Obligatory post

I really don’t feel like writing a thing. Has this become a duty? Inevitable, possibly, that it should, and yet it is as simple as not doing it to prove that there is no need to. Oh me, oh my, what would I choose? These morning pages are waking me gently, so there is every reason to want to do them, and yet a perceived obligation is every reason not to. I love that nobody but me has made it look anything like an obligation. I began to write every day and it seemed the thing to do, and now, six weeks later, it has transformed from whim to necessity. How fast the mind moves, how hard it works, to attach itself to anything it possibly can. It desperately clings to whatever can give it life, refusing to give in to the inevitable.

Emptiness

The room upstairs is tidy. That makes every room in the house – bar the junk room – manageable. The junk room – or grain room – is next; it is inevitable. So much has been thrown out of this place in the past four months and still there remain piles upon piles of things that can’t possibly fit in the place we are building. Not to worry, the process is underway and it seems it has an unstoppable momentum now. Things leave the house so regularly that it has become commonplace. I so like emptiness, and it is true this prejudice of mine is affecting the nature of this home. There are empty spaces in every room now, where before there were none. There is clarity in emptiness: there is a sense of wholeness in it. An empty space is complete: it contains all the necessary components to make it empty. A cluttered space is more haphazard: it can never be completely full, and therefore resembles only noise. Yes, emptiness is far more whole than the attempt to fill it.

Seedy adventure

Today belongs to me alone. E in New York, girls at their Dad’s, and me with nothing to do but stay home, stoke the fire, feed the cats and clean up. Today could be the day this house becomes manageable. It only took four months!

So I look back briefly and see how the state of this house has reflected the state of my mind, and I am thankful that such a clear gift has been given me. I was given a projector and the movie to go with it. It was one of those ‘choose your own adventure’ films, in which I chose to explore the darkest recesses of my mind, to clear it out, empty it of everything unnecessary. It is an epic; who knows when it will end? Who knows if it can? I am definitely the best entertainment I have available: director, producer and star of this comic adventure drama mystery. I am so fun to watch: in one moment serious and earnest, in the next light and free; and never in one space long enough to be able to define the character. It is difficult viewing sometimes, laughable at others, and the tension is sometimes unbearable. The script writes itself as the story unfolds.

I look around and I see clarity, I see a world that I am slowly beginning to belong to. Settling into the world of another – another three – is quite a task, it turns out. Takes months. They need to settle into me too, it is true, but they are not the ones who have uprooted everything to be here; they still live in the same house, share the same friends, live mostly the same way. It’s all new to me: a whole new world to ground in, and taking root requires work. It may be perfectly natural for the seed to sprout and grow, but it still takes an awful lot of work on its part. Without the right conditions, often without nurturing, that seed will just as likely fail. It is the same for me. I am but a seed sprouting, and the seasons are different here; these are not the conditions I was borne to. So the work is harder than it might have been, and as they say, the easiest path is still quite difficult. But my roots are down now and I am breaking through the soil, the sky is in sight. Making the most of this early spring, I am shooting for the light, working towards a bountiful harvest.

Relatively speaking

The day is as cloudy as my head, my nose fogged up and my eyes heavy like the sky. It is grey and leafless and my inspiration, my mind, reflects that beautifully.

And now the girls are up and L is searching for a shirt for Y, and Y is giving me a big cuddle. Last night she was inconsolable, missing her Mama, and this morning, she came and told me what she was feeling and why. I love these forgiveness lessons: when I don’t take the crying and screaming personally; when I let her do what she needs to do; when I do my best not to interfere, she responds with all the love and forgiveness I tried giving her but felt I couldn’t. The mirror is clear, the projector clean.

So morning is upon us once again and this is supposed to be rushing, this is supposed to be a panic, and I can’t find it. The fire is warm, the armchair comfortable, kids in their element (L watching a video, Y in the bath), and that clock keeps ticking. Time appears to be running short, yet there is nothing to it. It twists and stretches and shrinks according to the situation. It is not a constant - it is just a concept we have made to help make things look constant. My experience suggests that time moves about all over the place. Give me any two events that were supposed to have happened exactly a year ago, say, and my memory will tell me that one happened considerably longer ago than the other. This is not my memory playing tricks on me, it is time being found out. Like the age-old adage – time flies when you’re having fun – it moves at a rate dependent on the experience, not the opposite. And yet every clock will try and tell you different: I am the arbiter of your experience. How much responsibility we attempt to hand over to our inventions: we make the clock and then let it run our lives; we invent the vehicle and then let it define our landscape; we make the computer and our lives get faster – no time left to smell the flowers. I love that I am trying only to take responsibility for this one: when the whole world is attempting to relinquish as much responsibility as it can; it is nice to be taking some back.

