Effing Ripoff

Some of you may have felt cheated when you read the title Silence Is Juicy and instead of getting some sweet tidbit of gossip or mystery you got a poem about a pear.

Do you think that is false advertising?

I’m not sure what I think. It’s fun to make up snappy titles for these posts. And you know words are some of my favorite things. I like them more than whiskers on mittens.

But I’m beginning to feel like I’ve had too much cotton candy at the fair and too many pickles and corndogs too.

I’m hungry for simple.

But will you read what I write if it doesn’t catch your attention?

I guess that is not up to me.

I want you to.

More than anything I wish I could make you a cup of tea and adjust the sun to shine on you just right so you could read to your heart’s content. And when you finish the last word I’d be happy if you felt like the universe winked at you or gave you a hug.

But I don’t want to trick you into that space with a hook title.

So I promise not to do that on purpose. But I can’t help it if the stuff turns out funny sometimes. Words are just like that.

Silence Is Juicy

I wonder if I could write less and say more, or say less because what I say holds more meaning.

Sometimes I just like to play with words, mold them and mix item all up like wet clay to see what kind of pottery it all has in it.

But this time of year I crave more silence. Not complete silence, obviously, but more than usual. I crave something more like a poem and less like an essay.

To see a plowed field,

Or the fruit tree by the gate:

One brown leaf, one pear.

 

Oh The Blog Posts, They Are A Changin’

I am an inexperienced, wishy-washy water sign and I am noticing that I can’t stop myself from posting new stuff as soon as I think I should put it out there. But then I realize it’s crap and I have to go back and change it. Again. And again.

So what I am wondering is this: if you read a post and then I update it, do you get a notification that I have updated or are you left with the last sorry version in your memory to haunt you forever?

Could you let me know, please? I am trying to learn enough self-control to only post after I have gone over the writing a zillion and three times, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

If My Anguish Had a Sound

Please listen to the video after the anguish because this is what happened: I let myself feel the anguish. I shared it so that others would not feel alone. And this afternoon, I received the message of such peace and comfort I posted it after my own video.

 

Here is a text version of the story:

http://asingingtree.com/2018/08/18/if-my-anguish-had-a-sound/

 

 

 

Hog Wild!

My son and daughter-in-law in Dallas just got a pig named Paubla. Apparently, she makes them very, very happy. So I had to include her in my manifesto.

My Spirit Guide, Horse Lady told me to paint a poster to remind myself of the things I need to do to stay focused…at least I think that was my assignment. To be completely honest, when she asked me if I remembered the poster, I didn’t lie; I said “Yes.” That was true. I just couldn’t remember what the poster was supposed to have on it. Therefore, I made one with what I think it should be on it. A Manifesto.

So here is my mission statement.

Gonna sleep like a rock, rise like the morning star, work like a dog, pray like Baba Ram Dass, gonna love and meditate, gonna just be me, gonna live to serve till every one of us is free, gonna laugh and dance and play and sing, and like a happy little child, every once in a while I’m gonna go hog wild! Hog wild.

Let me clarify a couple of points.  When I say work like a dog, I am saying that work is good. working dogs are happy dogs. They like to have a job and do it well. So that is what I mean by that. And when I say pray like Baba Ram Dass, well, I aspire to be like him, to learn from him as much as I possibly can and to pray all day, from my heart, the way he does. And to go hog wild? I think we need order, but as Alan Whitehead emphasizes, “Not too much order.”

Walking Home

I love walking home with you.

Every day I see something new.

Looking into your eyes

when you’re wondering why

Buttercups dance in the sun

like they do,

I see inspired, unanswered questions,

Bloom one by one, into your truth,

Into your love, into your faith.

My world is blessed by your grace.

The whole world is blessed by your grace.

I Have a Friend Who is Mentally Ill, She Don’t Scare Me No Mo’.

Feel So Different

I went to an AA speaker meeting one night and this man that I already greatly admired for his creativity and intelligence blew me away with the disclosure of his heart of hearts.

After he told his story he sang this song. His version was every bit as moving as Sinead Oconner’s. Of course, I don’t have his video. But here is the original song. Feel the power.https://youtu.be/PU5PwOHJfoA

Hearing Voices

When I first started hearing voices my landlord had just installed a new exhaust fan in the bathroom. We live near an airbase and what I heard sounded like a radio transmission. It also could have been radio banter between two feisty newscasters, and there is a public radio station down the road, so I thought that was a possibility too.

No one else could hear it. People started looking at each other in that knowing way when I mentioned it, asking me if I was feeling alright. I stopped telling people about it before long.

I had never heard the voices before the fans were installed.

