Wave If You Love Water
God....
Out of My Mind
Folding the Mind
It is relatively easy to go with the flow when one is flowing downstream, but how do you flow upstream? I mean, can a Slinky go up the stairs? I have one of those lives that seem to require a lot of flowing upstream. The result is that I am black and blue from bumping into things. I order products and throw the packaging away. You know the ones I mean, the ones that require every last bit of the original packaging if you hope to get your money back. You either have closets full of original packaging from 1975 or you have lots of stuff you hate but could never return. That is just one of my problems.
The ides of January loom ahead. Forget the Ides of March. The ones in January are sleety. That brings me to another one of my problems. My fat from the holidays is not only flowing upstream; it is settling around my waist. Although this is nothing new, I would prefer to be sleek, svelte and sophisticated. I have lumps of Nestle’s Jingle Bells candy around my waist. I have eaten every last bit of every last bite and now what in the heck can I cook in January. Chili, chili, chili. Brrrr.
Flowing upstream is made more ridiculous wearing big fuzzy slippers and a ratty old robe. Sleep escapes me in January. It has gone south for the winter and I lie in bed fantasizing about sleep. If I could dream, I would dream of going on a vacation where people like me are crowned Queen for a Day. I would be garlanded in monkey feathers and anointed with Oil of Olay.
Men, of course, never reveal how miserable they feel in January. They are too busy eating the chili we cook and trying to warm themselves by our backsides. If the feminine influence gets influenza, look outza! Everything they have will be flowing upstream and they will be asking you to take care of it. I’m not being cynical, just factual.
All kidding aside, Janu-weary is a kissing cousin to Febu-ugly. I long for March when not only my slippers but the month go out like a lamb.
Strong WeaknessesSomeone said that they liked my "strong weaknesses." I have never forgotten that phrase and have used it more than once. It aptly describes my ego. When I write, it is always from intuition and to my dismay, I am forever making fun of myself. "She who writes" is out to get me. I once said, "how come, if nobody likes me, everybody is out to get me?" It was a joke, albeit a feeble one, at my own expense.
But enough of that drivel. I need to unload on a few unwary readers. Just two or three of you will do. Tell me the truth--and do be honest--do you ever have days when it hits the fan and you hit back. That is how stupid I am. Just flailing away at the facts of my poor, miserable existence.
I wrote a piece about running into my vanity stool once and said it was a metapor. Last night, one of its legs broke and threw me to the ground, causing me to wet my pants. Mother Kali, honest to God, are you that mad at me? Is it going to be skulls and bones for dinner, because if it is, I am eating out!
I need a softer, gentler self-image--perhaps pearls at the neck instead of bones. But wait, I keep forgetting. I am a shaman....and once a shaman, always a shaman. I know that is what I am, for I have dreamt of being one. My suffering entitles me to conjure with the big boys and girls. But I am such a sissy shaman. I have done nothing about it but carry a certain secret knowing. Behold, I offer it to you. Have a free spell on me. I do Hershey Kisses conjuring...looking under the couch when I get really desperate.
I need to end this essay with a strong weakness, for that is what I called it to begin with. My biggest problem, my strongest weakness, is that I isolate me from me and therefore can find nothing but loneliness. It hurts so bad I can’t tell myself. If I could, I would. But I can’t so therefore I am telling you. If you are like I am, you will appreciate this honest clue. Look inside your heart. The emptiness will become full and you will wonder why you ever felt alone.
Hershey SatsangWhat is the well-dressed mind wearing these days? Does it wear Eckhart Tolle like a stole? Deepok like Reebok? I want my mind to go to a nude beach and wear its birthday suit. There it could recline on the sand and fan itself with the fronds from a nearby palm.
Most days I go around in bits and pieces. Part of me thinks and part of me feels. Even bigger parts fail to get up in the morning. What can I do about living such a divided existence but admit it?
There is a really dumb part of me that tries to administer chocolate to the system. It believes in the sugar solution to almost anything that life dishes out. It is particularly fond of “good deals at the drugstore.” I hurriedly clutch a fifty-five cents off coupon for a bag of Holiday M & M peanuts. I have paired it with a one dollar off coupon from CVS and so I cop a bag for a mere forty-five cents. What the hips don’t know won’t hurt them.
Since I am on the spiritual path and give myself over to it for much of the day, why am I so easily conned into buying candy? It goes hand-in-hand with the idea that I can make myself happy. I have never been able to do that, but try to convince the part of me that loves chocolate. To her, bliss is a Kiss. Ammachi, the saint from India, doles out Hershey Kisses to her devotees that come to her for darshan. That makes me love her even more. It is not enough that she hugs and heals us all; she throws in a sweet to boot. I don’t think God will mind.
The disjointed parts of my persona sometimes meet in the hallway of my central self and it gets dazed and confused. “Hi, Vicki, want a Hershey Kiss?” Self Number Two replies sleepily...”I just got up.” Self Number Three, the anal-retentive one, wants me to get back to a more nutritious eating plan. What does she know?