Impressionism

Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives. (ACIM Lesson 334) I love exploring forgiveness with kids, for they are so much easier to do it with. We may be no less childlike and innocent as adults, but in our quest to be so we often do a good job of covering it. Kids don’t pretend to be any older than they act, they don’t act any older than they feel. Adults are just children in grown bodies, and this deception of maturity does a great job of disguising our innocence.

And yet it is so obvious and clear that we remain babes in arms; frequently those who most disparage adults behaving like children are the most childlike. As is almost universally the case, that which we most despise is ourselves. I love that Hitler championed the big, blonde and blue-eyed when he was none of it. He looked at what he hated, saw himself, and persecuted it. He was merely in a better position to do so than most. There is simply no better way to look at ourselves than through our impression of another.

The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

Winter has been mild and buds are blooming, birds returning. The forest returns to life after another winter sleep. There is so much life in those leafless limbs and soon it will show itself again. And I will be here to marvel at its majesty, to fall in love with its beauty. At least I hope I will. Another journey to the winter in my mind could make me miss much of it. So I do my best to find that eternal sunshine, for a clean, clear mind is the most forgiving thing.

Odd man out

The sky drops down on our heads, the smoke climbs up to it in a simulation of a cloud; girls squeal, cat kneads; eyes droop and the morning is upon us once again. It keeps coming back to this: morning follows night better than clockwork. Clockwork is more inclined to stop.

Long breaks, closed eyes. Sleep is so becoming now. The girls are awake, L is singing, E joins in and so does Y. Odd man out. Very odd. Mostly. The drops on the roof monotonous, rhythmic, combine with the creaking of a new day. And the cat purrs, the pen scratches; eyelids droop once again.

Wakefulness is not becoming now, but I need be becoming wakeful.

Peace or something like it

Is this peace? A warm feeling in my heart, no urgency to do anything, surrounded by emptiness. Is this peace or something else? It is said that true peace can be found anywhere – in the middle of a war zone, in prison, in a packed subway – for true peace is a state of mind, not a situation. At the moment I am alone and I know the feeling I have now does not stay with me constantly, so is this true peace or fools peace? It is possible that the uninitiated – such as myself – need to be given some glimpses in order to appreciate its value, and an ‘artificial’ environment such as this is a good opportunity. I have attained nothing, only been given an experience to savour and the guidance to allow it into my life more and more if I choose. It is the only choice, after all: peace or no.

When so many choices, options, alternatives appear before me that they bewilder and confound, it is a sign that I have chosen against peace. This is clear, for there is no peace in confusion. When every step seems guided, when everything falls into place, I am choosing peace. And this is the only decision I ever need make. In this moment, I know what I prefer.

There is so much warmth in this feeling, so much love. Why would I not choose it? I guess sometimes I just want to be in control; I suppose I still think I have some.

What would you teach?

White ground; blue sky; E asleep next to me; kids making breakfast and doing their own homeschooling. I love the way life runs itself. I love that it is not my job to direct it. For so long I tried, and it always ended in frustration. For so long I wanted things my way and lived a life of hard luck and hard knocks. For so long I thought I was responsible for so much, and whenever anything I felt I was responsible for didn’t go the way I thought it should, the stress built and the wrinkles grew.

Life is easier now. Living in a strange land; helping to raise a couple of kids; helping to get a house built; running a music venue is so much easier than almost anything I’ve ever done before. The less I know how it should run, the more I simply live what’s facing me now, the easier it gets.

If (as I have done) I start wondering how we’re going to finish off the house; how I can manage my debt; what’s going to happen to the kids; where is our relationship heading, then everything immediately gets difficult, seemingly impossible. Even if I try and figure out how my week is going to work, I have a very hard time. Yet if I simply remain present and do this now, there is never too much to do, it is impossible to be overwhelmed.