Finally, years later, I learned about a thing called Apophenia, which is the audio version of Pareidolia, you know, when you see things in random shapes

People with apophenia have very active brains that search for patterns in the random noises of the modern and natural world. That is why people like us hear birds that tweet “Cheater! Cheater!” and washing machines that chum out catchy one-liners during the wash cycle,  like, “The jig is up. The jig is up. The jig is up.”

I can’t tell you how many doctors raised their eyebrows when I told them about the radio transmissions; not one of them mentioned apophenia. I had to find out about that on my own, accidentally.  I am 100% certain it changed my diagnosis and you know, those kinds of things are hard to get off one’s medical records.

Anyway, If you hear interesting things in the world and you can’t quite figure out where the sound is coming from, or if you are fairly certain the bird is really not telling a story about his friend, Monique who was a teacher and a cheater-cheater-cheater, even though it sure sounds like that, you might have apophenia. And no, you don’t need medication for that. However, something to take notes with might come in handy because you might get some pretty wild ideas from the wires in the walls.

Flea Bomb

Today we have to pack up the animals and take them to the park (or somewhere) while the bug man comes to bomb the house. We have fleas. I was on flea patrol all night last night.

I can keep them off Jane if I keep her brushed with Eucalyptus oil spread on a bath brush. I tried diluting it in water and spraying her down but that didn’t work. I tried putting it in her bath water, but that didn’t work. But brushing with it directly on the brush kept them off and kept her calm.

The cat is another story. I have the stuff that goes on her spine applied already but I don’t think it’s working.

I hate fleas.

I know they are life forms and I ought to have respect for them. I am sure they serve some purpose in the scheme of things.

I don’t hate them on a personal level.

But they can not live in my house, or on my dog or on my cat and that is that.

The F Word

The F word is one of my favorite words in the whole world. I use it all the time like I use chili or ginger.

I picked one of my yoga teachers because I was looking for a good yoga video on youtube and I thought I heard this one teacher say “What the fuck.” I had to go back and double check, and yep, that is exactly what she said. I thought, “How fresh and unpretentious is that!” So I started learning from her and I bought one of her books.

I don’t use the word indiscriminately. I don’t say it around my grandkids or to just anyone who happens to knock on my door.

I use it when I need a certain pizazz that only the F-word can give.

Some people don’t care for a spice like that at all, They find it completely distasteful. F—fine. Let ’em eat sassafrass.

Then there are others who use so much of it that it loses its punch.

Like any good chef, there is a skill (or a talent) to using the F-word; There are a few rules I like to abide by.

I don’t like to hurt people with it unless I am extremely angry, and then I am not in my right mind anyway.

So I never say “Fuck you.”

Traffic situations do not count. If I am in a car and windows are rolled up then it’s ok to say “Stupid fucker, ” when someone does something really stupid,. But of course, I follow it up right away with wishing them peace because I don’t want to make any bad karma.

In fact, the car is a great place to let out a whole string of angry “Stupid motherfucking asshole fucking duck breath piss ant!” when I am totally upset at someone as long as I get it out of my system and immediately apologize to the air and say “No, I don’t mean that at all!. What I mean is, May you be at peace…” and so on.

Actually, that is the only rule I can think of: don’t hurt people. Otherwise, it is just a word. But it is a word.

Words have power.

Take the word, Love, for instance. Love has a vibe.

Hmmm. As I say it, love seems to hold a little more power.

Fuck it, I’m choosing LOVE.

 

In My Own Hoop (La La)

Many of us who participated in the Solstice Meditation Renewal Course by Ram Dass stayed and repeated it after the course ended. That is how much we loved it and that is how much we gained by supporting one another in our Facebook group. Tomorrow will be the third week (second time around) and the mantra for that week is GATE GATE PARA GATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA!

Gone, gone, to the farthest shore, I have awakened!

It is known as the Heart Sutra and it is chanted to help let go of attachments to anything that might be keeping us from our bliss or our enlightenment.

I know a lot of people in today’s meditation circles hesitate to say (out loud) that enlightenment is still a goal of meditation. It is more common these days to meditate for peace of mind, lower blood pressure, better concentration and all those health benefits that aren’t so far out there as enlightenment. But not me; I want the who shebang.

Meditation can induce experiences of bliss, spiritual vistas beyond anything we can imagine in ordinary consciousness. But that is not what I am after, either. I want to go beyond even that. I believe we have the potential to do (to be) enormously good for one another. We are the medicine for the heartsick; we cure with our compassion. So I meditate to be more capable of being at the right place, to do whatever is needed at that particular time. But even more than that, I meditate because, as Ram Dass says, “What else would I do?”

I am beginning to think that the beyond I seek is right here, inside my own hoop. So I chant Gate, Gate, and go deeper within, beyond, beyond, to the farthest shore. I’ll see you when I get there.