Missy, Rachel, and I went out pottery painting today. It's something we do every so often. I love it because it's creative, childlike, yet sophisticated too.
I made bowls for the cats.
Rachel made a fancy bowl.
Missy made a Twilight Apple coin bank.
I can't wait to see how they come out!
I've written before about Taoism's three treasures.
Today it's the first one, Compassion that's on my mind. Compassion is harder than it looks.
T'zu, or cí, compassion
That's literally true, for an english speaking Taoist like me. There's the kanji for it. It's pronounced "t'zu" - in the phrase "it's a thing" - it's the " 'ts a" part, pronounced as one word.
T'zu means kindness, compassion, and motherliness, in Chinese. It's that state of loving gently, and purposefully. It's the sort of love that wants the best, and will patiently guide someone towards success.
The trick is, compassion means having that love for others, but also for oneself.
That is hard.
I have a daily practice of meditation and contemplation. Each day I spend time considering some philosophical, emotional, or ethical issue. Sometimes I'll work on the same thing for days at a time.
5 years ago I spent 18 months on compassion. It was grueling. Probably the biggest thing I got out of it was the realization that while compassion for others is hard, it's a damn cakewalk compared to compassion for oneself. What's more you have to have it for you, before you can have it for anyone else.
I was so glad when I got to put that contemplation behind me.
But I spoke too soon. Five years later, and I find myself striving again. I strive to be thinner, to acheive mastery of certain technologies for work, to acheive without stretching myself too thin, to nurture my relationships, to progress as an author.
None of these things are bad goals to have. Having goals isn't the issue. But I do catch myself self-shaming about my progress, commitment, and conviction.
Which of course, is no help at all. I lamented to my friend Andrea the other day that it looked like I was back in compassion school again, and how very little I wanted to be.
She gently chided me, reminding me to stop letting expectation get in my way, and just get to it.
I'm grateful to her, for reminding me of the truth. I'm worthy of my own love.
Missy and I were going to go out of town to visit my partner Pene and her husband J, who we dearly love.
But sadly they came down with the Bolivian Death Flu or something around 4am.
While we were both sad about it, Missy and I decided to turn tonight into a date night. We went out for dinner, and then went portal hunting.
And I leveled.
I'm grateful for our flexibility. It helps us turn misfortune into good times.
Valentalae is on my mind today. Why? Because yesterday was her birthday. Also because I gave her a present for it, which I'm now also giving to you. It's a new Concerning Littleton story, called Different Tastes.
On the page for it, you can read all sorts of reasons I admire Vee. But I wanted to take a moment, separately, here in my blog to just say how very lucky I am to have her in my life, in my family.
Vee is a loving, wonderful person. She's delightfully dirty, in many of the same ways that I am. She's smart, and loves to mentally dissect things in the same way that I do. Even though we live on different sides of the country, we've always got our noses in one another's business.
Yes, that kind of business, too.
A while ago, we admitted to one another that we love each other. Let me tell you, when Valentalae loves you, she does it full-tilt-boogie. Her love is not something easily come by, but is very worth having. She'd do anything for me. (Or likely, to me, which is also great!) I'd do anything for her, too.
I'm grateful for her.
My friend Molière is a very smart guy. He is well spoken, technically skilled, and very thoughtful. We often have very serious philosophical talks about what it means to be a person, and an ageplayer.
But sometimes, we're just silly. Like today.
Molière: Ok. Sorry to be a PITA :-(
Me: Not at all. I appreciate the reminder. Heh, when someone asks me if they are being a PITA, I'm tempted to reply. "Naan"
Molière: LOL! Do you know why sea gulls fly over the sea?
Me: No, why?
I'm grateful I have such smart, witty friends.
