Back from a brief dalliance with the political. More emptying experiences.
I experienced a huge emotional outburst recently, which I have only today awakened to see as yet another emptying event. In it I spewed all of the things in my life that have made me angry for the last several years. It embarrassed the hell out of me because it was a moment of no self control. I thought it was just the result of a drug side effect, but today I have a new perspective on it.
I have been holding these things inside, trying to bargain with the devil to make them go away, trying to deny them. Everything but accept them and move on. It doesn't matter if a drug disinhibited me. The thoughts were there.
Several things have evolved as a result of this big catharsis. First, I see clearly the danger of harboring negative thoughts at all. Second, I feel ready to move on from the state of mind that created these thoughts. Third, I have been humbled by being out of control. Fourth, the thoughts cannot scare me any more, I do not have to hide from them. Fifth, I am experiencing a lightness from having "taken out the trash," and now I have more room in my mind for creative solutions to the problems I was holding onto.
I am getting ready for my four-day silent retreat. This will the first one I attend with no books, tapes, or other words of any kind. Perhaps a needle and thread for mindless handiwork,though my experience is that sleep fills most of the "free time." I feel ready for this. Ready for emptiness. Ready to just be.
Showing posts with label emptying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emptying. Show all posts
Friday, February 1, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
A Hell of a Choice
A big decision is hanging over my head. Several months ago, I cleared my body of several medications: hormones, and certain drugs in the pain cocktail. I felt the latter were robbing me of the full spectrum of emotions that are my navigational aids, plus my piddling little bit of organizational ability, distractable as I am.
The hormones are back, that was a no-brainer. The cost/benefit ratio there weighs far in favor of using. I do believe I have outlived my evolutionary life span, and the extra years science has afforded me are much better with hormones on board. It took no time at all to figure that out.
The other drugs are the problem. I am of course now in much more pain, very fatigued, and often addled. Ironically, the fatigue is not relieved by sleep, because I can't sleep long, due to the pain. In this diary, I write about spiritual issues, but there are of course, the physical ones as well. "I am not an animal, but I AM using one for transportation."
I would like to think I am emptying in response to a spiritual call, but the horrible thought has occurred to me that it might be because I have no choice.
Drugged (relative) comfort vs clear-minded suffering. For those of us enduring chronic pain, it's a hell of a choice.
The hormones are back, that was a no-brainer. The cost/benefit ratio there weighs far in favor of using. I do believe I have outlived my evolutionary life span, and the extra years science has afforded me are much better with hormones on board. It took no time at all to figure that out.
The other drugs are the problem. I am of course now in much more pain, very fatigued, and often addled. Ironically, the fatigue is not relieved by sleep, because I can't sleep long, due to the pain. In this diary, I write about spiritual issues, but there are of course, the physical ones as well. "I am not an animal, but I AM using one for transportation."
I would like to think I am emptying in response to a spiritual call, but the horrible thought has occurred to me that it might be because I have no choice.
Drugged (relative) comfort vs clear-minded suffering. For those of us enduring chronic pain, it's a hell of a choice.
Somewhere Out There
The vicar at the new church writes a blog! http://ovchickpriest.blogspot.com. Besides being a very cool and well written blog (though sparsely populated with posts due to reasons which are made clear in her most recent post), it has a portal to some other blogs, and each of them had the same. It was thus a doorway into a new (for me) spiritual realm- Liberal Christianity.
I realize that this is what I was doing in those four college courses I took on Bible history a few years back. But those courses were the intellectual wanking part. There are actually people out there celebrating Communion in the Lord in the revelations of a modern reading of the Bible. So there must be communities out there, too, surrounding the people who are writing these blogs!
