9.1.16 Doing what we can

     It's funny how long it takes us to get to a place where, instead of feeling badly about what we are not, we feel satisfied and glad about what we are. The kinds of things we can do. 
So, when my beloved's friend died recently , I didn't have the health to make dinner or go work instead of him or do so many things. 
     But I could listen well, give him the space he needed, and urge him to keep his expectations under the radar, so his wise self could slowly digest this and he could feel ok enough for however long it takes.
     I knew how to make him thick capsules of Valerian root to cool out his lower brain, so his emotions wouldn't run wild with his mind or organs.
     I could give him a Gaba and a theanine to soothe anxiety, and a homeopathic Ignatia for smoothing the response to grief.
     I could cue up a Zinn soothing meditation , get him on my table, and give him a deep massage with oil and soothing essential oils, and then send him off to bed.
     Sometimes we rue not learning to do that which we have not.
     Make a great income or stable stock portfolio or have excellent windows and cars and roofs. We each have a different list, that skips the stuff we've managed well, and lists out that which we missed.
     Sometimes we wish we'd spent more time learning or doing some things, and less time doing others. But there is no winning this game. The odds are stacked, the deal all too sweetly imperfectly perfectly human.
     No one can do everything, nearly everyone can tender obsessive self-blaming regrets if they don't look out, and often we find that in the great big balance of things, with a little common sense and perspective, we find ourselves pleased as punch with the choices we have made.

9.1.16 Back on the chain gang

One of the best ways we can tell when we are telling ourselves stories is when it begins

 "If people really _____ me, then they would ______." 

It's really an excellent beginning, all triggered up. 

Because when do we NOT kind of feel like that, and with less clarity and more story-telling angst, tell ourselves that tale? 

If so and so really cared about my hard work on this project, they would spread the news and the value far and wide.

If this one and the other really respected me, they'd make sure to say something nice every day.

If that one really appreciated ALL I HAVE DONE FOR THEM (great material for making up stories- as if we were explicitly contracted) THEN they would do whatever it is that I want them to be doing for me. 

On and on it goes, and we, poor silly humans, are so vulnerable to our Once Upon A Time renditions.

Which lull us silly and dizzy us with sentiment and confusion.

Yet, in any tough situation, who would not be prey to these ideas?

We all are now and then, and the trick seems to be, if we truly want to be spending our time and consciousness in what actually IS, to learn how to spot a good storytelling.

It seems likely that anytime we are dunking ourselves in 'should have, would have, must have, could have, why didn't they, i deserve better', they are all such rich storylines replete with hooks to be grabbed by, and carried off quick, into a blind deaf land of sentimentality, where our self-satisfied immersion trumps the clear sharp realm of plain old honest actuality. 

And yet, that boring un-magical-thinking land of awareness is exactly where we remain empowered. 

By the present moment.

By the emotions and thoughts all by themselves, felt and identified and witnessed as they are digested and then allowed to pass on by. 

Sure, safe, plain solid ground.

9.1.16 Slow distillation

It interests me how, when we are in relation to others, and someone else is cross or angry or extraordinarily compassionate, it ends up being almost as if a part of our own self is exhibition and living those ways. We sometimes are then freed up to focus on other things. 

Almost as if we have an interdependent self that is far bigger than we imagine, more complex, made up of so many more parts than we realize. That in some ways, socially and culturally, function together. 

When I observe generations in a family or close friendships or partners, this seems especially true. As if we are impacted by the intense work ethic or social activism or materialism or idealism of others , which fills us up, and in response we go pursue something very different, at times diametrically opposed .

So that we, as a singular individual, do not need to develop all things, be capable of all things, learn to excel at many things. Instead, together with our brethren, we reap the benefits of another's efforts, and are left with the freedom to pursue other options, as we live a lifetime slowly distilling the essence of our own selves.

 

9.1.16 Nestled into relative silence

Down by the farmers fields, it is September 1, and even without humans designating dates, still everything would be turning, in preparation for a transition to something quite something else. 
And so here, we see the crops coming to fruition. Down here, the cabbage and the corn struggling through such long dry spell is, but managing. 

We see all of the wild grasses with their luminescents and their seed formation, as the pollinators feed hungrily on newly blossomed thistle and a great good volume of golden rod, that will blossom once, twice, and three times. The beautiful yellow evening Primrose, the provides food for so many.

Down at the private camps , so populated with families of those who own them on the river, the RV's still stand, but the cars moving down along the dirt road, that inches between crops , has stilled almost to a stop. 

Labor Day weekend will be all out, because everyone knows it's officially the last time to sit in the river's waters, watch children splash and run, as dogs bark happily and chase them along.

Down here along the farmers fields, I can feel in my bones the land slowly returning to what we will find, come late fall, and then winter. 

The wildlife and the growing things and the great broad swath of land nestled into the relative silence.

 

9.1.16 We all leaned

Down by Kestrel Lane, the rain was falling gently, on and off, as we all leaned encouragingly toward some relief of parched land around here.