs with cutouts in their tops. Besides it, we have buckets. Strapping them to ourselves with rope, belts or bungee cords, we wear the jugs and pick, then return to the buckets and fill them. We’ll do this for one to two hours on Saturday morning, collecting eight to ten pounds of berries. Affected by the weather, especially the moisture and heat factors, predicting the crop and harvests is difficult. You usually don’t know until you get there.

It’s a meditative practice. Out there with caws crowing, jays arguing, and woodpeckers hammering, the air feels scrubbed pollution free. A church-like ambiance shrouds the activities as the sun slips through and over the trees and mountains. Spotting deer strolling by or eating isn’t uncommon.

Then more people arrive. Children arrive. Daylight grows stronger. The air warms. Chattering rises. I eavesdrop on conversations about office politics, vacation plans, family updates, pending weddings, and ‘whatever happened to’ updates. I do a lot of thinking and some writing in my head.

About sixty people will be on the field by the time we leave, with others coming and going. It’s still meditative, reflective, picking berries in a swarm of living, on an early Saturday morning, in the mountains.

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Turbulence

Bounced around the spectrum yesterday and today, pissed off at the world, frustrated, tired. Buckle up, I’m in for a bumpy ride.

I’m not certain which spectrum I’m addressing. The spectrum of happiness, satisfaction, or self-actualization. This could just be a broader spectrum, the ‘life’ spectrum.

Reading others’ blogs and posts, I see many battling similar conditions and why not? How many billions of humans live on Earth right now?

The best way to describe it is that I feel out of sync, with rough energy that escapes my control. Feeling this, coping with it, I wonder about cause and effect. Maybe it’s boredom, or weariness with routines of food, people, drink, habits. Is it my diet, I ask, thinking through it, searching for the food or drink that may have poisoned my spirit, or perhaps I’m experiencing a nutritional deficit or chemical imbalance. Is it hormones from my time of life, month or year? Maybe the world is just too much with me of late, and I’m suffering news fatigue, or digital fatigue. Would I be this way, I query myself, were I richer or poorer? If I was richer, could I escape myself by booking travel to a island somewhere, or someplace ‘fun’, or use shopping therapy? If I was poorer, would more critical concerns distract me?

I don’t know. I can play those games and search for answers but this is an emotional condition, not logical, not a product of intelligent thinking, but a product of emotions. What triggers these emotional switches, and why is it so much deeper now? I ponder the birthday aspect, coming up on one, and whether the stars, moons and planets – or other energies we don’t know – afflict me, conjuring up Twilight Zone and Outer Limit scenes of aliens, ghosts or Gods toying with me. It’s all in bright, fuzzy black and white.

Meditation and affirmations help. Don’t know how dark I’d be without them. I’ll go walking. Walking, with its combination of distracting my thinking and emotions, but also stimulating me with the chemicals the physical activity produces, will help. It will give me time to be by myself, and that may just be the issue here.

I want to be alone.

For a while.

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Sliding

I’m sliding along the spectrum of emotions today. The spectrum itself is on a fulcrum. The slightest shift tips it sliding one way or the other.

Some are wild slides. I slip from depression to elation to bitterness and frustration, zing zing zing. Exhausting, but I’m older, experienced in my mind and body’s ways, and have some sense this will pass. Last night and the early morning both had me sliding toward the spectrum’s darker end. Self-pity and regret stifled my breathing. Reading helped me out.

I’ve not been reading much, I thought, then corrected, I’ve been reading non-fiction and news, but not fiction. So I retreated into The Signature of All Things. I started reading it a month ago. I added new books to my tower of reading and realized I needed to finish Signature before permitting new reading. A book of a woman reaching understanding of herself and heartbreak, the novel enabled some quiet reflection and delivered new insights into me and my existence.

I believe this mood will pass, recognizing it for one of the more prolonged types of funks that sometimes shroud me. They’ve always passed before, prompting speculation about what sort of guarantees that provide (none), but it does give some expectations, and helps me stay upright as I slide along.

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Luminicious

Opened the blinds a little before six AM and then set about doing items and prepping for meditation. Without much thought, the angle, release, came to me for my meditation. Deciding what that meant and how to apply it, I headed back toward the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast while pondering what held me that I wanted release.

