Gods are those parts of existence that are bigger than we can understand as individuals. They are like mountains. We can see them in their wholeness only at a great distance. From the other side of the valley we can look across to the far horizon and see the triangle shape of the mountain. We can point and say, "Mountain," or "Amaterasu," or "Desire."
But to come into any relationship with the mountain, we must move in close, come into direct contact with the mountain, with the god. As we move closer to the mountain, the god looms and then disappears, breaks apart into meadows and lakes and forests and the innumerable details of its actual existence. We may identify the god in its entirety only at a great distance; we can only know the god a piece at a time. We must walk in this meadow, aware of these flowers and that ground squirrel and remembering the ridges and peaks and other places, as we smell the heather around us.
G*d (whatever that is) is whatever the sum of everything plus the knowledge of that sum and the ability to comprehend both the sum of the parts and the whole. It may or may not be what we were expecting. G*d (whatever that is) is represented in our minds by figures of old men, or women with a thousand arms, or a giant winged snake with the head of a dog that shoots lightening out of its eyes. (It could happen.) We may see g*d (whatever that is) as a force we call compassion or creativity. But whatever we point to when we say g*d is just a mountain at a distance. We cannot predict what the old man is going to look like up close. She may look much younger in places. We cannot yet know what g*d is until we walk through her meadows and breathe his air. And we can’t begin to do that until we are willing to let go of our nice perfect view of the mountain.
Showing posts with label desire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label desire. Show all posts
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Food Meditation 1: Fresh Fruit
Find some really fresh fruit, something you love, maybe berries or watermelon or an apple. Find a fruit that just thinking about that fruit makes you a bit happier. Find the freshest one you can. If you can find a tree or a bush that is okay for this, pick the fruit yourself. Or go to a farmer’s market and get something picked that morning. Or it can be the day before; really you just want fruit that hasn’t sat around forever.
Have the fruit ready to eat the way you want to eat it. I once demanded to eat my banana "like a monkey" when my grandmother tried to slice it up and put it on a plate. But if you picked watermelon, you will probably want to slice it up. And make sure pets can’t get to it (I knew a dog once who loved grapes.) When you've got your fruit ready, go to a place where you can relax comfortably for a while without being disturbed, someplace peaceful. Hammocks are good, but it can be a yoga mat or lazyboy chair, whatever.
Get into a meditative space, breathe deeply, ground, do whatever brings you into awareness of your body. And just get a felt sense of your body. You don’t have to put names to whatever you’re feeling, but if words come, note them and let them go.
When you are ready, eat the fruit. Notice the taste, the texture. Feel yourself chew and swallow. Enjoy every moment.
When you are done, take a moment to notice how your body feels now. Allow all parts of your consciousness to notice the difference. Again, you don’t have to put words to anything, but if they come, notice the words and let them go. For the next while, however long that may be, just lie there and pay attention to your felt sense of your body.
You can fall asleep if you want, especially if you are in a hammock and the afternoon sun is filtering through the tree leaves. If you aren’t in a hammock, feel free to imagine that you are.
Have the fruit ready to eat the way you want to eat it. I once demanded to eat my banana "like a monkey" when my grandmother tried to slice it up and put it on a plate. But if you picked watermelon, you will probably want to slice it up. And make sure pets can’t get to it (I knew a dog once who loved grapes.) When you've got your fruit ready, go to a place where you can relax comfortably for a while without being disturbed, someplace peaceful. Hammocks are good, but it can be a yoga mat or lazyboy chair, whatever.
Get into a meditative space, breathe deeply, ground, do whatever brings you into awareness of your body. And just get a felt sense of your body. You don’t have to put names to whatever you’re feeling, but if words come, note them and let them go.
When you are ready, eat the fruit. Notice the taste, the texture. Feel yourself chew and swallow. Enjoy every moment.
When you are done, take a moment to notice how your body feels now. Allow all parts of your consciousness to notice the difference. Again, you don’t have to put words to anything, but if they come, notice the words and let them go. For the next while, however long that may be, just lie there and pay attention to your felt sense of your body.
