I am not so certain that any choice we make really matters all that much, unless that choice is one of conscience. If the choice is one of conscience and we go against that which we know to be right we upset the balance of our psyche and feed the dark and broken parts until they consume our identity, energy and spirit. But if the choice is mundane-- what shall i eat for breakfast? What should i do with my life? In the large scheme of things, does it make that much difference?

Most people will see breakfast versus major life decisions as being vastly separate, but i am not so sure there is any major upset in the world because one decides to be a bar tender, a truck driver or a physician. This of course assumes that each profession does not compromise the conscience of the chooser. If i wake up and wear blue, it may change the world on this day, but had i worn red would not someone else have worn blue?

Balances and imbalances will exist despite our efforts one way or the other. This is not to say we should not strive; striving is the path of life. However, when one struggles with choices which are irrelevant as if they are life or death, all that is accomplished is a focus on minutia which rob us of true choices, balance, our happiness, the moment, and if we are not careful, life.

If we turn towards self when faced with choice of conscious, ignoring higher truths around us, we will not live in peace for we will have not sought to make the right choice, only the right choice for ourselves. Were truth mutable by perception this would not be such a bad thing, but though we may influence our perception of reality and thus popularly participate in its creation, we are only participating in the creation of our perception of what is out there and not in the creation of what actually is out there.

I laid in bed last night as the diesel rumbled and the remembered sound of crunching metal mixed with flashing red and blue and occasional shouts for this or that. Flashlights frantically searched the nearby yards for any sign of survivors. It was a bad night for all. Worse for others and the day still found workmen cleaning up the aftermath.

I heard it happen and went out to see what could be done. i did not notice the missing signs. i did not find the car nor the bodies which mysteriously hid from me. I wasn't even sure that it was a crash. There was no breaking glass in that horrifically loud crunch. No squeal of tire. It was 3:54. I was outside and still needed to get dressed. The night was silent and nothing seemed out of place. Must have been somewhere else, I thought almost out loud. I went back inside.

The fire department is just a few blocks down the road. They must have heard it too and rolled a fire engine. I don't know why i did not find it first. I think there was nothing to be done. A paramedic called out for a bag and i crawled back to bed.

I was talking to my father tonight about a problem he is trying to solve in a group of psychologists. It seems that they have some wrong ideas about healing people and are causing a bit of harm along the way. They cannot see it and are offended that he would suggest their methods are off base…they feel judged.

The problem is one of Ego getting in the way of correction. It is “wounding” to hear that they are not correct in their methods—he should not judge their techniques—after all they have signed on to a very popular program…the problem is, none of them have the ability to discern that their perspective is warped by their desire to be right. Whenever ego gets in the way of being corrected it is an indicator that the ego does not really know who it is—this is to say that if you must be right, you are placing your sense of self-worth in your knowledge and accomplishment and not in your intrinsic self.

In a recent discussion of Christianity where I was postulating that there is such a thing as a true Christian--someone who actually believes and acts as they espouse (the same could be said of any religion-where the actions lived match the stated conviction)--the response came back, “yes, but they are actually Buddhists”. I think this is probably true if you get right down to it. In all cases the ego is not in the way. Self has not been deprecated but has been identified as separate from ones circumstance and ability, be it spiritual or otherwise, and therefore has not been improperly raised to a hidden and unrealized glorification of self.

The correctable self is the stronger self. Correction is learning, not weakness.

The true value of self is not found in what is known or not known; it is not found in what is believed or not believed; it is not found in ability nor in talent. The true value of a being is found in full participation in, and of, life. Beyond the turning to that which is divine and the participation of spirit and soul, and perhaps even mind, in a greater collective it boils down to this: survival of self versus survival of all. The weaker of us strive for the former, but the true self recognizes that survival of self values more, even requires, the latter.

she's called the summer rain
in beauty she does rage
till come on autumn's wind
lays ice on branch to cold assuage

dormant lies the bud and bloom
soon enough their spring will rise
radiant sun sweet life exhume
pour your gold and winter lyse

now bring me summer's heat
with deep'ning green erstwhile
herein my cool retreat
returns my heart from hard exile

I walk barefoot through the field
Feeling the grass between my toes
As I walk alongside the gentle stream
I want to skip with you by my side
Listening, together, to the sound
Of eternity, this rippling brook,
And of birds.