I love hearing people’s plans. I love that they predict to the nth degree how everything is going to happen. I love that it never does. To say, for instance, that I’m going to spend the rest of my life with E, is just asking for trouble. It is the beginning of a guilt relationship: I am staying with you because I said I would. It is impossible not to have an element of fear and hatred in such a relationship, especially if I expect the same from her. It is so much easier to love her when there is no obligation, and not only does that make it easier to be with her, it also makes it so much more likely that I’ll want to stay. Love is unconditional, after all.

There are so many hate relationships going on in this world because of guilt. I love the one where people stay together ‘for the kids.’ What are you teaching the kids in this relationship? You are teaching them to hate the ones they live with and make them feel guilty. You are always teaching, and what you teach is what you live. Is this what you would teach if you had a choice?

And, of course, the choice is yours. What would you teach?

Forgive or forget

Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free. (ACIM Lesson 332) My freedom lies in forgiveness; my freedom lies in seeing that what I thought happened didn’t. For when I am you are you are you are me then there is nothing to forgive.

There is nothing to forgive! How easy it can be to forget. I forgive or forget: it seems to be the way.

Words are hard to come by this still winter morning. There is nothing to say, after all. So maybe when the words don’t flow it is closer to the truth than when they do. I don’t know.

The Tao has so few words, A Course in Miracles so many, and yet their essence is the same. Only difference is, the Tao observes and the Course instructs. I guess observation of emptiness is necessarily minimal, whilst encouraging the transition from confusion to peace takes a lot of effort. The ego doesn’t like letting go. It is tenacious, a fighter, and it lives in a mindset of attack and defence. While it believes it is being attacked, it will defend ruthlessly; so the Course’s persistence is the only thing that can wear it down. Hopefully. I am so near the end, and still there is so much work to do.

And it all lies in forgiveness: Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free. The Course’s most basic lesson – forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive – is still lost on me so much of the time. For over two years it’s been telling me to do but one thing, and I keep finding other little gems to grip onto. That fear is still binding me: fear of forgiveness. What will my ego do, what will become of it if I am free? It will have nothing left to control, no universe to run, no war to fight. Poor thing, its whole reason for existence disappears before it as the universe it made fades to dust.

I need to forgive the ego. That’s it! The sad little thing that would be king. It is holding on so desperately and all it needs is my love. When I try to fight it, I play its game, become it, and it becomes entrenched. When I forgive it, love it, it has no recourse for that is beyond its comprehension. Love is all powerful, forgiveness is its tool.

Conflict resolution

There is no conflict, for my will is Yours. (ACIM Lesson 331) There simply can’t be. This is what Katie’s talking about: loving what is. With only the three types of business – mine, yours and God’s – and with the realization that I have no business of my own, comes the understanding that there is only one type of business: and that is what is. How can there be any conflict when what is is what I want?

It is so simple, so straightforward, and yet so easy to forget. The moment I get caught up in ‘my’ business, the moment I think I know what I want or need; the moment I ‘know’, it all gets forgotten in the blink of an eye. And, of course, the consequences are even more extreme when I think I know what someone else needs or how the world should be different.

All I need do in these moments – identified easily by the discomfort they produce – is remember that I must have decided wrongly, that I tried to make a decision by myself. All I need do is remember to breathe, and in that breath, remember.

In your dreams

I’ve been having a number of disturbing dreams lately, and one of the big things I’m taking from them is this lesson: forgiveness is realising that what you thought happened didn’t. The dreams are so vivid and ‘real’ and I get caught up in them despising adversaries; fearing assailants; and then I awake and laugh at how seriously I took myself, how deeply I feared. And this I can carry over to the apparent reality surrounding me in my ‘wakeful’ state. There is little difference.

It is said that all the characters in a dream are just different aspects of the one self, and that can easily be transferred to the waking dream we call life.

To be truly awake is to see that this too is a dream; that different aspects of the self are interacting in a play of consciousness, in an absurd theatre convincingly produced.