You can fall asleep if you want, especially if you are in a hammock and the afternoon sun is filtering through the tree leaves. If you aren’t in a hammock, feel free to imagine that you are.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Keep Walking
Start with the darkness. You’re going to be there anyway so you won’t have to pack much. Just look to your left and see the open sea at night from the cliff height. The waves sparkling like black sugar. And breathe.
When you have satisfied your sweet tooth and tire of jumping to your death, you must do the impossible. Take one step to your right. Now walk forever.
Keep walking.
When you feel like stopping, keep walking. You will hate the walking. That won’t change anything. You can hate the walking so much your heart breaks, so much you would throw your mother in front of a bus, so much you would give the job to a small child who doesn’t know what she will become at such a tender age.
Keep walking.
There will come a point when you know you can’t keep walking. At that moment, when you want nothing more than to set your burden down, you must - and this is very important - keep walking. This is a good time to start begging. Begging the universe for a rest area won’t change anything, but it’s something you can do while you walk.
You will always be walking. You will tread over every kind of land. You will not pay enough attention to find your way back. You may not even remember all the places you have been or even care. The walking just means you are alive. It is not something to pay attention to. If you spend your attention on how much walking sucks, you will never do anything else but walk and hate walking.
Keep walking.
When we begin to allow pain to just be, we begin to live. Accept that pain is simply a part of being alive and let it go. It doesn’t make the walking any more bearable to blame your shoes, or the sky, or the people walking next to you.
One day she woke to find birds flying overhead. She decided to see where they were going. She might as well, she thought. She was already walking.
-
When you have satisfied your sweet tooth and tire of jumping to your death, you must do the impossible. Take one step to your right. Now walk forever.
Keep walking.
When you feel like stopping, keep walking. You will hate the walking. That won’t change anything. You can hate the walking so much your heart breaks, so much you would throw your mother in front of a bus, so much you would give the job to a small child who doesn’t know what she will become at such a tender age.
Keep walking.
There will come a point when you know you can’t keep walking. At that moment, when you want nothing more than to set your burden down, you must - and this is very important - keep walking. This is a good time to start begging. Begging the universe for a rest area won’t change anything, but it’s something you can do while you walk.
You will always be walking. You will tread over every kind of land. You will not pay enough attention to find your way back. You may not even remember all the places you have been or even care. The walking just means you are alive. It is not something to pay attention to. If you spend your attention on how much walking sucks, you will never do anything else but walk and hate walking.
Keep walking.
When we begin to allow pain to just be, we begin to live. Accept that pain is simply a part of being alive and let it go. It doesn’t make the walking any more bearable to blame your shoes, or the sky, or the people walking next to you.
-
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Real Alchemy
This is for you, this is just for you.
I'm getting too heady and theoretical. I need to bring this whole subject back into the real world. So I'm going to focus for a moment on something that may seem at first to have little to do with whatever you've read before about Alchemy. But this has everything to do with Alchemy. It's Alchemy taken out of the laboratory and done right here and now, every minute.
Depression is unlike anything else. It is its own thing. And we don't have much in the way of language to talk about depression. This makes depression even more isolating. It's impossible to tell someone your experience when they've only ever been sad. So to understand what depression can be like, we have to liken it to other things.
Depression is, in some ways, like diabetes. If a diabetic's blood sugar gets too low, all sorts of bad things, including death, can happen. Diabetics have to learn how to avoid doing things that will bring their blood sugar down too low. They have to eat well, test their blood levels regularly, measure their insulin accurately, and understand what might make their blood sugar levels irregular (like coming down with a cold or being under a lot of stress at work.)
People who are prone to depression–either those who are in a major depression or those, like me, who deal with the continual state of dysthymia–will find that lots of outside things will bring on depressed symptoms. Eating the wrong food, seeing the wrong movie, failing, succeeding, falling in love, getting in an argument, can bring on depression just like too much insulin can bring on low blood sugar.
