Thursday, January 15, 2015

MIDWINTER GRAY


There was an unrelenting gray blanket over the dining room window these past few days. This morning the window was suddenly uncovered, as if someone ripped off the gray blanket revealing blue sky, but it only lasted hours. I’ve also been under the weather this week, another bout with a familiar bug. My immune system has been crap since the drama trauma of my last months in Denver and first two years in Taos. However, it is actually a good time to be sick if there is such a thing, however it made winter seem especially dense and colorless. Sometimes it’s best to pay off the gray weather bill all at once so that life can move forward.  I don’t know the logic of it, but it seems that if you are going to do gray it’s better to do it thoroughly so that you can flip to the opposite.  C.G. Jung called this process enantiadromia, or what goes up must come down. I’m counting on the visa versa.
According to  Wikipedia:  
(Enantiadromia) is a principle introduced by psychiatrist Carl Jung that the superabundance of any force inevitably produces its opposite. It is similar to the principle of equilibrium in the natural world, in that any extreme is opposed by the system in order to restore balance. When things get to their extreme, they turn into their opposite. However, in Jungian terms, a thing psychically transmogrifies into its Shadow opposite, in the repression of psychic forces that are thereby cathected into something powerful and threatening. This can be anticipated as well in the principles of traditional Chinese religion - as in Taoism and yin-yang.  Got that?
This morning PQ said, “Let’s go to Seco” meaning it was time to go to Abe’s Cantina for a breakfast burrito, something we hadn’t done yet in 2015.  Although the weather hasn’t changed, Abe’s super-hot green chili seemed like a good counter to grey.  It was at least an empowering gesture, and a trip to Arroyo Seco was at least getting out of our gray zone. On the way to Seco, we always pass Grandma’s old house, a small adobe building near a cluster of cottonwoods that is now gradually melting back to earth.  I always try to imagine how it must have been when PQ was a child and it was the action center of their family’s ranch. We pass the old house every time we go to Seco but it’s one of those dim back of the brain impressions.  Today it reminded me of how completely we are under the sway of time. Each of our defining life events quickly melt to dust as the earth spins on. It also reminds me that nothing really stands still. Like the hour hand on a clock, you can’t actually see the big changes move in but then it seems suddenly a different world.

Now after musing about how quickly the present becomes the past I have to admit that this time of year I start thinking about the future, next spring to be exact. Our hopes are rising about going back to Cottonwood for most of the year.  I’m playing it cool this time, allowing our situation to unfold as naturally as possible. PQ seems to have decided for the present to put his disease in its place and not let it control our lives.  At this time in our lives, we are closer to the end than to the beginning of the story but like the old adobe house, our lives contain a whole story and there is something to be said for that.   Like the rough script of a novel, the rest is fine-tuning and editing, but you never know, we may add another chapter here or there.


Wednesday, January 7, 2015

OPENING THE DOOR TO 2015

This New Year actually feels new. However, it didn’t start off easily. Although we stayed home and intentionally avoided any celebrations, it wasn’t about laziness or a desire to avoid crowds. It seemed more appropriate to be quiet and meet the energy of a new phase. There were some glitches, such as our clothes dryer quitting, and a certain lack of smoothness in the flow of traffic.  When energy frequencies change, life is often out of balance for a while. The beginning of a new year seems culturally arbitrary; however, whether it’s the beginning of a natural cycle or a cultural one, the need to re-balance is real enough. Maybe its wishful thinking but 2015 feels full of unknown potential.


As this year unfolds, my hope is to step through the magic door while avoiding a trip down the rabbit hole. I’ve certainly done enough of that to fulfill my karmic debts.  This promises to be unknown. NO, I’m not planning to passively wait for the magic, but it vibrates with potential. The landscape on this side of whatever threshold we’ve crossed feels genuinely unfamiliar, and that’s a good thing.    


I should know by now, lessons are repeated until they take.  My lesson is about faith in my life direction and realization that when I stay in my power-zone it works out. When I fall back into worry and trivia things start falling apart. It’s all about the flow of energy. Lifetimes of false responsibility are hard to dislodge. Now I want to talk about demons.


I’m beginning to think there are good demons and junk demons. I suspect the good demons use the junk demons to herd us down the trail of a learning experience even though we might find ourselves in a path full of rocks thrown in our way by the bad guys. I’m not going to claim any metaphysical authenticity for this view it’s just a thought-provoking concept for now. The good demon guys often create problems and send us on wild goose chases and over slippery slopes but they do this because when things run smoothly we can’t see our limitations and stupidity. I hate to say this, but if you are highly successful in your evil ways and nothing happens to change your circumstances, your spirit guides have probably given up on you and you will find yourself drafted as slaves to an army of junk demons. In another blog, I referred to one type as black smoke beings. You can punch your fist through them but you can’t see through them, they are ever hungry and never satisfied.


When you want to move your reality in a healing, creative direction, the thoughts, beliefs, fears and prejudices that you take for granted will go through the sieve of another reality. Not all at once, mind you, but in manageable portions. Then, just when you think you are pretty clean, a big chunk will get stuck and refuse to be break down for the sieve. Now, do you really want to put up with this, or do you want to go back to your previous comfort zone.  Technically, you have a choice, but in reality things will never be the same again and you will be stuck in limbo if you try to regress. 


So what does this have to do with 2015? I don’t know, just found myself suddenly going down that thought stream. Possibly 2015 is going to be a time for sorting our personal reality from our personal non-reality so that we can get on with the business of this newish cycle that began at the end of 2012.

Here is a quote from the Sufi Mystic Rumi:

I used to be raw,
Then I was cooked,
now,
I am on fire.


That is my goal this year.