STILL LEARNING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

This morning I got up before PQ, (I usually do) and went outside while everything was cool and fresh. I felt as if I had just awakened after 20 years in coma.  It was about something I’ve always had but never trusted or valued until this week.  I was in harmony with my bare feet that were very happy on everything they touched, cool grass, warm sandstone and dust.  I could have wished for fresh mud between my toes in this drought but instinctively recognized that I shouldn’t go there.  This was about gratitude for what is and faith in the rhythms of life that extend beyond our human judgment. I’m not going to worry about the harm we humans do with chemtrails, HARP, industrial pollution, stupid land development practices, and various chemical concoctions either ingested or rained down from above. The harm they cause is beginning to show everywhere and the perpetrators are trying to fix it with counteractive poisons.   As Einstein said, it is impossible to solve a problem within the system of the problem. For this moment, I trust Mother Earth and Father Sky as consummate teachers.  We may find their classes challenging and ego belittling but I don’t believe they will allow us to destroy the planet.

She's Still Beautiful After All These Years

Of course, it is the mindset itself, which will have to change.

I’m awakening to what is surrounding me and allowing it to love with me. Everything from the earth I stand on, the Magpies chirping in my neighbor’s tree, the flowers for which I’m dragging a water hose around the garden and even the annoying wind and stingiest of clouds.  There is now a fake cumulous cloud of smoke rising to the south, ominous sign of another forest fire but for some reason that has nothing to do with my opinion. Mother Earth and her family of planets are going to work things out in a manner beyond my understanding and I’m glad it doesn’t depend on human wisdom, of which there is little.

After years of soul dulling compromises, I finally realized that the sky wouldn’t fall if I enjoyed  life. What we get from an experience depends on what we are open to receive. In my case, I overestimated the obstacles and the nature or Nature. There was some heavy brainwashing behind the dilemma.  I always wanted to dance, both literally and metaphorically. Mom and dad liked to suffer and they believed that God wanted us to do whatever we didn’t enjoy. I think they believed it was a safety precaution. I took it on more than I realized.  Everything I found beautiful, mesmerizing, wonderful was out of my league and I kept it a secret, or only practiced it as if it didn’t matter which is the same thing. I believed I would be humiliated and cut down for openly following anything that inspired me.  I could possibly get away with lessor substitutes and tried many of these. I’m not sorry about the substitutes, just that I was so afraid to openly acknowledge and practice what I most valued.

Satisfied

The black cat was still asleep on a deck chair but woke up when she heard my feet on the sandstone walk, and then the white one came bounding through a space in the fence. I gave them both some freezer burned Trout I’d boiled yesterday. Whitey gulped it down as if he’d caught it wild and someone was about to take it away from him.  Blackie wasn’t sure about it at first, then decided to try it. While she was making up her mind, Whitey jumped over to her dish and almost swallowed her piece whole.  I’m definitely getting the message. Hem and haw too long, and the good stuff disappears. Finally, Miss Yellow came along and by then the fish was history.

In my quiet mornings, I read, write comments and insights in the margins, sometimes in my journal, walk around the garden and meditate whenever I get up earlier than PQ. It’s like panning for gold.  If you do it every day, you are bound to discover something now and then, maybe even better than you hoped for.  Since the last blog entry, my attitude toward our financial situation has morphed.  I’m noticing everything we have with great appreciation.  I’m buying only what we actually need and am enjoying each dollar spent as if I had a fortune.  It’s as if I landed on Mother Earth in real time and everything is closer and more intense.  The world is coming alive again. 

After years of moving the contents of my soul piece by piece into the basement, I feel that I’ve opened the door to let some light in.  Now begins the work of taking the goods up the stairs and into full daylight. However, I’m ready to take it on. Saturday our friend Mark Gordon, producer of the film, Awakening in Taos about Mabel Dodge and Tony Lujan, invited us to a showing at the home of his art teachers near Santa Fe. It turned into a lovely inspiring day. While looking at their work, I remembered how much fun it is to experiment with different materials and techniques. Art was always something I did in my kitchen when I got home from work. Time, space and materials have always been make-do. To actually study with an artist was out of the question.

 But that is history. I may or may not have a real studio to work in someday, in the meantime I’m back on the ground trusting the natural cycle of each day.   A natural reciprocity truly exists and it has nothing to do with investments for a future we can’t know.  Last week PQ sold one of his painted drums for enough 

PQ at Work

to see us through to the end of the month and that is all we need at this moment. The real treasure is the opportunity to be a part of creation in action.

After the art show, we got together at La Fonda with a woman we have known for many years and always shared simpatico. I called her last week because it was time to quit passing in the shadows and find out why we should know each other better. Overall, it was a magical day. Being well off is a state of being. To be continued.