#gratitudeNow:Pause, Repeat

So I was freaking myself out this morning.  

Panic cat is panicking.

I'm learning this shiny, new-to-me technical thing at work.  I largely understand it, but I keep bumping up against little pieces of it that don't make sense to me, and then spinning myself out into a frothy mix of panic, anxiety, and doomsaying.

Then I got pinged by my friend Matti, who was asking me to remind him of the 4 Necessities.  That is, the four things I have told him before that are absolutely mandatory and which you cannot help but to do them.  Talking to him about them reminded me that they apply to me too.

Here they are:

1. You must exist. Because you already do. If you're questioning whether you have to or not, WHO'S DOING THE ASKING?
2. You must age.  Because you are. You're moving forward in time, 1 second per second, relentlessly. Can't stop it.
3. You must change. Because you do. Literally every moment of every day. The you of 3 three minutes ago is different at a molecular level, even if it's only partially.
4. You must, eventually, die.  Because like all living things, you will.

Every other single thing except these 4 things is utterly and completely optional.

Whew.  I'm glad he asked me to remind him.  I needed the reminder myself.  Now that it's on my mind, I'm able to step back from my full-on-freak-out and see that I don't have to doubt myself.  I can just put my head down and move forward as best I can.

Mindfulness is work.  Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to it.

#gratitudeNow:Feed the soul

I’m doing something today I haven’t done in literally years.  I’m at lunch, and working on a writing project. 

I don’t want to get into exactly WHAT that project is.  But I just want to say how very glad I am that I’m doing it.  I had put my fiction work on hold for other reasons, for a while now. 

But I’m trying something new.  This is as a means to not ignore this vital part of my life.  It’s a new way to write, and to perform, and to make money too.  Making money at it is important to me both as a validation of the work itself, and also as a personal validation of the time I’m making to do this.  My time is precious.  I’m glad to see the value of using it again for this.

I’m thrilled about the whole thing.

#gratitudeNow:Heart of Palm

So, I've had some stuff going on.

I could regale you, constant reader, with a catalog of woe.  But it doesn't matter.  Some of the stuff is intensely private, and not about me, either.  So, I'm going to mostly keep that part to myself.

Yesterday, I had a really hard conversation that I've needed to have with someone close to me, for a while.  I've been dealing with some family illness issues too.  And, I'm about to have a veritable tornado of dental misadventures.  Heavy, right?

But this morning, I feel good.  Amazing, in fact.

Why?  Because of part of my mindful practice.  There's this thing I do, that I learned in part from Pema Chodron, in part from Alan Watts, and in part just from my own experience: I bend.

The kind of bending I'm talking about is similar to how palm trees on tropical islands bend, during a storm.

A hurricane comes through, and it will not be stopped.

So, instead of standing tall and proud, proof against the storm, these wily things get pushed down.  Then, when the storm's done, they pop right back up.

I know trees don't have a nervous system, or sentience, but I tend to personify everything, so let's just pretend they do here.  I can kind of see it going like this:

Tree named Ed:  "Hey Phil, looks like there's a hurricane coming.  Man, these things make me so tense."

Tree named Phil: "Now Ed, we'll be all right.  You just gotta relax, man.  Don't have a coconut over it.  It'll blow over."

The storm comes through.  It's pretty terrible.  Ed and Phil are blown on so hard, they are basically bent in half, just about touching the ground.

Ed: "Oh man, this hurts like hell!"

Phil: "Yeah, this sucks.  Hang in there.  It'll be over soon!  If I had teeth, I'd be gritting them right now."

Ed: "Yeah, me too."

Then the storm gets less.  The trees spring back up.

Ed: "Whew, that was a bad one."

Phil: "Sure was.  Man, this sunshine sure is nice."

Ed: "Sure is."

And that's it.  Me, I'm just like Ed and Phil, except I actually do have teeth, and don't have any coconuts hanging off me, or leafy fronds that I know of.  Stuff happens, bad personal storms, and they hurt, and they're scary, and I dislike them.  And then it's sunny again, and it feels good.

Bending.  It's pretty great.

#gratitudeNow:Nothing for it

I'm pretty beat.  I've got some heavy stuff on my mind, which I'm not going to get into here on the blog in detail, because Internet.

But the good news is, I've got tools to deal with my heavy stuff.

I've been engaged in my mindful practice of Taoism  for over 15 years now.  It's not a magic solution that solves all problems, and leaves me floating in midair.  Rather, it's a discipline, a practice.  And it doesn't mean that I live in a state of perpetual bliss, either.  Really, it's just the opposite.  I don't particularly feel any one thing all the time.  Rather I'm committed to stay and feel everything.

Over the years I've been doing it, my understanding of that practice has grown and changed.

But my fidelity to it has not.  

Today I'm focused on a key tool that's part of that practice, wu wei, the action of non-action.  It's not laziness, or indolence.  It's a kind of relaxing surrender.  

Think of how water is.  When you pour it into a glass, it takes the shape of that glass.  It surrenders to gravity and form.  And yet water is among the most powerful things on the planet.  

Storms and floods can erase mankind from places.  And nothing grows without water to help it along.  But water's power comes from its quiet nature.  True, raindrops can hollow out a canyon - but not all at once.  Just over time.

This is where wu wei comes to bear.  I can make myself spun up and anxious and out of sorts over things - and it will not change them.  What will change them is me, being present and moving through time, one second per second, into the future.

I can obsess over how things were, or may yet be.  But that's not real.  Instead, I can make the conscious choice to be present, and do nothing.

#gratitudeNow:Nuts About My Friends... especially Bryn

Last night Missy, MB, and I went to The Crucible, for the P part of the LF&P.

It's the first time I've been there since they moved to their new location.  I saw tons of people I adore, who I haven't seen in person in ages.

It was fantastic.  I have all these friends I've known through the club and Camp Crucible for a long time now.  People welcomed me with open arms, literally.  I hugged.  I got hugged.  My butt got grabbed a bunch.  I grabbed people's butts too.

I was positively dipped in my own history as an adult, in that population.  It felt amazing.

And I got to sit, cuddle and talk with my friends Dixie, and Bryn.

I'm gonna take a minute to absolutely gush about her.  Because she's absolutely gushworthy.  (Sure, it's a word.)

Bryn, she's not just MY friend, but she's also mako-kun's friend.  He just loves her to pieces.  She's a grownup he knows and trusts and really likes.  And she not only knows this, but takes joy in it.

She really sees him, distinct and separate from me.  And likes both of us. 

This means the world to me.  She's got this funny ability - she can call mako-kun out, and he'll just pop right out, happy to see her, and spend time with her, even if it's in the midst of a busy place, filled with people he doesn't know.

mako-kun, unlike me, is kinda shy.  He's hesitant and fearful of being seen by people who don't get him.  So, in busy places, and amongst strangers, he mostly hides in the back of our head.

But that's not how it is with Bryn.  She makes him feel so safe, and welcomed.  We're laying on the couch, talking, Bryn, me, and Dixie, and she asks if mako-kun's around - and WHOOSH, out he popped.  

From the back, I watched them laughing, cuddling, and being silly together.  (Bryn is an EXCEPTIONALLY silly person.  If silly is a martial art, she's got a black belt in it.)  And I was able to just hang out in the back of my head, and relax.

Because he was safe with Bryn.

She's really wonderful.