1.17.16 Looking and not looking

     Some people are good at not looking. At not over exposing themselves to all the difficulties in life, so they have enough information but aren't too overwhelmed. 
     Others are really good at looking. Partially out of having learned that acquiring an accurate frame of reference supports the most helpful responses we can have. Those individuals often have difficulty muting their sensitivity, and end up habitually going around looking at all kinds of things no one can really tolerate very well.
There really is a cost-benefit to choices, and what fits really depends on who we are.
     And then there is modulating, so that if we're looking just enough but not too much, we can take it day by day.
     So that we garner a clear sense of the situation, without laying ourselves to waste.
     In dire situations, the whole deal changes. The whole deal is too much, really. And yet, in what other situation is the measured acquisition of accurate information, coupled with us finding ways of settling ourselves, more vital, to develop the best sense of how to proceed, and how to be.
     Sometimes in dire situations, we engage in the helpful balm of distancing, compartmentalizing, and detachment to allow us to find some ease in our days, because unrelenting focus is no help at all.
     But it's important to remember periodically what in fact we are doing. What dynamic we are engaged in. An overview, now and then .
     Simply because, as we move down the road of whatever experience we're having , thinking we are healthily modulating our focus, we may be avoiding the hard deal of truly looking.

     Of examining,and collating information that possibly just might save the day.

 

1.16.16 Scooting on down Mexico way

      When I was 18, my boyfriend and I decided to leave Long Island University, take off across the country, and escape our parents, finally moving to Albuquerque just in time for the '72 riots,  I waitressed while studying art at the university. 

     One weekend afternoon, we decided with a bunch of old and new friends to drive to Mexico for dinner. 

     In those days, doing 110 on the highway was nothing, so with some Santana blaring on the 8 track, our two cars finally arrived ,at a restaurant one of them had been to in the past . It was pitch black by then, late, but the place was still open, a beautiful stone courtyard beneath a canopy of trees ,surrounding a low lying adobe building, with an open interior lit by so many lamps and candles .      We were seated, someone knew Spanish, and we were gradually served a wide array of beautiful dishes with excruciating aromas.         Each one was more delicious than the last, and while our eyes and noses streamed and we panted and sweat poured down our faces, we still were powerless to stop consuming the meal. 

     I think aside from the first dish my husband cooked for me 

(Starving Student brown rice with onions and peppers ), it was the most incredible dish I've ever had.

 

1.16.16 That which brings us back

There is this way in which visiting the same place, in all seasons , is much like meditation: it brings us back , over and over , to something simple ; something true, as slowly the depth and breadth reveals itself

1.15.16 We have so much

Even on the toughest of days

 we have so much to give each other.

1.15.16 Every day, no matter

Every morning, every day, no matter the enormous factors we each are shifting through, the sometimes overwhelming realities we encounter, still there is the wide world all about us, to get out out into, around here, well bundled and toasty warm, regardless of the cold winds and brisk freezing air. 

Still to get out and greet the day and move your blessed body and breathe deep the oxygen and be with each seasonal change , as your heart and your hormones and your liver watch the sunlight and become attuned to the wise ancient pace of our natural world.

1.14.16 All around us

           

Wintertime