You are wondering how I am going to square up kissticism and mysticism. It’s not hard when you are as mixed up as I am. Think of me as a box of bridge mix and that will help you see how deeply confused I am. I am one part nuts and three parts sweet (an optimistic ratio, I admit).
Some of you reading this are saying, “Tsk, tsk, she needs to go cold turkey on her chocolate-eating compulsions.” That happens next week, when I will eat a cold turkey sandwich, followed by Kisses and pumpkin pie, etc. And I will be having darshan with a chocolate santa before you can say Reese’s Pieces.
Nothingness is what the well-dressed mind should be wearing. No Vera Wang, no Tommy Hilfiger, just nothing, bare beingness. You shouldn't even need to wear a sunscreen or an aluminum hat like in the movie "Signs." No, you gotta have faith in stark reality.
I want my mind to kick off its shoes. No Manolo Blahniks for these tootsies. No Dr. Scholl's for the soul. Nope. I don't need any mental Frederick's of Hollywood either. Twoness is not what it's about, girls. Actually, tell that one to the men.
You gotta have heart to go nude in your own mind. No belief system covering up your private parts. No girdle smothering your innermost thoughts and feelings. Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts. And the fact is, the mind is as unreal as its clothes. Now don't go telling that to your shrink. That would put him out of business. Keep it to yourself.
There is only one problem with the mind's nudity. When it returns to the garden (and I don't mean Madison), it will have to meet the snake. I have been told that the snake is a rope, though this has not been scientifically proven. So when you meet the snake, don't take a bite of the apple and you'll be fine. And if you do, grab a fig leaf and hold on. But that's another story
I am thinking of marketing a new product, called Enlightenment-In-A Can. Wherever you have a bald spot in your consciousness, you just reach in and spray this product on. Once it is on, it stays on for eight hours. During this period, you can appear on talk shows telling people the secret of life. Yes, you can tell Oprah’s audience how it is.
You can sign tee shirts at bookstores everywhere, claiming that your book is in the galley stages. You can pass out mantras by the bucketload. But at the end of the eight-hour period, you will turn back into an unenlightened one. You must drive the freeway without divine guidance, take out the trash and balance the checkbook all by yourself. Real life returns. (This insures a return trip to the can.)
I will also have focus groups for this spray-on enlightenment. They should be able to tell me what the median age is for the product.....I am thinking forty-ish or fifty-ish....Visa Card-ish. You know the type. They favor shorts and sandals and carefully sculpted bodies.
I will remind them that their enlightenment will wear off in eight hours unless they get another fix. Making tapes of how to spray the product on seems mandatory. We love instructional materials, don’t we? I will show them that by slowly rotating the can, they can cover every square inch of consciousness. They will have an inner astroturf of truth....guaranteed.
This could be a heady business. If you are interested, there will probably be a franchising opportunity. Let’s work together on this. With your money and my enlightenment, say it with me...."Together We Can."
Folding the Mind
Fold your mind up and put it in your pocket. You may have to use a number of creases to get the job done efficiently. Just work with it and see how easily the mind can be moved from one place to another. I usually fold mine four times, but I tend to be obsessive about such things.
Got it? Once your mind is in your pocket, you are free to make another observation. Your mind doesn’t care where it is located; it can still get to you. It can still see that you are having a bad hair day and it will tell you from your pocket.
Oh, it’s no good moving it to another place. I have tried that. I have put mine in the freezer just to shut it up. It spoke to me in frosty terms, saying that I needed to lose three pounds, all in my waist.
I am open to hearing your ideas about places to put your mind. If you have ever had your mind in the gutter, you are probably aware that isn’t a good place for it to be. It comes into contact with sewage and rubbish. Yuck.
Once I put my mind on hold, just like “thought-waiting.” It managed to back things up until I couldn’t decipher a word that it was saying, so I had to feel things instead. Big mistake. Have you ever felt a thought of being unloved? It isn’t pleasant at all.
I have tried starving my mind, but anorexia of the mind is utterly deadening. It grows thinner than thin and taunts you with the knowledge that it can die, but not in a good way.
There is only thing to do with the mind and I am right on the brink of telling you....but you already know. It has something to do with fashion...think “see-through.” I wear mine with comfortable slacks and a pair of sneakers.
Some people think that the things I write are silly. That is because I keep my mind in the funny papers as much as I can. Sometimes I even put it on the TV so it can look at me and I can look at it. Better than cable and much cheaper.
This essay was written from my back pocket and was constructed entirely of lead-free ideas and can be recycled, deconstructed and eaten for breakfast as it contains six grams of fiber.
Out of My Mind
I took my mind out of my head and unrolled it on the kitchen table. It just fit. I had been having lots of buzzing, droning thoughts and wanted to take a good look at them. First I stood up and looked and then I sat down. I could see nothing going on in there. All I saw was a pure little mind, as innocent as the driven snow. (I love a good cliche, don’t you?)
So, confident that I was imagining these pesky little thoughts, I carefully rolled the mind back up and skillfully put it back into my right ear. (I take it out on the left side and replace it on the right. (I tend to be compulsive.)
