Being and Doing

Except for the past three posts I have been inactive on this blog. I'd like to let you in on a little of where I have been during those intervening months.

It all started several months ago in the depths of Winter. I was really enjoying hunkering down and staying in the cave and close to the fire. I'd be doing this and that but mostly it was a time for going within, for delving, for conserving. It wasn't the time for projects.

Then when the winter ended I started my second year of work on my vegetable garden and enjoyed the planning, building the frames, building the raised beds, enhancing the soil, and finally planting the seeds. At the same time, however, I didn't feel the urge to start writing again. It's as if my body was moving forward and my mind was active, but my spirit was still taking its own sweet time coming out of winter's cocoon.

I was reflecting on my ongoing pattern of moving between periods of activity and inactivity. In the past it would be like feeling stuck to be followed by a burst of energy which would focus on one activity or another. Sometimes those times would be brief, sometimes prolonged. After the activity I would sometimes just drag myself home to collapse, as it were, and wonder where I had been and what I had done.

But this winter I reflected more thoughtfully on that pattern and came to describe it more as being followed by doing followed by being. You can see how mindfulness can be present in both sides of that coin, and when it is there, it enhances the entire process; it makes it more present and real. The activities were sometimes purposive in a goal directed way across time, oftentimes for many years at a stretch,sometimes just a latest flash in the pan.

In the past I would be upset with the not-doing part of the cycle. Now I'm more comfortable with experiencing it as being in a space where listening is more prominent. I used to want to be pulled towards something but now it doesn't seem as important; it will happen when it happens and in its own time. Of course during either end of the dance there are certain things which have to be done of a maintenance nature but the bigger pattern is with the flowing from poised within to the directing outwardly and then the return.

It is in this context that I started thinking (for the umpteenth time) about purpose. In mid-August I was again wondering / asking what was holding me back, what the blockage was, and out of the silence came an awareness - that I do not have a central unifying principle which could give me a focal point, something which would give me a way of looking at, comparing, exploring, analyzing, experiences, events, ideas, perceptions, etc.

On reflection I came to see that the "blind spot," "the incompletion" has been there all along, certainly during my entire adult life. I have taken on others perceptions, etc., but never my own "something unique to me" (at least in a visceral way of experiencing) manner. It might be described as what my "beat" is.

In spite of this, I have been aware of hard earned lessons over the decades. Each of these learnings has been vital for my overall growth and they have served as course corrections; pivotal in fact. As these things go, they mostly came out of my own pain which in turn was coming from a wrong minded perception of how the world was or how it was supposed to be. Heroes are flawed; They have their own agendas and your best interest is not central if it does not support their agenda; a sense of power which comes from someone else, or a group, is, or can be, fundamentally manipulative; I claim the right to make mistakes, but not repetitively; I will rush no more!

All of those learnings, and others, have helped to bring me back to a sense of self but they did not go to the central unifying principle. They have helped to prepare but they have not revealed that principle.

For example, The Good Life as espoused and written by the Nearing's led to exploration and discovery and as such has been an ongoing "project" - it could even shift into a lifetime project -but it is not the principle.

Let me say it again, the core statement of my life to date is that: I am lacking a central unifying principle.

At first this freightened me but then it excited me in the quest to open, to ask for, to decipher, to find, to become aware of that central theme. And along those lines, how have others discovered their purposes. Is it "given?" Is it discovered? Is it uncovered? Does it always happen?

Now when I think of my mantra "I will rush no more!" I see it as a tool, an attitude, a way of being and doing which also lays the foundation for freeing myself up.

To be continued.

Of Dreams And Birds

(Prewords: Over the past 3 weeks I have written several drafts (variously titled: Gradual Change; Reversing Reversals; Depression as Ground Fog; Some Thoughts on Peace of Mind and Restlessness) for blog entries but have held back on posting them. The topics are in themselves worthy and may eventually be published. But it's like something was holding me back. I was waiting for something that was more spontaneous, something with a bit more "oomph" feeling to it. I think it was also related to not wanting to "have to" get another entry up.)

I've been very active in the nightime dream department in the past several weeks. It may be related to coming out of that stormy place I was in a few posts back and, in my mind now, it may be connected to a series of posts by Proxima (entries dated 3/23, 3/24, and 3/27/07) about dreams. I also had a person ask me about what I thought about dreams a few weeks back and that may have stirred the pot somewhat.

Bird Dream #1: (Three weeks ago) I'm driving along minding my own business and a big black bird flies into my car and perches directly on top of my head. I'm aware that there is not much room up there for the bird so I scrunch my head down into my shoulders to create more space for it. Initially there was some fear but then it was mostly just trying to create space for "the addition." It could have been a crow or a raven.

Bird Dream #2: (Last night) I'm walking up into a mountain range. I am then aware of a very large flock of birds swirling above me. They do their aerial dance gracefully. I am then in a more forested area and there, on a low lying branch, is a great snowy white owl. No movement; just perched there.

The dreams had things happening before and after the appearance of the birds, but those two birds is what stands out in my mind. Each one on its own would have pulled my attention, but the two of them, even though separated by approximately 3 weeks of external time, really caught my attention.

Hmmm...why birds? One while driving, and one while walking - an issue of movement? One jet black and the other pure white. One moved and the other is stationary. As they say, it just gets "curiouser and curiouser."

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Some further context of what's going on in my life recently:

1. I've been thinking again about psychotherapy and healing. We tend to organize our lives around extensive habit-clusters. If those habit-clusters are working well for us then it is often best to leave well-enough alone. If, however, they are persistent and seem to work against our best interests, then it may be a good idea to find a strategy to shift away from them and towards a better and more wholesome habit-cluster "seed." The task then would be to put energy into that new "seed" and let that expand and develop through latency towards its own potentials.

That process has much to recommend it and it goes towards the idea of healing - the process of making whole again by dealing with the original imbalances either directly or through changing the down-the-road-consequences by offering workable alternatives. But there is a further sense of healing which in a sense takes us out of the drivers seat and opens us to input from outside. In that sense, there is an opening, a cultivation of the sense of receptivity coupled with a seeing what is as clearly as possible - without the filters. In that way, we are still in the drivers seat but there is a another source of input from "on top."

2. I have been reminded in the past several weeks of something I have been aware of previously, namely, that information is being "presented" to me often. By this, I mean that I'll be just doing my thing, whatever that is that day, and something will catch my awareness: I'll hear a quote, hear a story, see a picture, have a flash of partial insight, etc. Then later in the day I will be working with someone, or talking with someone, and they will say something which gives me an opportunity to relate the earlier experience.

It's like I'm presented with a key (the information) and it takes a while for the lock (the situation in the conversation which is a puzzler) which responds to the key to make its appearance. It's very curious, but sometimes it's as if it's an only-to-be-used-one-time key. When I see these connections, then it gives me more motivation to stay aware to what is being presented and to not press for any interpretation. At those times my only effort is to set the intent to be receptive and to see / hear clearly. This process feels "non-linear" and is just available "for the picking." It appears to me as a larger process and contains a certain wonder. It invites a "deepening" rather than a "doing" but they are both there.

3. After I was up this morning I scribbled the following 2 comments based on the dreams:

A. Accept that it's all inside - the positive and the negative - and then choose your directions and intents and expressions.

B. The way we organize our history is in the service of "the winner" ... (it's not just with world history) ... the ego - it's mostly fiction - one way (of many possibilities) - just what is happening - period.