Stream of consciousness

The hum of a car passing, Gram Parsons touching me with his music, Y playing somewhere outside, and me here on the bed – a moment’s respite before Y needs my attention again. This is as close to heaven as it gets. Whoever was it said life wasn’t meant to be easy? In this moment it is a delight. Even when I couldn’t meditate for more than a couple of minutes without Y interrupting, it was a beautiful experience. Everything is as it should be in this moment, and Y is yelling.

Turns out she was being a chickadee, singing, ‘Chickadeedee, chickadeedee.’ And now she wants chocolate, and now she’s taking the bell outside so it can be a doorbell, and in every moment she has something going on in her world, and so often whatever that is remains in her own little world. It is so fun to watch, and when the time comes, to play, to enter that little world while it involves me, and move on when it doesn’t.

It’s all interaction, it’s all fluid motion, a stream. I live in a stream of consciousness! Writing is just tapping into it, as simple and natural as breathing. The stream of consciousness is my lifeblood.

Mindlessness

Have you ever been queasy? Ever seen something that made you grow faint and dizzy, your skin go all cold and clammy? Now think about this: all you did was see something. And from that your thinking told you a story about what you saw and ZAP! you're in faintland. How powerful the mind can be. And if the mind can do this in a moment – completely alter your experience – imagine what it can do over a lifetime. It is the cause of sickness, the cause of pain, of suffering. It is the cause of our very existence. Imagine being on top of it all; imagine no longer being controlled by something that would have you suffer. Who would you be without the mind?

This is worth pondering. Who would I be without the mind? I guess I would just be watching all this. I would see this body move, I would observe it interacting, and nothing would be personal. It would not be my body, it would just be a piece in the puzzle. Who would I be without the mind? How would I treat people without it? Kindly, I imagine. With love. I would see that they are just believing their thoughts – when they do – and therefore believing they actually are those bodies, when to me they’re all just part of the puzzle. When they’re all together as one they fit to make a perfect picture as one. Without the mind I could look at anybody and see myself reflected. Without the mind I would be free from believing anything mattered. Without the mind I would be unlimited, infinite, eternal.

Ooh, I like the thought of mindlessness! And there is the mind again.

Softening

Oh my, it’s cold this white Valentine’s morning. Bright and early and very, very cold. And outside I see Kiki prowling; outside where he’s been all the long, cold night. So maybe it’s all in my imagination. Maybe it’s not as cold as it seems; maybe I’m getting soft, even.

I felt myself softening this morning. I felt the hardness of my jaw give way, felt my muscles loosen, and I realized how tense I can be. It was when I gave in to making no decisions by myself that it happened: I went from thinking I had to do something to doing nothing at all, and it worked out so well. What eventually happened was all I could have wanted, whereas the tenseness came from a sense of dread, almost: do I have to do this? So I have more reason to be thankful, more roots of gratitude.

Turns out I don’t have to do anything. Turns out that if I just stop and wait and follow the simple directions, everything works out perfectly. It all runs by itself – this body is but a cog, and the moment I try and make it do something the whole machine gets messed up. If I just let it run, let it turn freely, the machine is that much better for it and I am a whole lot less stressed. Everybody wins!

And this, of course, is not to say everything isn’t already perfect. Only that my experience of it approaches perfection the more I ride with it, the less I interfere.

It is such a gift, learning a lesson like this. It benefits me no end and also those around me and around them and around them: dominoes dropping ever closer to that hundredth monkey.

So today we work. Grandma needs help in the flower shop and there is still more to do at my work. Always more to do. I love that it just moves with me. I love that the venue books itself. I love my job! I am loving my life more and more, too. It is all coming back and giving me more and more reason to smile, to relax, to experience the joy surrounding me.

Gratitude is such a gift.

Presence

Sooner or later is now. Let’s just be here now. Presence. Presence. Such a gift.

The silence of the snow

I love the silence of the snow. It’s like sound waves don’t bounce off it, instead they sink into it and diffuse and freeze. So when I’m out in the snow, despite distant sounds entering my consciousness, there remains an overwhelming silence – a white, beautiful silence.

Snow!

