Days can be challenging. Overwhelm and frustration can pile up, grief and despair erode comfort and hope, entropy churns on. At a certain point, as Friday afternoon approaches, there can be a rush to wrap up and a yearning for relief. This is a time-based technology of the work week. There is also the Jewish time-tradition of Shabbat that invites relief. It is a merciful offering – to rest, to put down your burdens. It is also a mighty discernment: the work is over, it cannot proceed.
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Drink
Drink lots of water
Drink so much that it flows through you
So that you often have to pee – with glee, release your wastes
So that you calibrate to thirstiness – yes, thirst, drink deeply of life
Drink so much water that you remember
“I am mostly made of water”
“I am a water vessel”
“I am a flowing being, not a rigid body”
No thing is static
Everything flows
All vibrates
Water passes through you
You are not a rigid body
You are a flowing vessel
Passing by
Passing away
This too shall pass
Drink lots of water
Flow
Grow
Go, drink deeply of life
THE NEXT BREATH: a Memento Mori for Sobriety
Are you ready?
To receive
To be response able
Not to be taken for granted
Aspired aspirations, who knows the world to come?
The cats are ready
Calm like they’re waiting
Careful like they’re knowing
Unknowing,
Steady, ready for what’s next
What’s one’s life like? Breathing
Something low and guttural
Something sharp and high pitched
A rough and chaotic trough
A flat and orderly sequence of peaks, plateaus
An enrichment and spreading (inhale)
An exhaustion and discard (exhale)
The discard, one’s life
Food for branching trees
Forestablishing what’s next
Where will the waves go?
Where will the ripples flow?
For a brief time one holds then passes or drops the ball
The ball passes on to the next
Through the next
The ball goes and leaves another
Lost, rediscovered
The ball hits the next, bounces, finds an other
Each ball a single note in a grand Song
Forming Family, in the greatest sense
Are you ready?
For the next breath,
What’s next?
Now,
Is it savoring?
Is it stewarding?
Forestablishingalivablefuturity
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TENUOUS: what will be?
Is tomorrow guaranteed? What will the future bring? What song should we sing?
Interstellar object I3/Atlas is currently at its perihelion, or closest point to our Sun at approximately 1.36AU. Among the anomalies associated with this comet-like object, its approach is unlikely: It has been hidden from Earth’s view by the Sun’s glare throughout October (though some scientific reports in review claim to have observed the object’s emissions despite solar glare). This occulted segment of its long trip is also its most opportune time to make orbital adjustments to its own direction or for any probes it could dispatch, using the gravity of our Sun to assist. All this and other unmentioned anomalies to say: while unlikely, there is some cautious speculation that this is a technologic object, directed by an Alien Intelligence (AI).
And I say that to ask: If an alien vessel were in our backyard today and, perhaps at this moment, sending probes our way – for what purpose, one can only speculate – what would one do? Even if that were a fact, there is still much uncertainty.
Not commenting on likelihood, but hypothetically: If it were the case that alien intelligence was in our backyard this moment, close and unseen, then these moments would feel tenuous. What would one do? Savor, I suppose. It is risky and significant enough that squandering time would be easier to recognize as foolish. But it would be uncertain and inspiring enough to not throw one into despair and defeatism.
If one was known to have only a week to live, unlike in this uncertain scenario, then I imagine ‘savoring time’ would look uniquely scarce and conclusive: skipping chores, saying goodbyes, focusing fully on favorites. In contrast, with uncertainty of what the world two months later looks like, it is wise both to savor and also to steward. Take care of one’s future but also do not expect one’s future is guaranteed. Do the dishes, while remembering the precious ephemerality of it all. Savor, and also steward.
This kind of tenuousness, a liminal existential space, could be healthy. A reminder, a reorientation, that we only ever exist Here Now.
How will one Be when it arrives,
What’s Next
Moment by moment
Building momentum
What's the best next step?
May peace be up on you!
#BeHereNow #BreatheEasy #OneLove
SPINNING: Wise Use of One’s Time
What makes one whole?
What does one want to hold?
What’s one’s world?
Through what whirls does one grow?
I know
Some of the things I strive towards (O Sol,)
Health
Comfort, or how would I explain x Y z etc. tendencies
Family fulfillment
Self fulfillment, actually, actualization,
And what is that?
Now how do I&I’s behaviors favor or farther those goals?