Sunshine billowed in from the east in a golden blast that filled the room. It looked so luminicious. Such a wonderful sight, I thought, yes, release. Release. Let it all go, don’t worry, trouble and struggle. Release. Breathe deep, take in the sunshine, join the moment and release.

Release. Just let myself not worry.

Release, and don’t let myself be anxious. Dismiss that ugly fuzzy energy within. Let it go.

Release. Just let myself feel good.

Release. Flow with the day, and it’ll carry me.

Release.

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Drift

I’m drifting this morning, unable to meditate, unable to determine why.

Fidgeting through home worries (animals under the house, egads), the cats (what can I do to end these small wars) and my wife’s health, I drift.

Thinking about the weather and the wildfires down south in California, I drift.

Contemplating the economy, housing market and POTUS election, I drift.

Recalling the Stellar Queen, which returned to me after lo these many years (there’s a book, there, Return of the Stellar Queen!), I drift.

Wishing for the ocean and a shore of spray, longing to smell the sea and hear its thunder, I drift.

Listening to the jays and the crows calling and arguing, and the neighbors starting their cars and driving off, I drift.

Recalling enjoyable companions and amber moments of my life, I drift.

Giving up on meditation (for now) I drift into the kitchen and make coffee.

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Promises

I awoke after a night of wild dreams, and dined on them as I rubbed the sleep away. Nothing nourishing was gleaned from the noshing.

Cats fed (first thing, other than some body functions – it’s in the cats’ contracts), meditation complete, I enjoy hot coffee and cool air with warm sunshine under a velvet blue egg sky. Energies are up, spirits are up.

They fertilize plans. Early morning yard work, writing (well, editing….), of course, some light housework…who knows what else?

This day is making some fine promises.

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I am One

Went  with the ‘I am One’ with everything meditation today.

Sometimes I feel rattled and unsettled, searching for something in myself. Personal matters gnaw me. The Orlando murders probably escalated my need. I’ve already been feeling disturbed and frustrated with the pending Trump nomination. From what I see of his supporters, (and recognizing that I’m minimizing and stereotyping them, which doesn’t help anyone), they’re shallow, hateful people, without solutions, but ready to attack anyone different from them. They see the world in black and white, and want to protect “what’s theirs”. Immature and bullying, a master of playground name-calling, Trump feeds their anger and fires up crazy dreams that he can be POTUS and change their shit. But their festering shit is inside them. No POTUS can change that.

My questioning of them makes me question myself. Some say, “Better Trump than Hillary, who is a lying capitalist thief,” and I think, What? Where do they get their information? She isn’t perfect, but I trust my information (probably as they trust their information, we’re into such a destructive, widening cycle), even if I keep challenging my information. Full disclosure, I’m a Bernie Man. I support Black Lives Matter and the Occupy movement. I support strong pubic education, a single payer universal health care system, feminism and the ERA. I support equal rights for everyone, period, and I want automatic weapons banned from civilian ownership in America. I despise the wealthy 1% and decry the trend toward consumerism, which drives misguided values into arguing things like, “Let’s not building affordable housing because it will pull down property values.” I can’t stand animal abuse. Torture sickens me, and it doesn’t worry. People who do things because they’re fearful worry me. So do people who quickly abandon their principles and critical thinking.

The ‘I am One’ helps calm, relax and restore me, returning me to my center of balance. I am One, I think, and then count the manner and items with which I’m one. I’m one with my future, present and past self, I am one with my physical, mental and emotional self. I am one.

Then I reach out to my surroundings, imagining myself one with my house — the walls, paint, wires, pipes, roof, foundation — and all its materials, and the furnishings. I extend myself out in ever growing circles, imagining myself as one with the surrounding yard, plants and grass, the trees, expanding to my town and its people, animals, and construction, reaching for the rivers and lakes, and the coastal waters, imagining myself as one with the sun and the seas, the moon and the star, eternity and infinity, and all the energies they encompass.

Many probably accuse me of being full of New Age woo-woo fuzzy gooeyness. And I laugh, and I meditate. (They stopped reading long ago, anyway.) Then, feeling restored and closer to being centered and balanced again, I go on. I don’t have answers, but I have a better sense of who I am.

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The Morning Chant

no fear

no doubt

no anger

no resentment

no bitterness

no hatred

no frustration

no pessimism

no sickness

no illness

no disease

no poverty

no starvation

no war

no killing

no apathy

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