Snow! The red barn roof is now white. And a nosebleed – the white nose is now red! It all comes around in the end, I guess. And it’s so nice to be in this whiteness once again. It’s a powdery whiteness today. Not too thick and still settling, with the promise of more to come. It’s so exciting, snow, because you can have no idea how long it will hole you up, how much of an impact it will have. All you can do is gaze upon its beauty and be thankful you’re inside, unlike those little birds fluttering about and, I believe, Kiki the cat, who braved the whole night through out there somewhere.

Outside it is white and black and grey. The only colour the orange tape on the end of a pole and the green gate – a green and white gate today. The trees are black and white, the barn is grey and white and the sky is a light grey, producing snowflakes for us obligation free. And the snow comes down again as hard as it has all morning – gentle and determined. Not the floating drops of a flurry – these ones are heading straight for the ground, like the snow on the surface is a magnet for them.

Need-to-know basis

I’m living on a need-to-know basis, and it turns out I need to know nothing, until I do. And even then I’m never really sure. More like, it looks like I’m doing this now. Last night I thought I knew something and it kept me up half the night, the burden that knowledge is. To know is to be responsible for what I know, and that is so difficult when what I know is in constant flux. There is not a fact that isn’t subject to change. How burdensome to keep track.

It is said the more I know, the less I understand, and I don’t even know if this is true. What is understanding? It seems sometimes I have a grasp on things, and I know the moment I try to dissect it, to define it, to explain it even, that it dissolves before me and I am left ‘knowing’ something and unable to live it. It is gone from my consciousness, and so am I.

Forced awareness

I love the chill of winter morning. I love the way I can feel my hands, the crispness of the air. There is so much life in it, maybe because it forces life to surface – to be conscious of itself. There is less awareness in warmth – warmth is too easy. It is the extremes – cold and heat – that bring awareness to the fore. They force awareness upon you.

I love this

I love this. I love this! The leafless trees, limbs in all their glory; cool, crisp air penetrating everywhere it can; warmth of the fire and its invitation to be by it; that rusting red barn roof, the ramshackle barn; the tree stump, which once held something far greater than the posture it has now, grand as it is; Y singing in the bath; L’s monologue from the living room; E tending to breakfast, or whatever it is else she is doing; the car pulling up in our driveway - all of it.

I love stepping out of the way, I love understanding this isn’t my decision. I love not being responsible. It is a great responsibility, after all – to hand it all over and watch. It can seem such a difficult thing to do.

Too strong?

E said it's possible to be 'too strong.' What does that mean? Too strong. I agree that it's possible to be in denial of your vulnerability, but is that a strength? Not in my experience. That's exactly where the cracks form. That's where you get broken every single time.

It is one of the many great ironies: the more vulnerable I become, the stronger I get. When I am completely vulnerable, I am untouchable - like air. You just move through me - nothing you can do can touch me because I let you right in and you keep on swinging all the way back out the other side, and still you haven't touched a thing: hot air and whistles, punches flying at nothing.

And yet air can be so powerful: hurricanes and bushfires come to mind. Yes, complete vulnerability is the greatest strength - and is that too strong? I don't know.

Flushing out the system

Here I sit, trying to be as close as I can to the truth, trying to embrace it, to live it, to be it. And the truth is there’s still so much I’m not prepared to admit and accept. There is still a lot of ‘me’ getting in the way. And still, awareness of it all is a very good start. For so long I’ve been blind to even that – blind to the lies I live day in, day out. You know: this person did that to me; it’s not fair; people can be mean; it’s a cruel world. I’ve lived these lies so long, it’s hard to flush them fully out of my system – like an old, well-used toilet, sometimes a few flushes are necessary. What a great analogy! Visualising all that as excretion really helps.

One dimension short

Yesterday I saw that I only see in two dimensions. It is all a flat screen. Shadow, perspective, relative motion – the types of tricks that artists use – these are the things that give the impression of a third dimension. But when I look at something in front of me without a story of what it should be, what I notice is that it is flat. I remember learning in school that people with only one eye lack depth perception, because the second eye is what creates that impression. So if one eye cannot see in three dimensions, why would two?

So all is flat. It is just a screen. And the mystery deepens. Our senses help define our perceptions, and our perceptions define our thoughts. And all our senses are is an interpretation of our experience – a limited interpretation of what is around us. The sixth sense is the sense of time. We need that for it to make any sense at all. So our thoughts are the result of an interpretation (perception) of an impression (senses). Not a very solid foundation on which to base everything we think we know now, is it?

