30.12.13

ramblins from zone 00

you know that feeling when you fully believe you've misplaced something essential.
Just a bit panicky.
Just a bit.

But you calm yourself down.
You remember your breath.  

You recall with faith the beauty of letting go.

then, once you've come to terms with your plot in this world, you realize that the reason you couldn't find that one essential something is because you put it back last time you used it.

it's been right here all along.
right where it belongs.
you just couldn't see it.

                it's that profoundly human, paradoxical feeling:
the one that pats us on the back 
while simultaneously smacking us in the forehead.



this wasn't intended to become a journal of my mental health, but hell's bells, here goes nothin:

this year the holidays hit pretty hard.... while i didn't grow up celebrating christmas or hanukkah or the birth of mithras or kwanzaa or winter short-day or nimrod's rebirth or whatever, i've grown attached to the custom of gathering with family and loved-ones: reconnecting, sharing space, breaking bread, fartin' around in lampin' pants...the whole shebang.  

(please don't misunderstand: i had an awesome chrimmus with my folks)

i spent a lot of time in my head this week though; it gets a tad rollercoaster-y in there these days.

but you gotta shake the shit out of a soil sample to see what it's made of. 
and it takes time for that clay to settle, mmm-hmmm. 

claro it's clarity i'm looking for (and hopefully the level of clarity increases with the amount of jostling involved).  so what's a human to do? prompted by my good friend John, Combat Jester extraordinaire, i've been mulling over what a list of my true priorities would look like... thinking about what helps me feel healthy happy 'n' whole & which environments are most conducive to facilitating my personal well-being.

my list starts with starlight.

and trees.

then there needs to be creative space. a home-base.
a workshop.

an experiment in creative living.

preferably with a warm bath, and a porch...

and a garden & a library.

though by nature i'm somewhat private and highly value quiet time & personal space, community also made it onto the list.

In Small is Beatiful, ol' Fritz talked about the value of right livelihood: the sense of satisfaction we get when we feel engaged in meaningful work...

which for me means a lot.

it means not just growing food, but active engagement in local food production & trying to understand the root cause of "world hunger," namely inequitable distribution.
it means not just making enough cash to scrape by in the current economic paradigm, but exploring alternative economic systems with friends, family & neighbors while simultaneously learning to navigate the murky waters of the commodity economy.

it means working with my hands,

building dwellings&soil,

smelling like sawdust&manure,

finding a need & filling it...
niche-ing out with fellow humans.

i'm not sure if my list is complete, but that's what i got so far.

starlight

trees

creative space

community

right livelihood



and i return to a question i seem to be asking myself a lot these days: what's a human to do?
    first i think i need to accept that my reluctance to commit to a place stems from the hard lesson that nothing lasts forever, and a fear of the pain involved in endings. in my heart of hearts i recognize it as a natural backlash resulting from basically failing at the one thing in this world i tried to fully commit to...the crumbling of the only lifelong decision i've ever made.  but my heart of hearts isn't always as involved in my daily decision-making as i'd like it to be.
   i think the trick, for me, is to accept my reluctance/fears, but not allow them to govern how i interact with this world... to allow myself to engage fully, without reservation, regardless of the ultimate outcome - to not hope to find my place once my head 'n' heart are right again, but to work towards making my place...with faith that making provides the necessary conditions for the healing i long for.
so what's a human to do? 

good question.
i only know that i don't know, but i have some ideas. 

so for now i'm on the road again...  
but maybe not for too much longer.

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