a most unusual meditation

I have become conscious that I manically multitask, sipping coffee, lighting cigarette, typing left handed. But meditation aint like that is it? Kinda sacred, requiring the exculsion of all else. Besides, I have always thought of it as just sitting (before it became walking and a few other things I won't cop to here). Hmmm.

A few weeks ago I fell in love with a little orchid from the Mekong Delta. They had been cleverly potted in snail shells, which was cool until you put them on a flat surface. So I made a mobile. Bamboo and raffia, feathers (of course) and a couple of large crystals which were not that happy with the light on my god-spot. It's been christened the "questionably cathartic potatoes on a string" by a smug and cynical friend. qcpoas (there's a fine san click in that like "!darrell". If you do not know that amusing story, drop me a line, I'd love to share it).

Yeah, yeah ... I know what you are thinking. He's making shit with refuse from the gods again ... up the lithium dose. Give me a break, at least it's not hanging from a fresh piercing. That's growth innit?

Anyhoo ... It didn't like the light (or the cigarette smoke) in the study either.

So it grew a little, courtesy of the Bluebird whole food market and my apparent inability to visit there without shedding a few k. And moved to a new spot above the bath. It's very happy there.

So long as I have run the bath well in advance and can't hear the geyser filling, I like to meditate in the bath. With my head under the water I can hear my heartbeat. Makes me feel like I have achieved a new level of mastery.

So, I have taken to doing my "torture pillow" exercise, in the bath, with ice packs on my knee (to get that over and done with and to increase the load ... (I wanna walk in Spain and Greece and I can do without crutches on a camel in Giza)

... and meditating.

This morning the damned geyser was doing it's thing and my heart and I were not connecting. I opened my eyes and got such a gift.

I like the view of qcpoas from below; but this morning it was awesome. Wreathed in the rising steam the orchids looked fat and warm, wet and happy. The feathers were beaded with moisture and the overhead light had pierced the top of the central crystal, punching scattered pinpricks of colour.

Sorry heartbeat, you'll have to wait your turn. I blissed out in that little landscape for half an hour.

It's going to be a very good day.

a hitch in the unfurl

Hmmm.

In taking my inventory it's my part that is important so before the ... to be continued there's this post, post script.

I've been here before. I create this.

I am handling this very differently but I still seem to create a victims role for myself. WTF is that about I wonder?

The sticky unfurling of tenuous wings ...

or

4:30 am and nothing better to do

So here we are. In a pretty pickle ... just the way I wanted it and wondering at the wisdom of that.

A friend from the land of oz suggested that this was a spiritual awakening, well yeah, isn't it all if the consciousness is engaged?

But I do get the drift, it's only when things are hard that I grow, when I realise that my view of the road is blocked by the close up I have of my own ass.

I give my head a shake and take a step to the side, out of my own way.

Reframe.

Hmmm ... there's a tawdry collection of mixed metaphorish nonsense.

Oh well.

So life got a little more interesting for Sheriff Woody yesterday, tight assed little goody two-shoes, hell bent on impressing the irrelevant. There I was; counting the days left in a job where all luster was lost. Covering my ass and going all co-dependent on my staff’s asses. (There are a lot of asses about this morning … wonder what the Freudian significance is there?)

Buzz Lightyear had blown into town a few weeks ago, explaining a lot of Machiavellian bullshit and abuse (allow me a little whine, or stop reading now ‘cos I guess I am feeling a tad sorry for myself, righteous and resolved of course, but self pitying nonetheless. There is bound to be more)

Where was I, oh yes, Buzz. Very smart and qualified and focused … not a very good fit in this burg. A BBBEE appointment to the position that I had been offered, and accepted. The appointment would have been entirely justified without assassinating Woody. A smart move really. Woody really should have had his wits about him. Sometimes Woody can be Mr Potato Head. Actually, sometimes Woody can be Rex … "I don't think I could take that kind of rejection!" even when the whole plan is to leave.

Being pushed this way is just not cool.

On the sensible advice of friends this, the larger portion of this blog, has been suspended in goodwill for the undeserving.

Watch this space.

I am starting to feel like this …

To be continued …

Oh, before I go. All this of course needs to be framed. Reframed.

This is a good thing. This frees me up to do what I want to do. It's not the way I would have chosen to exit. I have old fashioned ideas about honour and dignity. I am something of a pompous ass sometimes.

But it is undeniably good. Faster than I could have engineered. When did I ever complain about a little instant gratification?

Now if I can just get a little help with formatting this damned blog.

I’m a firestarter, twisted firestarter... starter... starter...
Starter...

Procrastination, priorities and motivation (to the cadence of wampeters foma and granfaloons)

A Wampeter is an object around which the lives of many otherwise unrelated people may revolve. Facebook or any social network might be a case in point.

"Foma" are harmless untruths, intended to comfort simple souls. “There’s light at the end of the tunnel”

A "granfalloon" is a proud and meaningless association of human beings.