I put the teakettle on and got a cup down from the rack. Should I have tea or coffee (The mind wanted to know what the body was going to have. By this question, I knew that the buzzing was starting up again.) I told it I would have coffee and a couple of cookies. (I also knew, by answering myself, that the mind had reinstated its bifurcation as if by magic.)
The two-way dialogue was off to the races. I knew that soon I would disappear into the buzz and the emotional brouhahas that would soon begin. I would drink my coffee without tasting it and eat cookies in the same way. So discouraging. (The inner critic had arrived. It looked a little like Roger Ebert. Was it hungry? Maybe that’s how I was gaining all of this weight...by feeding the multitudes, and not in a good way.)
With a total sigh, I resolved to take the mind out and examine it again. This time there were crumbs on the table and the mind recoiled as it touched bits of cookie. It was such a purist.
Nope, there was nothing on the surface of the mind. It was a clear pond reflecting my body as clearly as a mirror. I smiled at its ability to do that. What a mind I had....so trusting that it mirrored anything it saw. I bowed to the purity of it and my reflection in it. As I rolled it back up and put it back through the right ear, I hoped things would go differently now.
They didn’t. I could go on, good reporter that I am, to describe how often I do this. Once I went to a shrink and told him how many times a day I was taking my mind out to examine it. He said he knew I was out of my head. He tried to give me medication but I refused. When the bill came, it was exorbitant and at the bottom he had written a personal note: Patient is just like every other nutcase I have ever treated. And what I told her seemed to go in one ear and out the other. Exactly!
God....
God is so real He’s in the room with me. When I cook, He comes in to watch. As I eat, he looks on. Oatmeal, to God, is interesting. I like that about Him. He is even interested in what I think about. In the morning my thoughts are about Him and He loves that. After breakfast, I sit in my chair in the kitchen and meditate. That time is His and He gets real close to me and snuggles up. I feel His Breath as my own.
By lunchtime I have usually forgotten Him. That is because He doesn’t require much attention. He is content to hang out with me, as if He doesn’t have better things to do. I hear that He hangs out with you, too, which makes me a little jealous. This is not very Biblical, but I hear He digs krumping and reruns of I Love Lucy...I mean, who wouldn’t?
Actually we humans are comic relief for Him as well as His Beloveds. He spends days and nights in ICU’s of every description- and get this- He even makes house calls. I know He hangs out with harlots and concubines, but He loves ordinary people like me as well. That is because I tell Him what’s on my mind. I want to know Him better, but He isn’t on Facebook or stuff. Some say His Face is on a shroud, but that has never been proven. To that, I say, so what. The best things in life cannot be proven. I am sure you don’t believe a word of this essay, for example. And you shouldn’t.
God knows what we need before we need it. That blows my mind. Sometimes we need to take on something new, so He sends us challenges. Some of them are horrific and others are small. I have experienced both and it is never good to reason with Him. He knows best.
He is the realest when I forget He is near. Sometimes I feel Him breathing down my neck when I am out walking. He wants me to share my delight with Him, to stop and thank Him for making grass grow greener in the spring. It has nothing to do with fertilizer...at least I don’t think it does. One time I tried to kiss God but I couldn’t see His Face. Now I am looking for His Face and seeing it everywhere. Sometimes He has a runny nose.
Wave If You Love Water
Spirituality
is like endless billboards
in the desert
announcing a desert
up ahead
without billboards
-Jerry Katz
Jerry’s little gem led me to wonder why the sea doesn’t label its waves. Or why it doesn’t get a computer and take a screen shot of itself. Okay, so we humans are stuck with tasks like that. Doesn’t make us entirely creative, does it. Makes us repetitive and as clingy as Saran.
If the sea doesn’t bother to label its waves, why are we so concerned with the family tree. It should be a banana tree, by the way, because we are all bananas. And not top ones.
Why doesn’t the wind name its own hurricanes? Is the wind so lazy it can’t make time for that....does it have to leave it to NOAA. Who knew the wind was so indifferent. We humans are precise, yet we are as unpredictable as the wind’s storms. We have our own; they are called moods.
I have gotten far from the diatribe at hand. Why doesn’t the sea label its waves. It must know something humans never learned. That things happen....that water makes waves that don’t always wave hello.
If we are akin to waves on the ocean, can we just experience life as water and not bother to create meaningful lives as waves. The great ones tell us we can. They tell us we can lean back and let life catch us....or not.
Schools of fish are just as smart as Harvard grads, just in a different way. They don’t wear scales with designer labels or have drunken reunions to celebrate where they cerebrated. When they flip people off, they don’t even think about it. It comes naturally.
If I were a wave on the ocean, I would just drink it all in. An ocean is its own wet bar, after all. I wouldn’t bother to pin a nametag on myself. Hi, I’m Wave One Billion and Six. But then again, what do I know. I’m only human.
Vicki Woodyard Waving Hello
©Vicki Woodyard 2009 All rights reserved
