I need to be creating something, starting something that unlocks the cage. Creative energy is in short supply these days, and so we keep getting the same old same old. I’m done with the same old same old.
It was hot today, and I don’t do well in extreme heat. It was hot in Alaska, and when I looked at the eagle’s live feed from Glacier Park in Juneau, they were both panting. Technically it’s not panting, it’s termoregulation, but it looks a lot like panting. Mother and baby both breathing rapidly, beaks open, nearly still.
When I ventured out a little while ago with the dog, it was still sweltering. The kind of hot where nothing moves, there is no breeze, even the sound from an airplane miles up didn’t make it down to me.
I need to be creating something. I don’t know what that might be, so I’m trying to open myself to whatever might be coming. My chest feels a bit tight, the way it sometimes feels when I’m getting ready to go on a trip or take some journey. I hope I’m right about this, and not suffering from a case of indigestion or something.
My conference finished up today. It was a virtual conference, and for some reason I was more worn out when it was over than I’ve ever been when it’s been face-to-face. We were supposed to be in Milwaukee this year, but instead everyone was in their own little corner of the universe.
The virtual offering is not the same as being in-person. There are nuances of moods and energy that you can’t get from a computer screen. Nonetheless, I got a good deal of energy from a few dynamic speakers and workshops, and I’m vibrating just a bit. I’m ready to implement some of these good ideas, ready to paint a building or build a house. I just need to drain some of the excess energy.
My mother’s birthday was Friday, so I had more than a few thoughts of her, and how I’d always enjoyed shopping for the perfect birthday present for her. She was very picky with fashions and jewelry, so I had gotten in the habit of including the sales receipt in the gift. She took back quite a lot of things, for various reasons, usually because she thought what I’d gotten was too expensive.
My mother spent a lifetime of depriving herself of pleasurable things. She saved and saved and saved, doing without a lot of things because she didn’t really need them. I attributed that to her being a child of the Great Depression. She was born in 1935, and from what I know, there were many times when they didn’t have enough of anything.
I am not a child of the Great Depression, and so I have always been a free spender, even when I had far less to work with than I do now. To my dismay, I have wasted a lot of money on things I have no use for, things that seemed like a good idea at the time, things I lost interest in soon after acquiring them. I’m not sure what to make of that, but it frustrates me a bit now because I don’t feel as though I have much of anything to show for my life.
I need to be creating something. My thoughts frequently hover over the grandiose, the attention-getting, the flashy projects. Projects that will result in…I don’t know what. Projects that will make a difference…I don’t know how. But I want to be doing something that matters.
My interests for the past several years have consisted of justice, equity, fair-play. I am nearly obsessed with justice, but I came to the conclusion a few years ago that I didn’t know what justice really is. Sometimes it seems to be retribution, other times it’s revenge, but impact is never removed. The wound is slow to heal, and no amount of pay-back will take away the pain.
I have a strong sense of fair-play, and it gets under my skin when circumstances are very apparently unfair. I hate seeing situations where it’s not possible to win, where the rules are so obviously slanted to favor other people. How in the world can I set the scales level in those situations?
Some of what I heard during the conference this past week has given me a little direction, or at least reminders. To make a big difference, you have to keep at it. You have to believe. Believe that you can make a difference, believe that your efforts will eventually add up to a difference. Faith without works is dead, so you just have to work your butt off and believe.
It’s often hard to know whether or not your work is oriented correctly, so you have to pay close attention to unintended impact. Setting out to help people without including them in the effort is simply disrespectful. I’ve been taught to ask people in dire circumstances what would help them most rather than what I want them to have. Over the years, I’ve heard many times that you have to meet people where they are, and not where you want them to be.
I try very hard to not be arrogant or haughty, but sometimes things come out of my mouth that surprise even me. Things hiding in the crevices of my consciousness, some buried resentment or hurt that I have not dealt with can result in a backhanded insult blowing past all of my filters. I hate that, because at times I’ve hurt people. More importantly, though, I have not been terribly happy with myself.