Were all time laid out before me
I wonder if I might recognize
The things which,
When taken alone,
Seemed not so important
Or so very important,
To be but blades
which bend in the breeze;
And might the tiny moments
(I took them for mere buds while racing along)
Have been the sprouting of acorns
Now forests grown and shelter
For song, bird,
Or perhaps, even,
A silver flower?

Might the minutes gone be reclaimed?
Some beautiful flicker of light?
A glint off of the eye of God
Giving meaning to my loss?
And the coin, which I carelessly spent, comes again?
Here do I rejoice
Not as a pauper, not as a vagabond,
But as a wanderer, once lost, finally home.

It is midnight, that moment between yesterday and today and i sit here with a choice to make: Do i ponder yesterday, find some musing about where i have been, or do i consider tomorrow and think about where i am going?

Initially i find that i am left floating in between because i ponder something other than this moment. Remembering and planning has a time and when it is to be, it is best done firmly in the now. Should i reconsider yesterday, i must do it from this moment--not dwell in some lost opportunity wearing heavy regret nor recalling some great triumph in which to rest--no, the considering must be the action of the moment...and if i plan tomorrow, perhaps even try to figure out the way events will unfold and line contingencies for each variable, it must again be the action of this moment and not some living in tomorrow which i carelessly (and all too easily) exchange for living in the now. This moment. This midnight.

Peace
Donan

It is a simple thing to say "All will be well." It is quite another thing to hear it. And yet another entirely to stand when the sky is falling, to persist, sustain, survive.

And then, eventually, comes a time to collapse--to let the stars shatter the ground as dust chokes the eye and blots out the sun, if only for a short while. My prayer is that when the world changes and all that once made sense is obscured, you land in the arms of someone who cares and, there, find comfort.

it could be spring for all i know
were i to let my memory pass
and take this day
without those which have gone before it.
or perhaps it's a cool summer day--
the leaves are certainly green enough
and the light is beautiful today
but here, the sun is a bit low:
this must be the fall in that time
before the trees have figured it out
and turned their leaves
to yellow and crimson
presenting themselves as authors
of their new dreamworld
and they, children, with bright crayons
and free imaginations
not ready to drop their foliage
nor surrender to the harsh winter.
it could be spring for all i know

I am not sure what forever is--perhaps some construct we have modeled in our linear minds to describe something about which we, trapped in this moment, know nothing. Yet we almost all believe we can extrapolate the future from what we perceive to be our past with the understanding that time moves along this narrow defined line.

It is a circular definition that we use to measure time. We define the speed of light (or any other force by which we could measure time) a constant, and quanitfy time, not by the force itself, but by something which we believe to occur at a fixed rate--but does it really? Or is it simply illumined by this force which we barely touch and, though we have named it, cannot hold, observe or even define. Sure, you can watch the atomic clock, but can you actually watch an instant?  What is a moment?

But it is not so simple as this if all time exists, particularly, if time is not linear at all. Perhaps we live tomorrow separate from this line, infinite turnings on some continuum most of which this little line in my head will never touch. Can we ever fully know tomorrow if we do not even stop and know today?

To quantify a basal unit of time could be the next really big discovery in the realm of physics. I am not certain that such a unit exists, but there are enough clues in things in the known physical universe (such as intertwined particles which, inexplicably, alter simultaneously independent of distance between them), which indicate that there are other forces at work than those explained via yesterdays simple forces to suggest to me that such might exist, that something more must exist. It may be, for instance, that the reason gravity is so weak compared to other forces is that it is, like time, a ubiquitous force and we only sense a small portion of it. Were we to look at gravity in light of time, we might see it as the monumental force that logic tells us that it should be. Perhaps time itself is unmeasured because we have only encountered one unit of it and for such reason do not recognize the pull. I suppose that time will tell ;-)

 

I watched a deer startle at the discovery of my presence; I held still and it slowly resumed grazing—this, without fear. Here is the essence of life in the moment; and I need to see this for I sometimes forget to set aside the past and instead dwell in some moment where I am no longer living—this I let frame my moment and occasionally even my happiness.

The frame of tomorrow and this moment must be laid in tomorrow and this moment. I respect the past and remember for yesterday is the foundation on which I build today, but I do not belong to it and the startling events of yesterday cannot own me unless I lie beaten, a faded shadow of humanity, and do not live today. Here today I stand on top of a mountain of yesterdays and from this height I can see plainly that it is a good day to graze on the beauty of life.