Is it comfort that dopamine addictions satisfy, or is it joy I truly pursue, or
Does X Y Z even spark joy?
A toy can spark joy, sure
But all inter-net and no outdoor play makes Jack a dull boy, for shore
(It’s all about the balance)
We must set out to see, what may become
Best next steps, mistakes and lessons, and then the next ones
Left right left
Forward and backward and the only way back is ahead
And up and down and
Four elements spinning all around
A Cube of Space
And so I start at the top
Based on the bottom
I&I see the patterns
One zooms in on the particulars
Pulsing, ventricular, it’s
(a scroll read & reread non stop)
Peace
Peace
Peace
One Love
GROW: I, Tree
Grow
Upward
Toward One’s higher self
Sunbound
Obstacle
Higher Self
Adjust, adapt
Not ambitious,
Actualizing
Self becoming
So(u/i)l fulfilling
Role filling
Niche needing
Now embodied
Reciprocate
Grow the gifts
Heights, rights
Canopy crown leader
Power
Photons become energy become matter become life become photons
Emit
Mature
Canopy co-dominance
Contribute
Seed community
Past and future unity
Earth and sky, one pillar
Emerge
Knew, continue
I&I: You
Gon’ higha
Grow
AND FOR MY LAST ACT
What if this was my final act?
This moment, this action
What’s happening at this breath?
Reading this post?
Well, at least you’re not listening to an Exxon advertisement
If that is the kind of thing you’re exposed to
How we spend our time is affected by the systems around us
Where we are, when we are, much of that beyond us
Under the stars
Here now
Spinning mightily on this big beautiful blue planet
Evolving alongside fellow lifeforms,
It does appear we have some choices within our purview
For if this was my final act,
It was I who chose to be typing at this moment, isn’t it?
Chose in that it arose in my clothes and genes and experiences
And it will be I who lives with, and ends with, that moment
Each moment a new beginning, potentially
Moment to moment
To momentum and beyond
(What’s the best next step?)
(What’s the f(x)?)
With love
What if this was my final act?
Practicing qi’gong, East or West
Perhaps singing a song
Or listening
~ ~ ~
שְׁמַע
~ ~ ~
Taking It All In
One Self
Actualizing
Actual I’s in the vicinity of
Temple
Peace, peace, peace, One Love
Mind fullness
There’s resonance in presence
There’s dissonance in distraction
Distortion, or relaxin
The choice is conscious attention
(H)Om(e)
Will Today
Will today be repeated, relived, endlessly as in Nietzsche’s eternal reoccurrence?
Or will today be a last, a final day, bursting with meaning as if facing death (or not) at dawn, as in Dostoyevsky’s story?
…
Either way, today one’s present self is the most able accomplice for the wellbeing of one’s future self.
“Whatchya gonna do today?”
Time is of the essence. A few practices seem rarely wasteful, whether one has lots or little time: meditation, physical fitness, when in doubt tidying up.
With this precious gift – these fleeting grains of time we are given generously and with no certainty – how can we reciprocate?
No doubt we can spread our time too thin, there’s only so many…
Or we can squander time, “casting pearls to swine” (or attension to IT)
May we cultivate
Gardens, discernment, and peace
Balance and gratitude, to apply our times treasures and talents
Forestablishingaliveablefuturity
Winter setting
The nights are cold
Days short, nights growing longer
Darker, deeper,
What is the adjective that would describe what the trees are doing now?
Are they relaxing? Are they cold? Are they panicking? Are they feeling old?
Are they feeling new, already longing and looking forward to the days ahead?
Trees like Jews seeing evening as emergence, night as new beginning
I don’t know what adjective would describe trees in these dark times
Where does their sap go?
Does it freeze? Actually, I beleafs it is sweetened to reduce its freezability, but for the most part deciduous trees dehydrate in winter to avoid frost damage.
What is the underground part of trees’ character? Is it alike the subconscious of the you’s and the me’s and the like? What memes and patterns might we see, below the knees of the trees?
What is at the foot, the root tips, the forefront of the trees, underground and above ground?
And what is the answer to that question, for your own slice of life?
What is one growing towards? What is my goal, for this day or this week or this month or this year or this lifetime or this <cycle>?
As the seasons change, mad things rearrange,
May the force of forest succession be with you, and may peace be up on you