These days, I am working on living more intentionally, trying to pause before I open my mouth. It’s very hard to do that. When I’m excited, my mind and mouth run at the speed of sound. My rational mind and my discretion is several paces behind, however. This does not serve me all that well.
I’m sure there are medications and mood stabilizers that ight help me with that, slow me down just a bit. But I’m not willing to take any more medication. Right now, I’m trying to use meditation and mindfulness to keep me self-aware. The runaway mouth is a lot better than it used to be, but I still manage to stick my foot in it from time to time.
I don’t know exactly what I’m doing with all this writing and journaling. It does help me to get more clarity on the soup that’s bubbling in my cranium, but am I just avoiding doing other things? I’m not sure, but I suppose I don’t have much else to do.
Right now, I’m going to stop watching the news in a bit. There is a condo collapse in Dade County Florida, a place called Surfside I believe. Nine stories of the the complex just crumpled to the crowd, pancake style. Nine stories reduced to the space for probably one. People’s lives strewn all over the parking lot and the street, walls that once sheltered and contained them now open to everything. More people are missing than have been declared dead, and families of the missing are understandably beside themselves with worry and helplessness. It’s a horrid place to find yourself.
When people abruptly find themselves in the worst of situations, many dig their heels in, stand tall, and call upon some inner reserve to do battle with whatever is before them. There are times when all hope is lost, and even a miracle seems impossible. Sometimes the miracle comes, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s kind of a crap shoot.
Having seen bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to some very bad people, I do not believe that living well nets you any shield from catastrophe. I believe there are some esoteric parts of our lives here, mostly invisible to us and entirely not understood by us. Who knows how and why certain things befall people, good or bad.
There are a lot of people who put forth the idea that nothing is accidental, and that we bring to ourselves everything we experience. If we go bankrupt, there is something in us, on some esoteric level, that has called that to us. If we find the love of our lives, some hidden part of our makeup has called that as well.
For me, there is some spiritual level that I know is not settled, is not in synch with everything else about me. That chaotic and unsteady energy field is what I believe yields such erratic results in my life. I need to manifest peace and abundance deep inside to have my outsides match my insides. Or something like that.
I need to be creating something, where the sky is green and the grass is blue, where the sun is purple and the moon really is cheese. I want to be curious and see the unexpected, the unbelievable, the inexplicable. It would be a wonderful thing to see other people’s reality for a time, just to change my perspective. I want o have some of my questions answered, the ones that I don’t let on to anyone else. I want to know if this is all going to end well. Ultimately, I want to know the future, but I don’t think that’s going to work.
Desire is what fuels everything. If we didn’t want things, we’d never move. If I want to use the bathroom, I have to get up and go there. I can’t sit here and think how nice it would be to go but never move. If I want justice to exist in my reality, I can’t just talk about it and read about it or watch movies about it. I have to get up and move toward the injustice, not away from it. But I can’t sit still and get lost in my thoughts about how great it would be to have justice, while doing nothing.
I’m thinking everything is going to be all right, but as I have said many times, I don’t know what all right looks like. It could be right now, but I have expectation that it will look far more glamorous. Because I’m on the lookout for the glamorous experience, I could miss the all right place. Sometimes I truly do miss the forest for the trees.
In recovery work, and in some New Age exploration that I’ve done, I are told that everything is exactly as it should be right now. That doesn’t mean it’s all right for me, or that I have everything I want. It could mean that everything is not about me, and that in the larger picture there’s a balance of good things and not so good things. Sometimes it’s my turn to get not so good things, and someone else get the good things. Sooner or later, it all turns around. When you’re down on the wheel, you can only go upward from there.
Let’s roll the wheel, then. I’m ready. I’m ready to let it all work the way it is supposed to work, and not how I want it to work. Ready to do whatever I came here to do. Just ready to create something.
The Sound Hole 