Tightropes

I am sure I turn to spiritual practices when I am particularly afraid, either of death too soon or of descents into oblivion (like those who find God at the bottom of a barrel - I always wondered what God was doing there, almost exclusively a bottom feeder, lazily waiting for us to fall in his laps). Once again I want to use this latest delving into meditation to rise from the pit and keep rising, not just rising to the plateau from which I fell. It has been a pattern in my life that I lose focus on what is good in focusing on what is frightening, maybe bad - though I can't say what is bad for sure. There is a block on my path to peace that I impose internally, a block on my ability to realize creative potential that I repeatedly erect through fear, through illness, through circumstance, when of course these blocks were (mostly) not there until I found them. I have another chance. I can climb again, I look for guidance to do so, I may find some, I look inside and am taken along with some increased belief, but also with increased fear, soon my tightrope is higher, the drop is further, yet the tightrope still only lays on the ground, never strung between the stars, nor even mountains; buildings; trees or simple low steps. I can climb again with love, with contentment and with acceptance. However far I go, it must, of course, be far enough.

I walk unsteadily, but I walk

I still have wanting, but I do not need as much; I do not want the same things – the shallow things are still there, but they are more balanced by spiritual things. I wander, unsteadily, down the middle way, knowing that I am unskilled and tethered to selfishness, but I wander on. The tether can be unmade, the skill can develop, peace can come and be shared.

Listen

I have always been very hard on my body, forcing it and controlling it, even through the exercises that are meant to release and relieve it – I have not been kind and haven't listened. My physical condition is an expression of where my thinking mind wanted it to be, not of what my body and knowing mind would have brought.

Now, fortunately, I am not too far away from this place that I may have come to with more kindness, more by accident than design, but if I am not mindful of my body telling me it is fed up with being controlled and demanded of I will most likely suffer reactions expressing my body's subjugation.

The body does not need sloth, nor continual exhaustion, but to be treated kindly and listened to, my knowing mind can provide expression and respect, my thinking mind can allow me to communicate with the world that exists outside of inner silence and to express with words and actions the knowledge of being.

Being less prosaic, I feel better when I am happy. We all feel better when we are happy.

Create without justification

I felt at some point that I was doing my work for acknowledgment, because I need acknowledgment. Yet that is not where the ideas spring from. They come from a place of discovery and curiosity, they develop by the desire to explore and allow – nowhere there is the thought of personal acknowledgement, which comes when I am in a place of justification. This is a poor place; it is in the moment of creation where I am rich, to live there is exciting, to rest afterward is contentment.

The Time Machines

It was simply a matter of recording enough information. Time travel has been with us internally, imperfectly, as long as memory, and with more and more clarity since writing, recording and interconnectedness. With enough information and a way to store it, time travel was just a matter of accessing the recordings. When Brin turned on Perception on January 1 2064, where all interconnected perception devices began to be recorded, with all newborn beings being chipped to access and stream, with all humans online, with the ring of satellites in place, the very next moment became the first moment time travel became possible for those with access to Perception - at first an elite, in time, through revolution, all. As some had predicted, and fought for, an expected consequence was universality, life was able to be lived through any given access point, anyone could be anyone else, or anything else that was perceiving, the planet united in experience, should it be desired to leave Now. Humans became just another way to experience existence and we were able to forget who we were.

And once the novelty wore off, the past became - as it always was - a burden, a huge drag on the Now, an infinite (well, as far in at the switching on) morass of scrutiny and blame. Someone had to pull the plug.

The Story of The Heat (poem)

The story of the heat is told by the breezes

That lap on your skin

And cool your diseases.