Face book, I guess is an example

That’s a damned good title for Vonnegut Jnr’s book.

Quite why book titles would be running through my head as I wake and check the time, several times after 1am, is unclear. Why those thoughts should be shot through with restructured legal agreements and images of discussing a business plan with a uni professor is more obvious but no more reassuring.

I have work undone.

Procrastination, like masturbation, seems like a good idea at the time. But in the end, I am only fucking myself. So I roll out of bed into the cold at 3:30am. Fill and fire up the kettle en route to light incense in the study.

Coffee has become a meditation. Warming plunger and favourite cup, heating the milk just so, filtered water allowed to rest for 20 seconds before splashing over exotic crushed beans releases the scent and my synapses start to twitch. The first sip a judgement. Hmmm some nicotine. Now I am ready to face my keyboard.

And so I blog. Revised forecast, business plan and partnership agreements chitter softly in the background. Supporting one another in their judgment of this selfish indulgence. Screw em. If procrastination be the food of sloth, play on.

A friend lost his son last week, not being careless, the child died a few hours after birth. I was so moved by his response. He shared about the outpouring of love from friends and fellows. He was not unprepared for the loss and believed that the love he had for his firstborn son would somehow fill the gap. That did not happen and he was overwhelmed by the grief of the loss. In the depth of that feeling he found a message. The guy is a recovering smack addict. A no-hoper who has, by grace, been clean for ten years in the program which saved his life, and mine. He shared this: “Recovery has taught me how to be a man i never thought i could be. Because of the steps i am able to be strong for my partner when she needs me to be, to be there for my son when he needs me, to ask for help and receive love when i need it.”

… taught me to receive love when I need it. There’s a statement of self worth without arrogance. I like that.

I have been meaning to write that for a while. Procrastination has not been the problem. Priorities, the little suckers. I have been wrapped up in satisfying others needs for a while. That and keeping my lily white ass covered ‘cos I am not keen on the static if I do not maintain my diligence. I’m fifty years old and I still do not like getting into trouble. I will go to some really pussy level lengths to avoid it. Like 3:30 am starts to my day.

So this is my reward this morning. A little procrastinatory prose.

Gotta stop that goddamn chittering. I am ashamed that it is going to be the forecast which gets cut from the herd, the benefit of this prize, this motivational interlude. That is not the priority … it’s just the piece of work which will keep me out of trouble.

Sour milk

So ... why does milk sour?

Milk is good. Milk makes you grow big and strong. Bacteria also like to grow in milk but they are microscopic and don't grow big, they divide and multiply, like amoebae, and lava lamps. Strong though, bacteria that is, not amoeba, or lava lamps.

But I digress

I know that to grow, or rather, to divide and multiply, they need energy. Most of that they will get from the lactose in the milk (which is not quite as tasty as the sucrose that I enjoy, but bacteria can’t taste so they are not very discerning). They will use the lactose as an energy source and, in doing so will change it into lactic acid (which, of course) will make the milk taste sour. That’s not the point.

Grasshopper mind digresses even while digressing.

That’s not what I wanted to think about.

Rewind

My milk tastes sour, I throw it away and open another defrosted sachet (I don’t like frozen milk but that’s another story and not a very interesting one at that and I am trying to maintain some focus here). The new sachet is also tainted and, I suspect that the next sachet, defrosting in the fridge downstairs, is too.

There’s a niggle in the back of my mind about a superstition, just a little too far back to scratch. Something about … milk souring because you have spoken ill of someone or run over a black cat crossing your path under a ladder with a broken mirror or something.

This horrid situation at work smacks of sour milk … no that’s sour grapes isn’t it?

She has a face that would sour milk? No, that is not it …

Digress, digress.

Google hasn’t helped me.

I speak to elder daughter in the land of the long white clowned, she has wiccan wisdom but I am distracted (what a surprise) by my love of reaching out over the ether and hearing her voice, the whalesong of her man coaxing food into my chattering grand daughter.

So I failed to make use of that resource.

I am not comforted by my magpie mind’s suggestion that I be satisfied with the knowledge that many foods, which were valued when we were conscious enough to honour our sustenance, had superstitions associated with them to deter their waste and to teach children not to wander into the forest with a witchy looking woman unless they had a chicken bone and an Grimm brother handy.

My magpie mind, expert repository of inanity but steadfast in its refusal to hang onto today’s date or the fact that my tax return might please the receiver sometime soon, is smug and self satisfied (redundant and tautologous). If Google couldn’t find some wiccan wisdom to provide an “ah, of course ... how could I have forgotten” moment then how am I to satisfy you? Can only justify, scratch the mental tickle with the fact that that nugget of trivia is unimportant when bathed in the light of the magnificence of the senseless data resident in my current consciousness.

What the hell was it that I once heard about why milk sours?

To hell with this, I am off to buy fresh milk.