Depression, like a diabetic low blood sugar, can be fatal. Depression is a delusional state (whether it's any more delusional than happiness is another matter.) When our sense of well-being drops too low, we become delusional and capable of really hurting, even killing ourselves. Just like a diabetic with low blood sugar may struggle against eating, a depressed person will struggle against whatever might help them out of that state. It's really, really important to remember this when you're severely depressed. Just like a diabetic must just eat something, a depressed person must just do what they've learned will help.
Eat blueberries. Get some exercise. Look at uplifting images. Listen to happy music. Make these responses to depression a medical treatment; think of these activities as tools. They are not the end in themselves. They are the way. Doing them will physically change how your brain is working. You can calm your amygdala and invigorate your basal ganglia by doing certain simple things.
You will have different things that lift your well-being. When you are less depressed, look for these things. Collect them. When you get depressed, do these things, even if you feel they can't possibly work this time. (That feeling is part of the delusion. Simply deciding to do something and following though will be enough to get some wiggle room.)
Like a diabetic must learn what drops their blood sugars, you must learn what drops your well-being. Well-being is a feeling of aliveness, of optimism. It is the sense that we can plan for a future we desire and take steps that move us toward that future. We experience ourselves as beings who can affect change in our lives and in the world. We sense our deep connection to other living things.
When we are not feeling this, something is dropping our well-being. It's okay to arrange your life to include enough good stuff to keep your well-being up. It's okay to exclude those things that drop your well-being. It's more than okay. It's what you need to do to live.
love,
Yvonne
I'm getting too heady and theoretical. I need to bring this whole subject back into the real world. So I'm going to focus for a moment on something that may seem at first to have little to do with whatever you've read before about Alchemy. But this has everything to do with Alchemy. It's Alchemy taken out of the laboratory and done right here and now, every minute.
Depression is unlike anything else. It is its own thing. And we don't have much in the way of language to talk about depression. This makes depression even more isolating. It's impossible to tell someone your experience when they've only ever been sad. So to understand what depression can be like, we have to liken it to other things.
Depression is, in some ways, like diabetes. If a diabetic's blood sugar gets too low, all sorts of bad things, including death, can happen. Diabetics have to learn how to avoid doing things that will bring their blood sugar down too low. They have to eat well, test their blood levels regularly, measure their insulin accurately, and understand what might make their blood sugar levels irregular (like coming down with a cold or being under a lot of stress at work.)
People who are prone to depression–either those who are in a major depression or those, like me, who deal with the continual state of dysthymia–will find that lots of outside things will bring on depressed symptoms. Eating the wrong food, seeing the wrong movie, failing, succeeding, falling in love, getting in an argument, can bring on depression just like too much insulin can bring on low blood sugar.
Depression, like a diabetic low blood sugar, can be fatal. Depression is a delusional state (whether it's any more delusional than happiness is another matter.) When our sense of well-being drops too low, we become delusional and capable of really hurting, even killing ourselves. Just like a diabetic with low blood sugar may struggle against eating, a depressed person will struggle against whatever might help them out of that state. It's really, really important to remember this when you're severely depressed. Just like a diabetic must just eat something, a depressed person must just do what they've learned will help.
Eat blueberries. Get some exercise. Look at uplifting images. Listen to happy music. Make these responses to depression a medical treatment; think of these activities as tools. They are not the end in themselves. They are the way. Doing them will physically change how your brain is working. You can calm your amygdala and invigorate your basal ganglia by doing certain simple things.
You will have different things that lift your well-being. When you are less depressed, look for these things. Collect them. When you get depressed, do these things, even if you feel they can't possibly work this time. (That feeling is part of the delusion. Simply deciding to do something and following though will be enough to get some wiggle room.)
Like a diabetic must learn what drops their blood sugars, you must learn what drops your well-being. Well-being is a feeling of aliveness, of optimism. It is the sense that we can plan for a future we desire and take steps that move us toward that future. We experience ourselves as beings who can affect change in our lives and in the world. We sense our deep connection to other living things.
When we are not feeling this, something is dropping our well-being. It's okay to arrange your life to include enough good stuff to keep your well-being up. It's okay to exclude those things that drop your well-being. It's more than okay. It's what you need to do to live.
love,
Yvonne