It’s just a flat screen. Try it for yourself. Take away your beliefs about each of the things that tell you it is in three dimensions – and watch. No story, just ‘I don’t know what this is.’ See? It is just a screen.

And what does this mean? Who knows? It could mean anything, it could mean nothing. It is just a simple observation that nothing is what it seems. And that could take you all sorts of interesting places.

No question

Sometimes I forget there is no question. Sometimes, without this understanding, I spend hours upon hours asking them. E said she hopes I find the answer to the universe, and I intuitively thought, ‘There is none.’ How can there be an answer when there is no question? 42.

I could not sit today. Too much noise – in my head and in the house. Everyone but me playing. Me, the sincere guy in the corner, pretending I was doing something important. Taking myself seriously and missing the point. I’m good at that. I hear myself say ‘seriously’ now, and realize how funny I’m being. Still, I continue to do it, continue to be it, and it’s really not a lot of fun. Conditioning may be a part of it. I was raised to be serious, raised to believe in the importance of it all. And even that’s not true. I raised myself to believe in the importance of it all. Now, that’s closer.

Gratitude

It is easy to be grateful when things appear to be going well, and then, things appear to be going well mostly when I am grateful. Coincidence?

Yard sale

I am so fortunate to be here. I am so glad for what I have. And what do I have? It is getting close to nothing. Materially, there appear to be a lot of things around me, and in my mind there has been a yard sale and the space is becoming clear. There is very little left right now – a bit of clutter here, some spots of dirt there, a cherished thought over in the corner – and still largely there is emptiness. For the moment.

And that can change, as it already has. It seems changing circumstance gives the appearance of an actual change, and while that seems real – important even, then my mind fills and it hurts with the bursting.

For the moment I am free. For the moment all is well. For the moment.

What now?

Clouds streak pink across the dawn, fire door squeaks, new day begins. A distant roar rumbles by and morning says hello through the window. I love windows! For three months now I’ve been sleeping without one, and now it gently wakens me, giving me a bright new outlook on the day. I love dawns, too!

So things are changing, as they always do. It is the nature of things. The eternal is not a thing, the eternal is all. Things are not eternal - things are just, well, things. Something to make idols of, something to feel separate from, a reason to believe instead of understand. And outside, the brown-red barn roof gets closer and closer to not being a thing anymore, as does the barn. Still holding together in vain hope of life, when life never was a thing.

It is so easy to forget. We spend lifetimes learning to remember, after all. And then, when we do, it was just an instant anyway. Time can be so deceptive in eternity. Like all things, it seems real.

I love this here, now. I love the coolness of the air, the warmth of the bed; I love the long shadows and bright, gentle shine of the morning; I love the soft colours around me; and I love the sound of the phone ringing, of voices, of fire crackling. I love that we are all awake earlier than normal; I love the tickly feeling in my bladder, the stuffiness of my nose, and its occasional moments of clarity. And a nose blows in the living room, and it could be mine, and I love that too.

What is there not to love when mind is clear? What is there not to love when I merely follow, for I would not lead? It all becomes clear when this is evident, when all those stories of being important, of leading, fade away and I see that the simple directions have always been here to lead me.

I have been stopping a lot recently. Stopping to ask, “What now?” And those moments of stillness scattered through the day are a blessing. I love stillness, for it is peace. And I had not been allowing myself that stillness much at all – too busy trying to be in charge, in control. There is no stillness in being right. And I love that every time I see I have tried to make a decision by myself that I tell myself, “I hope I have been wrong.” I love being wrong!

So this is a beautiful instant, closer to what I had become used to before. A roar returns and it reminds me of the rumblings in my mind these past three months – the machinations of madness that returned to haunt me after all that time.

And my work was being done, as it is now. This is doubtless not the end of suffering – merely a moment of respite – and still, it is a glimpse to the eternal and a reminder of what has been becoming truer and truer for me.

I love that I have been given the gift of relationship. I love that E is so forgiving. I love that I am getting closer and closer to the point that I realize this never had anything to do with her. And I love that as that becomes more and more the case, life here becomes easier and easier. When it has nothing at all to do with her – or me – I can stay forever and it cannot matter.