Am I Alice, peering down the hole and about to fall in, or am I Fievel, singing at the moon with all the hope in the world that I will find my family again. Is this what my emptying will open the door to? I wait, suspended between despair and hope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZRavGg4uRc&feature=related
I realize that this is what I was doing in those four college courses I took on Bible history a few years back. But those courses were the intellectual wanking part. There are actually people out there celebrating Communion in the Lord in the revelations of a modern reading of the Bible. So there must be communities out there, too, surrounding the people who are writing these blogs!
Am I Alice, peering down the hole and about to fall in, or am I Fievel, singing at the moon with all the hope in the world that I will find my family again. Is this what my emptying will open the door to? I wait, suspended between despair and hope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZRavGg4uRc&feature=related
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
First Destruction, Then Reconstruction
Sadness abounds. I am doing my best to be patient with it. My studio is a shambles. It is like having something ripped from me, but this is the way I chose. I told my art buds today that something is knocking on my soul's door, and I don't know what it is. All I know is that I have to make room for whatever it is before I can open the door and let it in.
Yes, I know that sounds like Oprah, but is the whole truth of how I feel. I am motivated to get things back in order, with a new rule: if it doesn't have a place, I can't keep it. AND, I have removed a lot of the places. I am looking around me, and despite the million Ladies Home Journal and Martha Stewart magazine articles telling you how, I don't know a single person who is able to organize their (too many) things in a more orderly way. No matter how you do it, if you give up stuff, there is going to be loss. I will sit with this in the zendo on Thursday.
Yes, I know that sounds like Oprah, but is the whole truth of how I feel. I am motivated to get things back in order, with a new rule: if it doesn't have a place, I can't keep it. AND, I have removed a lot of the places. I am looking around me, and despite the million Ladies Home Journal and Martha Stewart magazine articles telling you how, I don't know a single person who is able to organize their (too many) things in a more orderly way. No matter how you do it, if you give up stuff, there is going to be loss. I will sit with this in the zendo on Thursday.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
What a Sabbath
Appreciated the church immensely. It was very much like the one on Hawaii. The choir lacked big egos, no "Jesus Show," just three people singing as best they could. My Corn Thin was consecrated along with the bread. Communion is celebrated every week, which is what I seek. I am so ready for a formal liturgy worship service. Let us just speak the words prepared for us by better writers than ourselves, and give ourselves completely to the wonder and mystery of Jesus.
The talk was heartfelt and moving by an elderly priest (Episcopal) who recounted some of his experiences and inspirations around Martin Luther King Jr. It reminded me of the fact that I was in Washington DC during the Tent City, and all that surrounded the freedom marches. It was a passionate age both for me and for our country. This is something of which we elders feel a particular ownership. A reminder to keep our sleeves rolled up to answer the call when it comes, as King did.
There were thirty or so people there, so all could greet one another. More men than women (very unusual), and most of the group was our age or older. In adult ed., a young man, a physicist, talked about the Theory of Relativity and similarities to this knowledge found in the Gospel of John. His was also a humble and heartfelt effort, received gratefully by an obviously well educated group of people.
After church, Jada came and took a truckload of my crap out of the casita. This was all I could handle in one day, and I collapsed into a nap. The Dharma wheel is turning. What a Sabbath!
The talk was heartfelt and moving by an elderly priest (Episcopal) who recounted some of his experiences and inspirations around Martin Luther King Jr. It reminded me of the fact that I was in Washington DC during the Tent City, and all that surrounded the freedom marches. It was a passionate age both for me and for our country. This is something of which we elders feel a particular ownership. A reminder to keep our sleeves rolled up to answer the call when it comes, as King did.
There were thirty or so people there, so all could greet one another. More men than women (very unusual), and most of the group was our age or older. In adult ed., a young man, a physicist, talked about the Theory of Relativity and similarities to this knowledge found in the Gospel of John. His was also a humble and heartfelt effort, received gratefully by an obviously well educated group of people.
After church, Jada came and took a truckload of my crap out of the casita. This was all I could handle in one day, and I collapsed into a nap. The Dharma wheel is turning. What a Sabbath!
